another way to arrive at your same conclusion, top down if you will, is to point out that the whole idea behind Proof Of Work is to perform an expensive operati

another way to arrive at your same conclusion, top down if you will, is to point out that the whole idea behind Proof Of Work is to perform an expensive operation, "wasting" it so to speak, on the mining of that coin. If BTC costs $40K+ to mine, then till you're (collectively) "wasting" that much work to mine it, more miners will be incented to join in. If you come up with a scheme to make economic dual use of the Work (mine bitcoin and heat houses) then it will no longer cost enough Work and again, more mining will be incented till the price equalizes again.