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but suddenly the hash-rate is 1000 times more and the energy consumption is 100 times more. Not really. Eventually electricity will dominate mining costs, not

but suddenly the hash-rate is 1000 times more and the energy consumption is 100 times more. Not really. Eventually electricity will dominate mining costs, not hardware, and people will only invest in more efficient hardware, not cheaper hardware. The total cost of the electricity used in mining will never exceed the total value of the block rewards plus transaction fees, since miners would rather stop mining than mine unprofitably. Whether the total electricity used increases or decreases over time depends on whether the increase in price of bitcoins outpaces the block reward halving every 4 years, or transaction fees become a significant source of miner income (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Funding_network_security https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Funding_network_security). A single bitcoin would need to be worth $1 million in 50 years to keep pace, for example. But I think it's more likely we'll transition to better (cheaper, more secure) mining system before then anyway, which is entirely possible to do without having to redistribute bitcoins (it would essentially be a fork that the "economic majority" agrees with: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Economic_majority https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Economic_majority)

TheDong 12y ago
This is not completely true. There's one other reason to mine than the reward: because you recognize the risk of a hostile entity controlling too much mining power. If you have 300 BTC and you suspect someone else is almost able to mount a 51% attack and thus devalue all your BTC, it makes logical sense for you to put more money into mining, even more than you can gain from the combination of block rewards and electricity, to secure your existing investment. As you do that, others will be forced to as well to avoid you having too much power and to protect their BTC and so on....

TheDong 12y ago

This is not completely true. There's one other reason to mine than the reward: because you recognize the risk of a hostile entity controlling too much mining power. If you have 300 BTC and you suspect someone else is almost able to mount a 51% attack and thus devalue all your BTC, it makes logical sense for you to put more money into mining, even more than you can gain from the combination of block rewards and electricity, to secure your existing investment. As you do that, others will be forced to as well to avoid you having too much power and to protect their BTC and so on....