Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Bitcoin miners are expected to consume 0.6% of the global energy budget in 2018.
Bitcoin Could End Up Using More Power Than Electric Cars
By Tim Loh and Frederic Tomesco
11 January 2018, 05:02 GMT+10 Updated on 12 January 2018, 04:31 GMT+10
The global power needed to create cryptocurrencies this year could rival the entire electricity consumption of Argentina and be a growth driver for renewable energy producers from the U.S. to China.
Miners of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies could require up to 140 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2018, about 0.6 percent of the global total, Morgan Stanley analysts led by Nicholas Ashworth wrote in a note Wednesday. That’s more than expected power demand from electric vehicles in 2025.
“If cryptocurrencies continue to appreciate we expect global mining power consumption to increase,” Ashworth wrote in the note.
…
One eager entrant is Hydro-Quebec, Canada’s biggest electric utility. It’s in “very advanced” talks with more than 30 cryptocurrency miners — many of them currently operating in China — and expects to announce agreements in 2018, Marc-Antoine Pouliot, a spokesman, said Wednesday in a phone interview.
Within four years, Hydro-Quebec envisions miners soaking up about five terawatt-hours of power annually — equivalent to about 300,000 Quebec homes — from the surplus created by the region’s hydroelectric dams. “If we have to invest in our transmission network, these investments will be paid for by the miners,” Pouliot said.
…
Steven Mosher claimed in December that Bitcoin miners all use hydro, in response to my suggestion that bitcoin was causing a rise in CO2 emissions. Avoiding CO2 emissions seems to be important to Bitcoin advocates.
Do all bitcoin miners use hydro power or renewables? In my opinion very unlikely. Even “certified renewable” power is suspect. In 2010, Spanish solar providers were busted producing solar power at night.
Even if you assume that all bitcoin mining hosts are honest about where their power comes from, does consuming cheap hydro power for Bitcoin mining displace other traditional users of hydro, such as Aluminium smelters? Or does bitcoin mining encourage so much investment in additional hydro capacity that nobody is displaced?
Either way, a projected 0.6% of the global electricity supply is an awful lot of power to burn on an activity which seems fundamentally pointless.
There is a silver lining to green bitcoin hypocricy. If you ever discover that you are living in a dystopian green paradise, where home heating is discouraged but bitcoin mining is tolerated, you can heat your home with a multi-kilowatt bitcoin mining rig.
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Before Apple adopted Intel processors they used IBM PowerPC chips, which consumed a lot of power and consequently radiated a lot of heat. So much so that Apple offered a series water-cooled G5 Mac towers in 2004 an 2005 that were plagued with problems.
One joke from that era:
I wish there had been an introduction re bitcoin. I’m a consultant in the mining business and considered a sophisticated investor (in higher risk investment you are not allowed to offer products to persons not able to evaluate or afford downsides) the use of the metaphor in this context didn’t help my understanding.
I know bitcoin is an unsupported i-currency bearing considerable risk but where does the electricity come into it? Is it simply because it uses computer time in trading and purchasing? It would have been a nice investment to take an early ride on, as it turns out, but to me, it has a ponzi look and coming in ‘laters’ tend tp pick up the tab . Electricity use may swoon rather quickly.
“It would have been a nice investment to take an early ride on, as it turns out, but to me, it has a ponzi look and coming in ‘laters’ tend tp pick up the tab.”
Such as these people? …
“New survey reveals staggering number of people are buying BitCoin with their credit cards.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-01-11/new-survey-reveals-staggering-number-people-are-buying-bitcoin-their-credit-cards
“I know bitcoin is an unsupported i-currency bearing considerable risk but where does the electricity come into it? Is it simply because it uses computer time in trading and purchasing? It would have been a nice investment to take an early ride on, as it turns out, but to me, it has a ponzi look and coming in ‘laters’ tend tp pick up the tab . Electricity use may swoon rather quickly.”
The electricity is only imprtant to Miners: Miners build the transaction ledger.
if you just want to buy and hold or buy and trade.. electricity is not an issue
i don’t know how to convert 70,000,000 bags of uWave popcorn to hiroshimas…
Conversion of 70,000,000 bags of NuWave Popcorn to hiroshimas
NuWave Popcorn
1 Bag takes 3 min in a 1,000 Watt Micro wave.
1 watt = 1 joule per second
3 min = 180 sec
So 1000 Watts of microwave power
X 1 (J/sec)/watt
X 180 sec (3 Min)
= 180000 Joules
X 70,000,000 Bags
= 1.26E+13 Joules
or 12.6 Terajoules
Hiroshima
15 kiloton of TNT Equivalent yeild
1 Kiloton TNT is 4.18X10^12 Joules
So 15 Kilotons
X 4.18E+12 J/KT
= 6.27E+13 Joules
or 62.7 Terajoules
So 0.20 hiroshimas
Divide by three (ish).
