> But that’s not the case: in Bitcoin, more electricity does not buy “more Bitcoin”, it rather buys “more security”.
I think this piece misses. Electricity and hash power does translate to economic value. It gives you more share of the 6.25 reward. The author's argument is made by conflating economic value and security into one.
As a whole, the system produces 6.25 bitcoins every 10 minutes. The reward is a constant. But the BTCUSD price can go up. And it has always been going up. That means it's always profitable to invest in mining.
The original piece from Nick Grossman also misses. There're two problems with using Bitcoin as a battery. The first problem is Bitcoin has an unbounded energy use [1]. If its price continues to go up forever, that means we'd spend unbounded energy. The second problem is volatility. Unlike the aluminum example, Bitcoin has no intrinsic value. It has no practical applications like aluminum. Its price is pure speculation. With Bitcoin, we're converting energy into a volatile asset.
Bitcoin can be a battery. But it's a fairly bad one. It stores value with high volatility. The problem hindering Bitcoin's adoption is volatility. Changing the narrative from digital gold to battery won't fix the problem.
But this is zero-sum competition for a portion of a fixed supply. In the aggregate, more electricity does not buy more Bitcoin because it is a fundamental principle of the Bitcoin system that the supply of Bitcoin cannot be increased in response to anything.
More electricity buys more BTCUSD, so far. It hasn't been a problem since Bitcoin price continues to go up. If you own Bitcoin, you believe it'd go up forever. If you don't own Bitcoin, you think it'd stop at some point. This is the disconnect between Bitcoin and the world.
I might buy an umbrella because I believe it is going to rain, but that does not mean that an increase in the supply of umbrellas will lead to an increase in the amount of rain.
Thank you for a measured response that doesn't categorize everyone on the "wrong side" of history here as inept, or miscategorizes Proof of Work.
What also seems to be thrown out with the bathwater in this discussion is that for the project of intermediary free money, with a long time horizon, the subsidy is only a small reason Bitcoin will have ever been mined.
I think this piece misses. Electricity and hash power does translate to economic value. It gives you more share of the 6.25 reward. The author's argument is made by conflating economic value and security into one.
As a whole, the system produces 6.25 bitcoins every 10 minutes. The reward is a constant. But the BTCUSD price can go up. And it has always been going up. That means it's always profitable to invest in mining.
The original piece from Nick Grossman also misses. There're two problems with using Bitcoin as a battery. The first problem is Bitcoin has an unbounded energy use [1]. If its price continues to go up forever, that means we'd spend unbounded energy. The second problem is volatility. Unlike the aluminum example, Bitcoin has no intrinsic value. It has no practical applications like aluminum. Its price is pure speculation. With Bitcoin, we're converting energy into a volatile asset.
Bitcoin can be a battery. But it's a fairly bad one. It stores value with high volatility. The problem hindering Bitcoin's adoption is volatility. Changing the narrative from digital gold to battery won't fix the problem.
[1] https://bitflate.org/post/2021/02/05/the-bitcoin-price-parad...