Italy is the most expensive nation to mine BTC, while Lebanon is the cheapest.
According to a CoinGecko research, Italy is the most expensive nation for crypto miners since it takes almost $210,000 in electricity to produce one BTC. Other European countries like Austria, Belgium, Denmark, and Germany follow closely as the most unprofitable regions.
It is interesting to note that bitcoin mining is profitable in just 62 out of the 147 nations analyzed by CoinGecko. Despite its economic issues, Lebanon is the cheapest destination for such activities.
Europe Seems Like a No-Go for Miners
Bitcoin miners depend on several vital factors when deciding to join the ecosystem, with the cost of electricity, the quality of the employed machinery, and the network’s mining difficulty being some.
The crypto data aggregator CoinGecko revealed that the average household electricity value to produce one bitcoin is $46,291. This is almost twice as much as the current price of the leading digital asset (approximately $26,000 when writing these lines).
However, there are regions where rates to mine BTC are way more expensive. Italy stands on the top of the list with an electricity cost of $208,560 needed to produce one bitcoin. Several other European nations, such as Austria, Belgium, Germany, Netherlands, the UK, and others, follow from second to ninth positions. The Cayman Islands is the only nation from the top 10 not located in the Old Continent.
CoinGecko determined that the high energy costs in Europe could be attributed to numerous reasons, including the global surge in wholesale electricity prices shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic and the crisis caused by the military conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
The Cheapest Countries
The research estimated that there are considerable differences in the electricity costs between the continents. For example, the average household energy price to mine one BTC in Europe is estimated at $85,767, whereas in Asia, this number is slightly higher than $20,000.
Lebanon seems like a perfect choice for crypto miners since it takes only $266 to produce a single bitcoin there. Iran, Syria, Ethiopia, and Sudan round up the top 5 of the cheapest regions.
There are countries where electricity costs are also low, but the local governments have imposed a ban on cryptocurrency operations. One example is Iraq, where it takes less than $4,000 to mine one BTC.
“The Iraqi central bank banned the use of cryptocurrency back in 2017. Otherwise, Iraq would have made the list as the ninth cheapest country to mine bitcoin,” CoinGecko noted.
What About the US?
Despite standing somewhere in the middle of the list, the world’s largest economy – the United States of America (USA) – has way more expensive electricity ($46,280) than its neighbors Canada ($33,250) and Mexico ($26,340).
It is worth mentioning that energy prices vary in each state, turning those with cheaper rates into local crypto hubs. The leading bitcoin mining company Riot Platforms, for example, has focused its operations mainly in Colorado and Texas (two of the US regions offering lower energy costs).