Auto
Bitcoin and climate science have much in common–both are based on nothing but hearsay, have consumed scads of electricity in useless computations, and will divert our attention from more productive endeavors.
The hypothetical world has bounced far beyond the realm of reality.
I remember a long time ago, when Bitcoins were not that expensive and fairly new, you could buy Bitcoin-mining computers (PCs that were specifically built and set up for Bitcoin-mining operations). These computers were fairly expensive, and a lot of people thought they were too expensive to buy, given the price of a Bitcoin. So now that the Bitcoin value has risen insanely, has the difficulty of mining Bitcoins similarly increased?
When folks talk about using “only green power”, remind them that power is fungible! Because you happen to get your particular electrons from a grid-connected wind or water turbine, doesn’t mean you are not contributing to CO2 emissions. After all, someone else has to get theirs from evil coal, and it all sells in a big commodity market. If they didn’t buy that turbine power, someone else would, and they would use the evil coal anyway.
At least, that’s what I’m told when I point out that we get very little of our US-consumed oil from the Middle East. Just because we do not directly buy from the Middle East does not mean we’re not 100% responsible for it, because it’s a fungible market. If we bought Middle East oil, then someone else would buy the Canadian/Mexican/American oil that dominates the US consumption, and on balance, nothing would change.
That gives them serious pause…
But they won’t continue to appreciate in the same way. otherwise we might as well go back to buying Tulips. These D, Heads are in the same league as the global warmers. The scary thing is that they work for Morgan Stanley.
TBH, these article are making me lazy. I used to read the whole article before expressing my triggered-ness, but I just can’t be bothered to invest that amount of time anymore. I may miss the thrust of some articles, but I will quickly save a lot more time.
michael,
I agree about a lot of articles.
“I may miss the thrust of some articles, but I will quickly save a lot more time.”
For sure.
If I was in the fishmongery business, I would be looking to short carp.
There is just so much carp about.
Auto – with, perhaps, an orthography problem tonight – if a little delicately expressed . . . .
From the article: “One eager entrant is Hydro-Quebec, Canada’s biggest electric utility. It’s in “very advanced” talks with more than 30 cryptocurrency miners — many of them currently operating in China — and expects to announce agreements in 2018, Marc-Antoine Pouliot, a spokesman, said Wednesday in a phone interview.”
How do people living in China access Quebec’s hydro? Long transmission lines?
How do the Canadian people feel about large and increasing quantities of their power production being used in this way? How will they react if for example Bitcoin pushes up the price of power for all services – and hence for survival – to the point that ordinary people can’t afford it? Does anyone really believe that Bitcoin uses only “stranded” power, or that Bitcoin miners will voluntarily stop if it is found that they are damaging others? Bitcoin will collapse, we just don’t yet know how. Maybe its greatest strength – price support from power consumption – could turn out to be its greatest weakness.
“How do people living in China access Quebec’s hydro? Long transmission lines?”
They buy a “block” of power that’s part of the “chain” of overall supply created from their hydro source…so….yeah…
The answer to the question of “How do people living in China access Quebec’s hydro?” is that they would move their crypto mining operations to Canada and use “surplus” hydro generation as noted in the article. You can not consume Canadian Hydro electricity in China.
I assumed the /sarc in my comment would be assumed…bad assumption.
bitcoin is a fraud, how could it possibly increase in value? what backs it? what gets sold to increase its value????
Since it not government controlled, some people who want to trade in illegal items like to use it. I have no idea of what the % of the currency that would be.
Mac
Bitcoin ledger is open to everyone — so it can be traced — monero OTOH and ETHEREUM — hard.
To answer your question — people like bitcoin because they can’t get ripped off over the internet by people who buy stuff and then claim a fraudulent purchase and have the CC company reverse the charge
with altcoins (bit, mon, eth) once the transaction is done — its done
“…people like bitcoin because they can’t get ripped off over the internet by people who buy stuff and then claim a fraudulent purchase and have the CC company reverse the charge…”
What if you don’t receive your product, or it’s the wrong product, or your product is defective?
