4 ms·

Electricity generation could be different and better in the future.

• hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
  To emphasize, it does not matter. Let's say we have some great new technology that enables us to get electricity for a tenth of what it currently costs. It just means miners will be willing to use 10 times more electricity to mine for a given amount of reward (and, for the umpteenth time, block rewards, transaction fee, whatever, doesn't matter - the BTC they get in return for being the first to mine a block). Indeed, this is the whole idea behind specialized mining rigs. These rigs essentially lower the cost of electricity for a given hash rate. But assuming other miners have access to the same equipment, in the competitive system that is proof-of-work they will just bump up their usage of electricity until the point that, again, it no longer makes sense for them to do so because they'd be spending more than the rewards that they get in return.