Northern Rocky Mountain gray wolf population

In a small but significant patch of the 2017-2022 universe, Bitcoin mining's electricity appetite and the Northern Rocky Mountain gray wolf population were growing at almost the same rate (r = 0.960), which is the kind of thing that sounds made up until you check. Wolves multiplied in Yellowstone; ASICs multiplied in warehouses outside Austin. Both ecosystems were, in the broadest sense, recovering.

The wolf population climbed from around 1,500 to over 2,700 in the tri-state Northern Rocky Mountain region as reintroduction efforts that began in 1995 reached ecological maturity; Bitcoin mining consumption climbed from 30 TWh to 150 TWh across the same years as hashrate followed the 2017 and 2021 bull runs. They share nothing but calendar and direction, but the graph treats them as if they were. The average adult gray wolf consumes about 5 pounds of meat a day; the average modern Bitcoin miner consumes about 5 kilowatts a day, and one feels somehow ironic next to the other.

The wolf runs. The ASICs hum. Both patient, in their very different ways.