How can you get your money back on the transaction?
What backs the US dollar? — nothing.
Bitcoin is backed by Millions of users who exchange value outside the banking infrastructure — without the govt. knowing who they are and what they are buying.
Coinbase signed up 15 MILLION new accounts (largest US based crypto exchange)
Cool thing is, you don’t need an exchange — you can use a wallet — anonymous — then convert to bitcoins and get cash from a bitcoin ATM
or just buy something from someone with a wallet to wallet transfer
“What backs the US dollar? — nothing.”
Actually, the Constitution backs it in that it allows the government to issue/regulate the currency and those who use and/or attempt to manipulate that currency for their own gain.
How will the “Millions of users who exchange value outside the banking infrastructure” regulate Spoofy?
https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@sirwinchester/how-a-single-trader-manipulates-the-bitcoin-market-spoofing-with-large-sums-and-illegal-methods-on-bitfinex
The article claims the manipulations of this trader are “illegal”, but how is that possible given the market isn’t regulated?
Since the market isn’t regulated, how will you prevent other nefarious traders from manipulating the product’s price in the same way?
Matt Ridley used to say that rounded to the nearest whole number, the percentage of the world’s energy produced by wind is zero. It looks like that’s not true for the percentage of the world’s energy used by bitcoin. Maybe Las Vegas can offer odds on which will be higher.
Wow, lunacy, it actually preys on the power grid. Must be abolished forthwith. The Left has all the publicity connections and activist funding — who can get this onto their radar front & center?
Bitcoin is the result of control.
We are the Federal Government of the U.S.A.
You have our dollars. And we will tell you what you can spend them on. And we have warrants and everything. If you have dollars we will ask you where they came from. You have heard of the IRS?
Why do offshore banking havens exist? Control. People want freedom.
“If you want peace, prepare for war” – Flavius Vegetius Renatus.
For freedom, we have to pay taxes. ie, no taxes -> no military -> no peace -> no freedom.
‘First In’ – Bit Coin.
‘Last In’ – Coin Bit.
You might as well be mining Chain Letters… or Nigerian Princes.
Oh, yeah, please, please, PLEASE sign me up for a currency based on absolutely nothing, whose value is based on whoever last drank the bong water, that doesn’t even exist in a lousy piece of paper (let alone a chunk of metal), and is generated by digital electronic onanism.
Who invented this? ‘Cause there is a serious need to have a wee peek in the dude’s (or dudess’) tobacco pouch. There is some wicked, gnarly stuff in there . . . a couple of hits could put an entire continent on the bliss train.
Does this ring a familiar bell? “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools . . .”
The comic potential of bitcoin is astonishing. Too bad George Carlin is gone . . . he could have done 15 minutes on this easy.
For bitcoin related comedy try a visit to Reddit site /r/buttcoin.
I’ve got a quantum computer that can create a 1M block stack in minutes. I will insert it after the ‘genesis’ box and render the current chain invalid. All your bitcoins are belonging to me!
Seriously, though, it’s driving the computer industry to improve processing speed and efficiency. What else might it drive improvements in? Energy storage?
“Seriously, though, it’s driving the computer industry to improve processing speed and efficiency.”
Isn’t this more likely AI and robotics…?
No it isn’t == they built SHA-256 specific ASICs to solve the encryption for the next block
“No it isn’t == they built SHA-256 specific ASICs to solve the encryption for the next block”
For what else can these ASIC’s be used?
Who is “they”?
Bitcoin bubble will not burst. This is because if people do not continue mining for bitcoins, they could lose the bitcoins they already have. If bitcoin mining is dominated by a single party, that person could rewrite the entire history of bitcoin production.
MikeN – that looks more like an argument that Bitcoin will burst.
Mining means adding a block to the chain by solving the algorithm for encrypting ALL the transactions during that block.
You can’t lose bitcoins you mined — you can lose the private keys if you are dumb enough to have an account at an exchange without cold storage.
You are assuming the upward pressure of bitcoin price is generated from mining, I would suggest it comes from speculative derivatives trading. There must be a good few savvy day traders out there making a ton of cash out of this market, and they need only a tiny fraction of the processing power used by miners. Brokers are cashing in on wide spreads and high volume. When the buyers eventually run out – which will inevitably happen – and liquidity dries up, hold onto your hats ‘cos it will be a bumpy ride, assuming that ride hasn’t already begun. The signs of bulls and bears knocking heads are clearly visible over the last month or so after such a meteoric rise.
