> Yeah, the spot-conversion itself guarantees at least one transaction that needs to be mined into a block, which implies all of the energy consumption that it

> Yeah, the spot-conversion itself guarantees at least one transaction that needs to be mined into a block, which implies all of the energy consumption that it takes to mine a single block, paid up front immediately. (On top of the energy consumption of the transaction that resulted in the donation as well.) Transactions per se do not have any notable "energy cost". The block would have been mined whether there are transactions to include in it or not, and adding a transaction does not measurably increase the energy cost of mining the block. If a fee is included then this slightly increases the amount of energy miners are willing to spend to obtain that fee, but transactions fees at this point are trivial compared to the fixed block rewards, and more than offset by the fact that they are selling the bitcoins immediately upon receipt and thus putting downward pressure on the price.