Hacker News Reader

If more energy is spent on bitcoin, it is usually because the value of the miner reward grows and attracts more mining. Miner reward value grows due to either 1) the market value of the coin itself grows or 2) the miner fees grow. Both are market forces and ultimately depend on demand for bitcoin transactions. So I don’t see a contradiction here.

View on HN

But you will notice that my hypothetical stipulated a new energy source becoming available (or cheaper).

The difference between bitcoin and aluminum is that bitcoin values the energy not qua energy, but purely for its wasted cost, so if energy becomes cheaper overall (or hash computation becomes more efficient), you have to use more of it to create the same value for bitcoin, if it becomes more expensive, you can create the same value using less energy.

That's why I find it silly to say that bitcoin stores "energy". It stores sunk cost.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com