Meet ‘Spoofy’. How a Single entity dominates the price of Bitcoin.
https://hackernoon.com/meet-spoofy-how-a-single-entity-dominates-the-price-of-bitcoin-39c711d28eb4
Heating your home (or whatever) with bitcoin mining rigs is just about the only way it’s worth doing. Go Canada, in the winter at least.
If I could figure out how to cool my house with em, I’d have some in the tropics…
Bitcoin, and indeed pretty well all other cryptocurrencies, are highly likely to crash and burn this year anyway. This particular extraordinary popular delusion has about reached its peak. My gardener asked me about “investing” in Bitcoin a few weeks ago, this is a sure fire indicator that the end is near.
Furthermore you do realise it was a carefully crafted plan by NSA and GCHQ (hence the anonymous and mysterious nature of Satoshi Nakamoto). Those who set it up and wrote the code have all the backdoors they need to shut this down at the click of a switch. They may be waiting for North Korea to get a bit more into it before doing so however.
I personally suspect it will crash to near zero of its own accord rather than due to NSA action though. The number of possible new bagholders for this scheme is very near to being exhausted right now. Stupid and gullible do exist in millions but it is a finite number.
Disclosure: I sold all my Bitcoins earlier this year !
You are FOS — and don’t understand the blockchain — the NSA CAN”T do SHIT to the ledger — HASHES are MATHEMATICALLY non-reverible
keys to wallets are protected by multiple layers of AES 256 bit encryption — so the NSA cant crack your wallet unless you hand out your private key (or are dumb enough to have your altcoins in an exchange without cold storage and 2 FA
I remember reading some time ago that someone paid real cash to buy someone else’s character in one of those online gaming … games. (Warcraft, I think.)
To me, “Bitcoins” is something like that. It’s not a real “coin”. What backs it up? A Danish tulip? A Beeny Baby? A Climate Model? Peoples’ imagination?
IMO “Peoples’ imagination” is the correct answer.
I was greatly interested in reading the comments here as my son and I are building another crypto miner.
Many of the comments echo my earlier thoughts regarding the subject, but due to my son’s interest and expertise in finance – currency markets I took the time to study the subject. There are more than a thousand cryptos today. Many are worthless. Many are real. It is truly the wild west.
But the blockchain is a game changer, maybe as big as the internet itself, and you really should take time to understand what it brings to the world. It is more than bitcoin. It is an incorruptible digital ledger of transactions that applies to anything of value.
Kodak just introduced its bitcoin variant which enables photographer to protect and secure value from their work. Kodak’s stock price has more than doubled in just a few days. Take a look at Ripple and be sure to check out the financial institutions that are behind this crypto. Look at the smart contract element of Etherium and the uses. There are many more examples. Consider credit cards and where the large percentage of the fees go (fraud) and how the block chain eliminates that problem. Regarding the use of power there are many fixes in the works. Ttake a look at the Lightning Network which is in beta.
This entertaining podcast at freakonomics http://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-everybody-who-doesnt-hate-bitcoin-loves-it-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast/ might pique you interest. Marc Andreeson is interviewed. While there you also might check out the link to the podcast “Still using cash.”
There is no point in talking about what my son has done in crypto trading the last few months because many of you will not believe it or dismiss it as a bubble or luck. But do take a look at the underlying technology. Fascinating stuff.
I recommend the book : “Attack of the 50 foot blockchain” by David Gerard.
This is his site:https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/
Blockchain is not going to change the world. the concept has been around longer than Bitcoin itself. Fundamentally if you have an open blockchain (i.e. can be mined/secured by anyone) then it is open to the possibility of an enemy/hostile country (or other entity) simply throwing enough computing power at your chain, instigating a 51% attack and having the power to alter all your data. No commercial organisation in the world is going to risk anything of real value or substance when it has such an inherent weakness.
Therefore if you want security from the 51% attack your blockchain has to be closed. This makes it centralised and therefore the concept of “trustless” participants is destroyed. Furthermore a closed blockchain can be replaced with a centralised database which will be cheaper and more efficient.
In reality there is not going to be any real world use for blockchains for anything of value or substance. Some people may use them for trivial things like online gaming where if it all gets corrupted you can just start the games again but for real things like property ownership it’s either too risky (as an open blockchain) or pointless and expensive (as a closed blockchain).
