Isn't that the current status quo?
120 karma · joined December 20, 2023
This should be your operating assumption from Day 1.
As other commenters have pointed out, once conventions and standards have been adopted, there is almost no way of dislodging them. It's a coordination problem. New standards and approaches usually need to be at least a 10x improvement over the status quo in order to be adopted organically.
The same story applies to all areas of human endeavor.
Stephenson's latest book, Termination Shock seemed tired. It didn't have the sarcasm and vigor that sprinkled his earlier work.
1. Bitcoin is a final settlement system, akin to moving gold bars from one vault to another. It achieves this settlement in minutes and requires no trusted intermediaries.
2. Bitcoin's energy consumption is a function of price, not of transaction throughput, so the two are orthogonal.
Many miners have power purchase agreements and curtailment arrangements in place with grid operators that perform two very useful functions:
- Allow grid operators to better plan for demand, since they can anticipate the large load from the miner. Secondary effect: overbuild generation capacity when building new power plants, since there is a ready buyer for the new power.
- Sell energy back to the grid when weather strains capacity. Bitcoin miners can switch off instantly when the grid operator sends a signal, so the grid is more resilient to both predictable (cloudy days) and unpredictable (plant failure) supply changes.
So Bitcoin mining is good for power grids, both from the standpoint of capacity and stability.
The only way to achieve reliably low prices is to allow deflation to happen, which means government gets out of the way of innovation, lowers regulatory barriers, and stops printing so much money.