The false dilemma of energy consumption Critics always frame the debate with bias: Bitcoin is judged in isolation, as if the rest of the financial and political system ran on air. According to the Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index (2025), the network consumes around 186 TWh annually, while the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index places it at roughly 170–175 TWh. More conservative estimates, such as Coingeek, put it closer to 150 TWh. By contrast, the global banking system consumes about 259–260 TWh per year, according to recent estimates by CoinLaw and Payless Power. In other words, Bitcoin represents between 65% and 70% of the banking system’s energy use—yet provides a decentralized, censorship-resistant system in return. The military, the ultimate guarantor of fiat, consumes unquantifiable amounts of oil and electricity. The Pentagon alone is one of the largest single energy consumers in the world, burning more than entire mid-sized countries. Entertainment is never questioned: online gaming and streaming services like Netflix and YouTube consume more electricity than Bitcoin, without providing even a shred of financial freedom. The taboo isn’t the watts Bitcoin uses—it’s the hypocrisy of a world that ignores massive fiat waste while pointing fingers at the only real alternative.

Energy as a guarantee of freedom The right question isn’t “How much energy does Bitcoin consume?” but rather “What do we get in return for that energy?” Fiat requires obedience: your money has value because the state, the central bank, and coercive laws impose it. Bitcoin, on the other hand, requires energy: every watt consumed is security, censorship resistance, and protection against confiscation. Put another way: What you don’t pay in kilowatt-hours, you pay in submission. What you don’t secure with ASICs, you secure with armies. For the first time in history, a monetary system transforms electricity into sovereignty—without intermediaries, without violence, and without permission.

Real cases: from waste to sovereignty Another of the great silences in this debate is that Bitcoin mining doesn’t just “consume” energy—it captures what the world already wastes. Gas flaring: In oil fields across Texas and Canada, miners convert what used to be vented into the atmosphere as CO₂ into electricity. Hydroelectric surplus: During rainy seasons, dams in Paraguay or China generate excess electricity that couldn’t be transported; Bitcoin monetized it. Stranded renewables: Remote wind and solar farms, too costly to connect to the grid, found in Bitcoin a constant, mobile buyer. What was once waste is now value. Bitcoin turns excess into security, and emissions into productive assets.

The hidden controversy: who decides which energy use is legitimate? The most dangerous question in this debate isn’t technical—it’s political: who has the right to decide which uses of energy are morally acceptable? Is it legitimate to floodlight entire stadiums for a football match but not run ASICs securing a free financial system? Is it fine to spend energy on online casinos or millions of hours of TikTok, but not on uncensorable transactions? Who grants the moral license to use electricity—governments, media, or corporations? Perhaps the criticism of Bitcoin’s energy use was never about ecology at all—it’s the excuse to pave a future where power dictates what you can and cannot do with your kilowatts.