There’s a significant contrast worldwide in terms of the household electricity cost for individual Bitcoin miners. According to a recent report, while producing one Bitcoin costs around $208,560 USD in Italy, it’s much cheaper in Lebanon, approximately 783 times less expensive.
Published on August 17, the CoinGecko report revealed that only 65 countries make Bitcoin mining profitable for individual miners, based solely on household electricity costs. Among these, 34 countries are in Asia, while Europe has only 5 countries.
The CoinGecko report showed:
– The average household electricity cost for mining 1 Bitcoin is $46,291.24 USD, over 35% higher than the average daily price of 1 BTC in July 2023 ($30,090.08 USD).
According to the report, Italy is the least favorable country for Bitcoin mining, with household electricity costs reaching $208,560 USD per Bitcoin. As of the time of writing, this implies that the cost of mining one Bitcoin in Italy is roughly equivalent to the value of about eight Bitcoins.
Next on the list is Austria at $184,352 USD and Belgium at $172,382 USD.
In contrast, the household electricity cost in Lebanon enables individual miners to create one Bitcoin for just $266 USD. Based on this data, this cost is around 783 times cheaper compared to the mining cost in Italy at $208,560 USD.
Iran follows, with a production cost of $532 USD per Bitcoin. However, despite legalizing Bitcoin mining in 2019, Iran has intermittently banned legal activities, citing strains on the power grid during winter.
On August 19, Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao posted a screenshot of the report’s data on social media, questioning his 8.6 million followers about why individuals in low-energy countries don’t mine Bitcoin.
CZ, though, remains skeptical and believes there could be more factors to consider. Nevertheless, he thinks it’s worth exploring further:
“The report probably didn’t consider feasibility and other overheads. But if the data is correct, there may be some potential opportunities.”
CZ acknowledges that an X user explained that many of these countries lack sufficient electricity to fully capitalize on the cheap electricity cost.
“Most of these countries are facing electricity shortages and often have to shut down their heavy industries in the summer or during peak hours,” the X user noted.