The sheer amount of computing power and energy required to run the bitcoin economy means that the surging prices could literally be damaging our planet, experts have warned. And as the price of the cryptocurrency surges, that problem is likely to get worse. But that same computing power requires electricity to power it. And as the value of bitcoin surges, more and more people are looking to do that – directly contributing to huge amounts of demand for fossil fuels. As bitcoin grows, the calculations required of bitcoin mining machines get more complicated, so that they take longer to solve. That is intended as a protection on the amount of bitcoin in the world – but also means that the power demanded by computers is growing all the time.