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At $5 million, at current mining rates, it would cost $1.7 trillion dollars per year in energy and equipment costs to run the network. That is fresh capital tha

by graeme 6y ago

At $5 million, at current mining rates, it would cost $1.7 trillion dollars per year in energy and equipment costs to run the network. That is fresh capital that needs to be shovelled in and burned each and every year. Not to increase the price, just to maintain the network. What is the network doing that would justify that investment? After halving the cost would drop to $850 billion a year but still.

solosoyokaze 6y ago
It doesn't really make sense to measure this in USD if one of the major hypothesis driving Bitcoin is that USD is being hyper inflated. Yeah, it might cost $1.7 trillion dollars but at that point a 3bd house might cost $5M. If you're going to pin BTC to USD, you need to use inflation adjusted numbers.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > It doesn't really make sense to measure this in USD if one of the major hypothesis driving Bitcoin is that USD is being hyper inflated “USD is being hyperinflated” is an easily falsiable (and obviously false) statement, so basing anything on it is nonsense. (That it is imminently going to slide into hyperinflation is less easily falsified, which is why that is actually the perennial cry of cryptobugs, as it was for goldbugs—sometimes, the exact same people—before then.)
  - solosoyokaze 6y ago
    Isn’t it easy to verify? How much did a house cost 20 years ago? A 4 year college degree? How much were you paying per month for health insurance in the 90s? Salaries have not kept up. They’ve been amazingly static my entire life.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      You've mentioned three items that have experienced specific inflation at higher than the general rate of inflation (but even then mostly not at rates anywhere in the remote neighborhood that would qualify as hyperinflation [> +50%/month] even if they were the rate of general inflation.) So,yeah, when even the rapidly inflating segments aren't anywhere close to hyperinflation, it's pretty clearly not general hyperinflation. And stagnant wages are a completely unrelated issue to hyperinflation, though obviously wage increases mitigate and wage stagnation or decline exacerbates the effect of whatever inflation there is on wage earners.
      - anm89 6y ago
        They also just listed the set of the largest expenses for a vast majority of our society (even if you don't pay for education)
        dragonwriter 6y ago
        > They also just listed the set of the largest expenses for a vast majority of our society Buying a house is an asset acquisition, not an expense. Housing is an expense (and typically the single greatest household expenses), but that expense has increased in price less than home prices. The next greatest expenses are food and transportation.
        graeme 6y ago
        Further people are buying more housing than they used to. If people buy four household computers that isn’t inflation, but how does buying a 4 bedroom home rather than two bedroom show in inflation stats?

by graeme 6y ago

solosoyokaze 6y ago

It doesn't really make sense to measure this in USD if one of the major hypothesis driving Bitcoin is that USD is being hyper inflated. Yeah, it might cost $1.7 trillion dollars but at that point a 3bd house might cost $5M. If you're going to pin BTC to USD, you need to use inflation adjusted numbers.

dragonwriter 6y ago
> It doesn't really make sense to measure this in USD if one of the major hypothesis driving Bitcoin is that USD is being hyper inflated “USD is being hyperinflated” is an easily falsiable (and obviously false) statement, so basing anything on it is nonsense. (That it is imminently going to slide into hyperinflation is less easily falsified, which is why that is actually the perennial cry of cryptobugs, as it was for goldbugs—sometimes, the exact same people—before then.)
- solosoyokaze 6y ago
  Isn’t it easy to verify? How much did a house cost 20 years ago? A 4 year college degree? How much were you paying per month for health insurance in the 90s? Salaries have not kept up. They’ve been amazingly static my entire life.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    You've mentioned three items that have experienced specific inflation at higher than the general rate of inflation (but even then mostly not at rates anywhere in the remote neighborhood that would qualify as hyperinflation [> +50%/month] even if they were the rate of general inflation.) So,yeah, when even the rapidly inflating segments aren't anywhere close to hyperinflation, it's pretty clearly not general hyperinflation. And stagnant wages are a completely unrelated issue to hyperinflation, though obviously wage increases mitigate and wage stagnation or decline exacerbates the effect of whatever inflation there is on wage earners.
    - anm89 6y ago
      They also just listed the set of the largest expenses for a vast majority of our society (even if you don't pay for education)
      - dragonwriter 6y ago
        > They also just listed the set of the largest expenses for a vast majority of our society Buying a house is an asset acquisition, not an expense. Housing is an expense (and typically the single greatest household expenses), but that expense has increased in price less than home prices. The next greatest expenses are food and transportation.
        graeme 6y ago
        Further people are buying more housing than they used to. If people buy four household computers that isn’t inflation, but how does buying a 4 bedroom home rather than two bedroom show in inflation stats?