How Many Barrels of Oil Are Needed to Mine One Bitcoin?

It’s always interesting to calculate how much one bitcoin is worth in terms of gold, other precious metals, or dollars. Journalists and various publications often engage in this kind of comparison. Recently, the team at OilPrice calculated how much oil would be needed to mine a single bitcoin.

An American barrel equals 42 gallons, or 159 liters, of oil. According to the latest data, bitcoin mining consumes about 22.5 terawatt-hours of electricity annually, which is roughly equivalent to the energy produced from 13 million barrels of oil. Every 10 minutes, 12.5 bitcoins are mined. Based on these numbers, the energy cost to mine one bitcoin is approximately 20 barrels of oil.

At the time of the calculation, the price of one bitcoin was about $6,300, while a barrel of oil cost around $60. This means that if you spend 20 barrels of oil to mine one bitcoin and then sell it, you could buy over a hundred barrels of oil with the proceeds. That’s some fascinating arithmetic!