Aside from the fact that I’d be willing to bet that all the gold in the world occupies less space than all the Bitcoin mining equipment in the world, space is a

Aside from the fact that I’d be willing to bet that all the gold in the world occupies less space than all the Bitcoin mining equipment in the world, space is a terrible measure of energy consumption. So let me spell it out for you: Bitcoin is a system designed to maximize its energy use indefinitely for as long as it exists. The cost of holding any value of Bitcoin is equivalent to the energy consumption of the entire network for as long as it exists, because that Bitcoin’s existence is only guaranteed as long as the network remains online. By contrast, if I have a gold bar sitting in a safe in my house, there’s a fixed energy cost to that, and it’s virtually zero.