Electricity Consumption of Ethereum and Filecoin: Advances in Models and Estimates

Elitsa Pankovska, Ashish Rajendra Sai, Harald Vranken, Alan Ransil

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference Article in proceedingAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

The high electricity consumption of cryptocurrencies that rely on proof-of-work (PoW) consensus algorithms has raised serious environmental concerns due to its association with carbon emissions and strain on energy grids. There has been significant research into estimating the electricity consumption of PoW-based cryptocurrencies and developing alternatives to PoW.In this article, we introduce refined models to estimate the electricity consumption of two prominent alternatives: Ethereum, now utilizing proof-of-stake (PoS), and Filecoin, which employs proof-of-spacetime (PoSt). Ethereum stands as a leading blockchain platform for crafting decentralized applications, whereas Filecoin is recognized as the world's foremost decentralized data storage network.Prior studies for modeling electricity consumption have been criticized for methodological flaws and shortcomings, low-quality data, and unvalidated assumptions. We improve on this in several ways: we obtain more novel, validated data from the systems in question, extract information from existing data and research, and we improve transparency and reproducibility by clearly explaining and documenting the used methodology and explicitly stating unavoidable limitations and assumptions made. When comparing the current, most prominent models for Ethereum and Filecoin to our refined models, we find that given the wide error margins of both the refined models and the ones introduced in prior literature, the resulting average estimates are to a large extent in line with each other.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationSAC '24
Subtitle of host publicationProceedings of the 39th ACM/SIGAPP Symposium on Applied Computing
PublisherACM Digital Library
Pages269-277
Number of pages9
ISBN (Print)979-8-4007-0243-3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 8 Apr 2024
Event39th Annual ACM Symposium on Applied Computing, SAC 2024 - Avila, Spain
Duration: 8 Apr 202412 Apr 2024
https://www.sigapp.org/sac/sac2024/

Publication series

SeriesProceedings of the ACM Symposium on Applied Computing

Symposium

Symposium39th Annual ACM Symposium on Applied Computing, SAC 2024
Abbreviated titleSAC 2024
Country/TerritorySpain
CityAvila
Period8/04/2412/04/24
Internet address

Keywords

  • cryptocurrencies
  • electricity consumption
  • energy modeling

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