Once you actually understand what it is as opposed to be lured in by all the hype, PR and the elegant mathematics and cryptology you can see it for what it is, pointless and useless really.
You misunderstand a 51% attack. Dont worry most people do. you read a book.. I know… blah blah.
Its effectively suicide. Today a 51% attack would cost you on the order of a Billion dollars worth of equipment.
If you suceeded, you would gain nothing as you would destroy the value of the very thing you are manufacturing.
State actors might attack, in which case we would just hard fork a new POW.
that would only be for the next block — hashes are non-reversible — no transactions prior to the 51% point would be affected, and the developers could do a hard fork and the 51% ers would be shit out of luck
Power consumption is real even if the currency is not and the market is a bubble.
I expect to see you all open short positions against BTC..
“I expect to see you all open short positions against BTC..”
Is that the “intra objective declining” bet?
🙂
Only rich players can afford the luxury of taking a stance on the long term direction of BTC, whilst good day traders can make nice cash hoovering up a lot of nickels riding the intraday swings, irrespective of direction, without all the setup and running costs for mining a resource of finite, diminishing supply. It is currently a highly tradeable market because of the sheer number of players, enough of whom are the greater fools paying the savvy for lessons in market smarts. SInce coming onto this discussion an hour ago BTC/USD has dumped 400 points, and there is nothing unusual about swings of this magnitude in either direction in this market.
Supply driven demand has been, for the last month at least, overwhelmed by a decline in demand, where normally tightening supply should maintain upward price pressure. The significance of mining on price (and all that goes with it) has been easily overrun by crowd driven speculative behaviour for the pre-existing commodity. If BTC can survive this absurd speculative bubble, which actually undermines its usefulness as a method of payment, it might still settle down to be a credible currency, and there is no problem with that at all.
[snip]
“Steven Mosher claimed in December that Bitcoin miners all use hydro, in response to my suggestion that bitcoin was causing a rise in CO2 emissions. Avoiding CO2 emissions seems to be important to Bitcoin advocates.”
Nope never claimed that
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/12/17/bitcoin-climate-dilemma-mining-bitcoin-consumes-an-entire-country-worth-of-electricity/#comment-2695877
Eric references Bloomberg.
what do they say
“While the figure is too small to be a major driver of global utility shares, it represents an important growth story for companies investing in wind and solar power combined with energy storage — a list that includes NextEra Energy Inc., Iberdrola SA and Enel SpA, according to the note. Other potential beneficiaries include big oil companies that are investing in renewable energy and green-power developers that are backed by initial-coin-offering capital raises.”
Eric references bloomberg to make his arguments and they basically agree with me.
what would I know about the power sources my customers use?
More than Eric. duh
Bloomberg gets a lot correct, but Eric doesnt read
“Within four years, Hydro-Quebec envisions miners soaking up about five terawatt-hours of power annually — equivalent to about 300,000 Quebec homes — from the surplus created by the region’s hydroelectric dams. “If we have to invest in our transmission network, these investments will be paid for by the miners,” Pouliot said.”
Bottom line:
1. Most large Bitcoin operations do direct purchase from the power generating facilities: It’s a mix
but largely skewed toward renewables. In some areas, as I noted, almost exclsuively. Cheapest power
wins the day.
2. The vast majority of the power is either excess or stranded in some way.. Stranded because it
hasnt been connected to a grid or excess–
3. For folks who want to calculate the power consumption you can do it for yourselves with open source
data. No need to rely on a Bloomberg paywalled analysis as trsuting naive Eric does.
Eric:
“Do all bitcoin miners use hydro power or renewables? In my opinion very unlikely. Even “certified renewable” power is suspect. In 2010, Spanish solar providers were busted producing solar power at night.
Huh? Nobody is arguing that they ALL use hydro or renewable. Most, many, nearly all in the US,
the vast majority, a huge number,
Yes, as I noted before, there are some who use coal, fuel oil, gas, Always execeptions.
the thing is Eric has no facts. Zero.
he has opinion.
he has what he reads.
he does not actually do site visits to see for himself.
he is strawman fake news.
lets recap the argument.
Eric version 1: Bitcoin is making a bunch of c02
SM: err no, we mostly use renewables.
Eric version 2: “Mosher says they ALL use renewables, here is a bloomberg article
that argues the same as Mosher, but I Believe this is unlikely.”
