With the halving of Bitcoin mining rewards approaching, many are excited about the continued deflation of the currency, everybody's seeing green. My concern is that this means miners will have to consume double the energy load to secure the same amount of BTC. Any news and sentiment you've seen thus far about the climate disaster that is PoW mining consumption may be significantly exacerbated. In this situation, we will certainly see more regulation and worsening sentiment regarding the ecosystem.
The expectation from many seems to be that with the deflation of the currency, while double the energy will be necessary to mine the same amount of coin, the value of the coin could double, leading to the change in rewards adding up to a wash. The situation is at best foreboding.
We have been in the situation where mining wasn't worth it before. Personally mining didn't ROI for me when I made 0.02 BTC a day on my one computer so I stopped.
Someone will always speculate for it to come back. Someone will always have access to excess cheap power.
The expectation from many seems to be that with the deflation of the currency, while double the energy will be necessary to mine the same amount of coin, the value of the coin could double, leading to the change in rewards adding up to a wash. The situation is at best foreboding.