Energy consumption 100 times more than bitcoin would mean an ‘absurd’ price of $20 million for BTC

A newcomer to the bitcoin (BTC) energy debate claims that 1 BTC is expected to cost $20 million for energy consumption 100 times more than current demand.

At a debate on Twitter On July 18, Sjors Provoost, Bitcoin developer and author of “Bitcoin: A Work in Progress,” raised doubts about the energy use of the largest cryptocurrency in the future.

The Bitcoin Network Could Live on ‘Waste Energy’

The amount of energy the Bitcoin network uses to survive has now become a point of friction that has moved from the industrial realm to the governments of the world.

Throughout the process, bitcoin proponents have complained that a combination of bias and a lack of understanding of network principles leads those in power to draw the wrong conclusions about how and why bitcoin uses this energy technology.

While critics argue that the Bitcoin network needs to reduce its energy consumption, others argue that it uses energy that would otherwise be wasted or often unavailable.

As for the status quo, another developer, Matt Odell, posted a graph showing that bitcoin mining only uses 0.49% of the world’s wasted electricity, and 0.16% of electricity in general.

In response, Provoost estimated that it would have to be an “absurd” $420 trillion entity, for power consumption to rise in proportion to pre-programmed changes to the Bitcoin network.

“In 10 years, the block subsidy will be ~10x lower (3 half). To get 100x today’s power consumption, bitcoin would have to trade at $20 million by then (plus an inflationary adjustment for power costs),” he said.

“However, a market capitalization of 420 trillion is absurd, more than ANY real estate”.

Bitcoin’s halving cycles mean that the block subsidy—the amount of “new” BTC added to the supply per block mined—expands roughly every four years. Every time, the mining ecosystem competes for less BTC and, thanks to bitcoin’s Proof-of-Work (PoW) mining algorithm, it is still motivated to do so, spending more hardware on its his efforts.

Bigger hardware means more power, but at the same time, smaller rewards, more efficient hardware, and a greater impact of transaction fees on miners’ income should keep power consumption in check, says Sjors.

“Still 12 years later and even if bitcoin is worth more than all the real estate in the world, the mining subsidy for bitcoin is not enough to use more than 1% of the world’s energy”, he continues , indicating that his calculations. not verified.

“So if nothing strange happens before 2030, it can probably continue to run on waste energy.”

The miner’s crisis is real

As Cointelegraph continues to report, bitcoin miners are currently facing tough times thanks to the price of BTC which has fallen to levels that make the entire practice of mining unprofitable for some.

Also read: BTC miners are “finally capitalizing” – 5 things to know about bitcoin this week

This has been seen in the last few days when more than 14,000 BTC left the miners’ wallets, a sign that they chose to sell funds to stay afloat.

These “surrender” events within the mining community are traditionally accompanied by macroeconomic price reductions.

Compared to the most recent all-time high in November 2021, the BTC/USD pair has lost as much as 74.5%.

The Puell Multiple, a metric that compares the value of newly issued BTC against the 365-day moving average, is currently near all-time lows.

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