Ethereum Shines Brighter Than Solana in Energy Efficiency Debate

A recent study by the Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance has significantly altered the environmental discussion surrounding Ethereum and Solana. According to the research, Ethereum's annual electricity consumption is approximately 7.87 GWh, corresponding to a continuous power demand of just 0.90 megawatts. This marks a substantial decrease from its initial benchmark of 2.4 gigawatts.

The study employed a bottom-up approach, directly testing the electrical consumption of various node software combinations on two types of hardware. The researchers found that a typical residential setup consumes around 18 watts, while a professional workstation uses up to 153 watts. By weighting these results based on actual node distribution, Cambridge obtained an average consumption of about 105 watts per node.

With over 8,500 identifiable full nodes, the United States hosts approximately 31% of these, followed by Germany (16%), Finland (8%), and France (6%). These four countries alone account for nearly 62% of the measured node network. When adjusting electricity consumption to market value, Ethereum's efficiency becomes evident.

According to the study, Ethereum consumes only 33 kilowatt-hours (kWh) for every million dollars of market capitalization, ranking it as the second most efficient blockchain behind BNB Chain. In contrast, Solana shows the highest absolute consumption among the PoS networks studied, with about 13.48 GWh per year.