Eric never tells us WHY he believes it is unlikely. he never gives you one fact that comes close to establishing what he needs to establish.
Here is a simple question for eric
Eric what portion of the Bitcoin farms that you have visited were powered by Fossil fuels?
Do you think that using renewables is unlikely because you dont believe Hydro is cheap?
Bitcoins are very much like precious metals in only two regards, so far as I can see. First, their “floor value” is established by the cost of “mining” them. Second, their market value is established strictly by the law of supply and demand. It has been noted by others that tulip bulbs have those same two characteristics. You can check your history books to find how that one came out.
Among other differences, government issued currency has two characteristics that precious metals, bitcoins or tulip bulbs do not possess. The first is that it is backed by the “good faith and credit” of the issuing government. Second, it is by law, “legal tender”; that means all creditors are required to accept it as legal settlement of any and all debts.
Blockchain is so yesterday.
Hashgraph!
Ultimately Bitcoin will rely on government support and even more will rely on Bitcoin replacing the leading currencies like the dollar/yen/sterling etc. That can only happen if the governments can wield regulatory control over the currency. If regulatory control is a matter of trust and can be bypassed at will, governments cannot accept it as cuurency as they will be unable to reliably extract taxes from transactions and therefore will be unable to govern. By its very nature Bitcoin cannot offer control and therefore cannot be used as a global currency by sovereign governments.
Regulations will be imposed, if they are voluntary – they will not work. My guess is ultimately governments will declare transactions in bitcoin illegal. This doesnt mean that transactions will cease, but it is likely that the value of bitcoin will revert to near zero. Should this happen (personally I believe it is politically inevitable) – Bitcoin will join all the other bubbles AND Ponzi schemes as examples of greed and scamming.
And on the note of using renewables – can I write to my electricity supply facility and insist my power comes from wind only because I want to be green, or from coal because I want it cheap. Of course not I pay the same as everybody else. To be able to ‘buy’ a block of hydro power and claim your green credentials is just another political scam that is not available to the majority of consumers. This relies on politics and governments wishing to show their carbon efficiency and is total b/s. It is as meaningless as asking my power to be colour coded so I can select which colour I want to use when flicking a switch. If Mosher for instance believes in this absolute brain washing idiocy it only proves that he is a great ‘believer’, arguments such as his are often very interesting but on this one perhaps should be filed under ‘highly amusing’.
Works real well inside your country with your own government but is meaningless if others in the world won’t accept your local currency. There are a number of UN sanctions in force at the moment. Every currency has problems 🙂
UN sanctions can’t stop peer to peer exchange of crypto tokens of value
it’s backed by the full faith and credit of mrs watanabe, russian oligarchs, argentine refugees, chinese emigrants and those who don’t say no to drugs..
it is keeping some people alive by making it possible to escape serious predation and as long as that demand exists, it has real value.
Not to mention you need no bank account or identity to execute cryptocurrency transactions — simply a wallet with the proper currency addresses
nobody cards the cash buyer, either.
any transaction has 2 sides. it’s barely accepted anywhere in the world for anything, so it’s hardly competing with cash as a medium of exchange. it’s a forex type commodity for the speculators to gamble with and
it’s a medium of transmission that doesn’t use regular banks, but it is no more anonymous than any other thing done on any thoroughly monitored and recorded electronic medium
There is a 21 million limit on bitcoins and most of that has already been created so the bitcoin mining will soon stop. When that happens the real bitcoin bubble starts. However just as in all bubbles the thing that bubbles always has to rely on the prevailing governmental monetary systems to achieve value. Bitcoin attempts to masquerade as money and is trying to achieve a certain respectability ie traded on exchanges, but it will morph into a perpetual collector item whereby it bubbles and crashes and bubbles and crashes ad infinitum. The problem with bitcoin is it has no intrinsic value. It isnt like a piece of art and cant become a medium of exchange because of the 21 million limit. As the youtube video explained though, the Bitcoin network is the only cryptocurrency large and sophisticated enough to withstand hacker attacks to bring it down. That in itself will guarantee its survival. However as a medium of exchange to replace all the world’s money. FORGET IT.
you will still be paid to solve transactions, just not as much
each bitcoin transfer costs bitcoin (a tiny bit)
Bitcoins can be divided into 10,000,000 satoshi’s each — so that’s $210 Trillion bitcoin based tokens of value — at 41 per satoshi — that’s more than all the assets in the world
$1 per satoshi