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

TL;DR

This paper presents improved models for estimating the electricity consumption of Ethereum and Filecoin, addressing previous methodological flaws and providing more validated data and transparent methodology.

Contribution

The authors develop refined, validated models for Ethereum and Filecoin's electricity use, enhancing accuracy and transparency over prior estimates.

Findings

Refined models produce estimates consistent with previous models within error margins.

Improved data validation enhances the reliability of electricity consumption estimates.

Transparency and reproducibility are increased through detailed methodology documentation.

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.