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# Orphan blocks on bitcoin network waste 16 GW
- URL: https://balaustine.mymagic.page/orphan-blocks-on-bitcoin-network-waste-16-gw/
- Published: 2026-06-30T01:57:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-23T11:25:25.000Z
- Author: VM
- Tags: Analysis, Scicomm, Bitcoin, bitcoin mining, broken window fallacy, cryptocurrencies, difficulty epoch, Falcon relay network, orphan blocks, PNAS Nexus, propagation delay, Stratum V2 protocol, #Migrated-1787484114599, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-08-23 11:22

A new[ *PNAS Nexus*](https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/5/5/pgag135/8691350?ref=staticlimit.org) paper has shed light on a major source of hidden energy waste on the bitcoin network. Here, miners compete to solve a complex mathematical puzzle. The miner that solves a puzzle first is rewarded by the network with a block: new bitcoins plus transaction fees.

An accidental fork occurs when two different miners solve the puzzle at almost exactly the same time. Because it takes a few seconds for a winning block to be announced to the rest of the network (called the propagation delay), a second miner might successfully mine the same block before they find out someone else has already won it. Eventually, the network chooses one block to keep and discards the other, which is called an orphan. The energy used to mine that orphan block is essentially wasted because it doesn't contribute to the security or the history of the network's official ledger.

As part of the study, the researchers developed a model to calculate how often these forks happen based on the number of miners, how concentrated their power is, and how fast they communicate. They estimated that in the “most recent year”, this wasted mining power amounted to roughly 16,000 MW — “equivalent to half of the power generated in the United Kingdom”.

Note: A difficulty epoch refers to the period of time in which the mining power required to crack the mathematical puzzle is roughly the same. After every 2,016 blocks released, the network adjusts the difficulty depending on the computational power brought to bear in the previous epoch. The researchers calculated their parameters from multiple difficulty epochs and found that the wastage due to orphan blocks in the latest epoch — beginning March 2025 — was 16 GW. It is not necessarily the power ‘lost’ throughout 2025\. In short, in the difficulty epoch that began in March 2025, the mining power wasted due to orphan blocks was 16 GW.

That translates to an annualised consumption of roughly 140.1 TWh. According to the[ Cambridge Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index](https://ccaf.io/cbeci/index?ref=staticlimit.org), this same figure was 125.1 TWh in February 2022 and is 159.9 TWh today.

https://rootprivileges.net/2022/02/13/crypto-climate-change-means-new-tech-has-less-time-today-to-prove-itself/

The team also found that when mining power is concentrated in just a few large pools, the number of forks actually decreases because these mining conglomerates often communicate with each other faster than the rest of the network does, reducing the chances of creating orphan blocks. On the flip side, if only three or four pools control most of the network — which has been the trend recently — the network becomes more vulnerable to censorship or attacks and more susceptible to collusion.

Developers are currently working on solutions to this problem, including compact blocks, which cut the amount of data that needs to be transmitted by 95%; the ‘Falcon’ relay network, high-speed data highways where the nodes begin transmitting block data before they’re aware of the block’s full contents; the Stratum V2 protocol, where miners plan their mining tasks beforehand to avoid conflicts; and preconsensus mechanisms, where miners signal what they are going to mine well before the risk of an accidental fork arises.

However, these solutions only illustrate the classic[ broken window fallacy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable%5Fof%5Fthe%5Fbroken%5Fwindow?ref=staticlimit.org): the talent and power expended to reduce the 16 GW of waste could have been spent on productive advances. The world is effectively paying the glazier to repair a digital window that, even when it was in perfect working order, provided no gainful service to the real economy.

*Featured image credit: Image created with ChatGPT 5.2.*