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Do you really think the price would change very much if the miner payout was raised or dropped by a factor of ten? Over half the bitcoins have already been mined; expecting the price to be based on the trickle of new ones is unrealistic.

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It may change eventually, and the exchange rate does fluctuate dramatically sometimes, but it has been shown in the past that the market value of bitcoins tends to stabilize around the electricity cost of mining.

Since the amount of mining is going fluctuate based on the potential profit, I'd say the electricity cost of mining is stabilizing to a factor around the price of bitcoins rather than the other way around.

Does this mean the total value of all bitcoins is similar to the cost of the electricity used for mining them? If so, isn't it worrying that so much electricity has been used because of bitcoin? I have often wondered if a currency could be constructed such that the mining would solve real computational problems, thereby doubling the value produced per energy consumed.

isn't it worrying that so much electricity has been used because of bitcoin

I don't like it either, but you can't control what people do with their resources.

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