Ethereum’s energy expenditure is very low, but this has not always been the case. Ethereum originally used proof-of-work which had a much greater environmental cost than the current proof-of-stake mechanism.
Why does Ethereum use so much power?
Proof of work required crypto miners to solve computational puzzles, an extremely energy-intensive process, in order to validate new blocks on the chain and earn new tokens in return. Now, Ethereum uses a new mechanism called proof of stake that gets rid of puzzles and mining.
How much electricity does it take to mine eth?
Mining profitability can change very quickly. A ETH mining difficulty of 1.00, a ETH mining hashrate of 6,000.00 MH/s consuming 4,500 watts of power at $0.10 per kWh, and a block reward of 2.00 ETH at $1,283.25 (ETH to USD).
