The operation wouldn't need to happen covertly, just as bitcoin's increases in electricity usage so far haven't happened covertly. Bitcoin will, in order to se

The operation wouldn't need to happen covertly, just as bitcoin's increases in electricity usage so far haven't happened covertly. Bitcoin will, in order to secure the assets on the chain, need to have an adversarial amount of resources wasted. That's the point of proof of work, to prove that you wasted a lot of energy. It's an energy wasting contest. There are physical limits which mean the waste in this contest-of-waste can only increase so quickly (i.e. manufacturing limits), but I think the fundamentals of the system are as I describe. It is "working as intended" that proof of work must take more energy if energy is cheaper. Practically no other systems work this way.