From digital mining to market prices: An empirical analysis of the relationship between energy consumption and price dynamics of Bitcoin and Ether

Abstract

This study aims to comparatively examine the relationships between Bitcoin and Ethereum's energy consumption and price dynamics. Using daily frequency data, Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF), Phillips-Perron (PP), ARDL cointegration tests, and Toda–Yamamoto causality analysis were applied to evaluate the effects of cryptocurrency markets on energy demand from both short-term and long-term perspectives. The analysis results indicate that there is a long-term cointegration relationship between energy consumption and prices for Bitcoin and a unidirectional causality from prices to energy consumption. In contrast, ARDL boundary test results for Ethereum revealed no long-term relationship, and causality analysis also failed to detect any directional causality between price and energy consumption. This indicates that with Ethereum's transition to a Proof-of-Stake mechanism, energy consumption has become independent of price movements. The findings reveal that the effects of cryptocurrency markets on the energy economy vary according to technology-specific structural characteristics.