Unraveling environmental threads: Bitcoin prices, energy consumption, and crypto market volatility

IF 13.5 2区经济学 Q1 ECONOMICS

Energy Economics Pub Date : 2026-03-01 Epub Date: 2026-02-24 DOI:10.1016/j.eneco.2026.109216

Nishant Sapra , Imlak Shaikh , David Roubaud

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Bitcoin has evolved into a major decentralized asset, yet its escalating electricity consumption has raised concerns. Because mining is profit-driven, higher prices intensify computational activity and energy demand, directly linking market dynamics to electricity use. This study empirically investigates the dynamic relationships among Bitcoin electricity consumption, Bitcoin prices, and cryptocurrency market volatility across time and frequency domains, complemented by nonlinear causal assessment. The study applies Biwavelet Coherence, Partial-Wavelet Transform Coherence, and Diks & Panchenko techniques to 1761 daily observations from March 2020 to January 2025. The frequency-domain analysis indicates that electricity consumption leads Bitcoin prices in the long run, whereas the nonlinear causality results reveal bidirectional feedback between the two variables. Collectively, these findings suggest that Bitcoin's energy use and its price influence each other over time, forming a feedback loop rather than operating in isolation. Further, Bitcoin's electricity consumption has bidirectional nonlinear causality with cryptocurrency volatility. The findings suggest that Bitcoin's electricity consumption is more sensitive to cryptocurrency market sentiment and geopolitical risk than to traditional economic and trade policy uncertainties, implying that behavioural and geopolitical indicators may offer more informative signals for monitoring fluctuations in energy consumed within the Bitcoin network. Given the linkage between Bitcoin prices and electricity consumption, policymakers may consider upper and lower trading circuits on cryptocurrency exchanges to moderate price-driven surges in mining-related energy demand. Policymakers may also consider cryptocurrency market volatility, investor sentiment, and geopolitical risk indicators for monitoring fluctuations in Bitcoin's electricity consumption, given its observed sensitivity to these factors.

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解开环境线索：比特币价格，能源消耗和加密市场波动

比特币已经发展成为一种主要的去中心化资产，但其不断上升的用电量引发了人们的担忧。由于采矿是利润驱动的，较高的价格加剧了计算活动和能源需求，将市场动态与用电量直接联系起来。本研究对比特币用电量、比特币价格和加密货币市场波动之间的动态关系进行了实证研究，并辅以非线性因果评估。该研究将双小波相干性、部分小波变换相干性和Diks & Panchenko技术应用于2020年3月至2025年1月的1761次日常观测。频域分析表明，长期来看，电力消耗主导比特币价格，而非线性因果关系结果揭示了两个变量之间的双向反馈。总的来说，这些发现表明，随着时间的推移，比特币的能源使用和价格会相互影响，形成一个反馈循环，而不是孤立地运行。此外，比特币的用电量与加密货币波动具有双向非线性因果关系。研究结果表明，与传统的经济和贸易政策不确定性相比，比特币的电力消耗对加密货币市场情绪和地缘政治风险更敏感，这意味着行为和地缘政治指标可能为监测比特币网络内能源消耗的波动提供更多信息信号。鉴于比特币价格与电力消耗之间的联系，政策制定者可能会考虑加密货币交易所的上下交易电路，以缓和价格驱动的挖矿相关能源需求激增。考虑到比特币对这些因素的敏感性，政策制定者还可以考虑加密货币市场波动、投资者情绪和地缘政治风险指标，以监测比特币用电量的波动。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Energy Economics ECONOMICS-

CiteScore

18.60

自引率

12.50%

发文量

524

期刊介绍： Energy Economics is a field journal that focuses on energy economics and energy finance. It covers various themes including the exploitation, conversion, and use of energy, markets for energy commodities and derivatives, regulation and taxation, forecasting, environment and climate, international trade, development, and monetary policy. The journal welcomes contributions that utilize diverse methods such as experiments, surveys, econometrics, decomposition, simulation models, equilibrium models, optimization models, and analytical models. It publishes a combination of papers employing different methods to explore a wide range of topics. The journal's replication policy encourages the submission of replication studies, wherein researchers reproduce and extend the key results of original studies while explaining any differences. Energy Economics is indexed and abstracted in several databases including Environmental Abstracts, Fuel and Energy Abstracts, Social Sciences Citation Index, GEOBASE, Social & Behavioral Sciences, Journal of Economic Literature, INSPEC, and more.