The problem with Bitcoin miners
Proof-of-work is so obviously, undeniably, mathematically guaranteed to be a crypto dead-end, that I'm gobsmacked we're still having discussions like this.<p>Proof-of-work requires, <i>by design</i>, that the electricity value expended on mining is proportional to the <i>total</i> market cap of Bitcoin. It's really just simple arbitrage: if the value of Bitcoin goes up, but the electricity cost doesn't, then you have essentially 2 different prices for 1 good, which should attract more miners to spend more money on electricity. And, indeed, this is exactly what has happened.<p>The problem, of course, is that if it takes an Argentina's worth of electricity to run Bitcoin now, how does the world manage if Bitcoin has a 10 or 100 times greater market cap? Obviously it can't, and world governments would rightly shut it all down before the majority of our electric output went to mining BTC.<p>There is simply no way around this issue if you're on a proof-of-work system, and given that, it's so easy to see that BTC is <i>guaranteed</i> to fail at some point. It's like we're on a train rushing towards a bridge that's out, and everyone can see the bridge is out, but somehow we've convinced a large number of people that we'll "jump the gap" when we get there.