Mining stakes — US government tracking the energy implications of booming bitcoin mining in US. Enlarge / It takes a lot of energy to keep pumping out more bitcoins. What exactly is bitcoin mining doing to the electric grid? In the last few years, the US has seen a boom in cryptocurrency mining, and the government is now trying to track exactly what that means for the consumption of electricity. While its analysis is preliminary, the Energy Information Agency (EIA) estimates that large-scale ...