Now the definitive global hub of Bitcoin mining, the United States is grappling with the real-world costs of the industry — soaring electricity use, persistent noise complaints and mounting environmental strain. Addressing this, BestBrokers recently released its report “Mining Madness: The staggering energy cost of a single Bitcoin in 2025.”
The team at BestBrokers used the latest data from the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index to estimate Bitcoin mining electricity use and costs by country. By combining the total network hashrate with national hashrate shares as of December 2025, we estimated daily Bitcoin output and calculated the electricity cost to mine one BTC using current non-household power prices. All underlying data and calculations are available on Google Drive via this link.
Data shows that an average of 171.126 BTC is mined daily in the U.S., representing 37.8% of all Bitcoins produced globally. This consumes a massive 158.2 GWh of electricity per day, or more than 57,000 GWh a year, which is more than 1.3% of the total annual national energy needs. The same amount of electricity is enough to power New York City for 5 months and 18 days or Los Angeles for 11 months and 17 days.
Based on October electricity rates for commercial end-users (the latest rate published by the U.S. Energy Information Administration), the energy used by Bitcoin miners in the U.S. costs an average of $21,214,984.75 per day, if purchased at regular prices. In order to mine a single bitcoin, facilities consume roughly 924,480 kW/h, which means that minting 1 BTC theoretically amounts to $123,972.77 in electricity costs, significantly more than the cryptocurrency’s current price of around $90,000.
If no renewable energy sources are used, this electricity is responsible for emitting 22.7 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO₂) and needs 22.8 million acres of U.S. forests to be offset. The CO₂ emissions from U.S.-based BTC mining operations’ electricity consumption are equivalent to those produced by 5.3 million gas-powered passenger vehicles driven for a year.
Based on the October 2025 electricity rate for commercial end-users of 12.2 cents per kilowatt-hour in Arizona and the average consumption of 924,480 kWh to mine a single bitcoin, we calculated that BTC mining facilities in the state would need to use energy worth $112,787 per bitcoin minted — if they pay regular rates and have no renewable sources of electricity of their own. Note that the electricity can vary widely based on the actual hashrate and the number of bitcoins mined daily in the state — currently, no state-specific hashrate data is available.
“American Bitcoin miners are staying profitable by relentlessly cutting costs and squeezing more output from every watt of power they use. Access to cheap electricity – often through long-term contracts, renewables, or surplus grid capacity – remains the single most decisive factor, especially after the halving slashed block rewards,” says BestBrokers analyst Alan Goldberg.
“At the same time,” Goldberg continues, “miners are upgrading to more efficient ASIC hardware, lowering energy use per unit of computing power and pushing break-even points down. Scale also matters: large operators spread fixed costs and rely on mining pools to stabilize revenues. Rising Bitcoin prices and occasional spikes in transaction fees provide crucial relief, helping offset thinner margins. Мiners are also increasingly diversifying into AI and high-performance computing, turning data centers into multi-purpose assets rather than relying on mining alone.”
Paul Hoffman is a data analyst at investing research platform BestBrokers.
