BTC: Bitcoin Network Power Demand (Model)
Shown as its 2019–2022 sample; the latest readings and full history are included with Plus.
The electrical power the Bitcoin network draws, in gigawatts, modelled as a best guess with a lower and an upper bound.
Why use it. Power is the real resource behind Bitcoin's security, what an attacker would have to match, and the figure debates about mining's energy use turn on. How to read it. The best guess is the most likely figure, and the true value should sit between the bounds. It rises with hash rate and falls as efficient machines replace old ones, so it grows far more slowly than hash rate.
Calculation. Power = hash rate (TH/s) × efficiency (J/TH) × PUE ÷ 10^9. Lower bound: the most efficient machine available, PUE 1.03; best guess: the profitable machines' average efficiency, PUE 1.10; upper bound: the least efficient profitable machine, PUE 1.20. Each day uses the seven UTC days ending with it, to smooth block luck: hash rate is those blocks' work (difficulty × 2^32 each) over the window's seconds, and revenue per unit of hash rate is their claimed coinbase BTC (subsidy plus fees) over that work, at the day's BTC/USD close. A machine counts from the middle of the quarter its first units shipped, for four years (machines are written off over three to five years). It is profitable when its revenue covers its electricity at $0.05/kWh with a power usage effectiveness (PUE, the site's overhead for cooling and power conversion) of 1.10. The best guess is the plain average efficiency (J/TH) of the profitable machines, each model counted once; the lower bound puts all hash rate on the most efficient machine available, the upper bound on the least efficient profitable one; with no profitable machine all three use the most efficient. The model starts on 1 January 2014, when ASICs had replaced GPU and FPGA mining. It knows no real fleet: it assumes miners run machines that pay for their power and that every model is equally common, so cheap or free power, machines not yet installed, curtailment and each miner's real tariff move the true figure; the bounds show a reasonable range. It is an estimate, not a measurement. A model computed by CryptoKeyhole from its own Bitcoin node (each block's difficulty, claimed coinbase value, height and header time), the site's admitted BTC/USD daily closes, and a list of the main Bitcoin mining machines of Bitmain, MicroBT, Canaan, Bitdeer and Innosilicon from the first ASICs of 2013 to today, each with its manufacturer's nominal rating (TH/s and watts) and the quarter its first units shipped (the list: /api/v1/mining/hardware). Days are UTC days by block header time; the open day is partial. BTC/USD prices are the site's admitted boundary prices: daily closes from The Bitcoin Time Machine (CC BY 4.0) until 2 October 2026, then quotes recorded from Alternative.me at each boundary (within 15 minutes, never carried forward). Hourly values start on 3 October 2026, when hourly quotes begin.