The cost of Bitcoin mining has never really increased

The Bitcoin network is burning a large amount of energy for mining. In this paper we estimate the lower bound for the global energy cost for a period of ten years from 2010, taking into account changing oil costs, improvements in hashing technologies and hashing activity. Despite a ten-billion-fold increase in hashing activity and a ten-million-fold increase in total energy consumption, we find the cost relative to the volume of transactions has not increased nor decreased since 2010. This is consistent with the perspective that, in order to keep a the Blockchain system secure from double spending attacks, the proof or work must cost a sizable fraction of the value that can be transferred through the network. We estimate that in the Bitcoin network this fraction is of the order of 1%.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figure

What are the main drivers of the Bitcoin price? Evidence from wavelet coherence analysis

Bitcoin has emerged as a fascinating phenomenon of the financial markets. Without any central authority issuing the currency, it has been associated with controversy ever since its popularity and public interest reached high levels. Here, we contribute to the discussion by examining potential drivers of Bitcoin prices ranging from fundamental to speculative and technical sources as well as a potential influence of the Chinese market. The evolution of the relationships is examined in both time and frequency domains utilizing the continuous wavelets framework so that we comment on development of the interconnections in time but we can also distinguish between short-term and long-term connections.Comment: 19 pages, 5 figure

Blockchain Technology: An Analysis of Potential Applications and Uses

This paper will focus on explaining what blockchain technology is, the fundamentals of how it works, and applications of it. By utilizing sophisticated cryptography, a distributed network, a specified order of events the technology is able to create a ledger that cannot be altered due to its existence on many computers that able to detect if the data has been changed or tampered with. To help illustrate the uses of blockchain technology the technical explanation is complemented with real and hypothetical ways that the technology it being used. The use of blockchain technology originated with financial application and has expanded to many industries as new and creative ideas come to fruition