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Author Topic: Ordinals and other non-monetary "use cases" as miner reward on 2140+  (Read 216 times)
d5000
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June 18, 2024, 07:04:12 PM
Merited by cryptosize (1)
 #21

The security of the Bitcoin is in hands of the few companies, if profitability drops or they find something more profitable to mine then Bitcoin network will be doomed.
I disagree with this logic.

First, if "they" (I guess you mean the big mining companies like Riot, ViaBTC etc.?) find something more profitable, then difficulty will go down, and it will become easier for smaller players to enter mining again. Decentralization in this case will probably grow, although more slowly than in the past due to higher entry barriers.

Second, this will be a gradual process. While halvings are unique events, the consequences are different for each miner, depending on its exact business model (e.g. if it relies more on cheap electricity or on other scale effect, on speculation [HODLing] or not, etc.). So the most likely scenario is that if some big miner retires from the business or goes bankrupt this would be first good for the other mining companies as the difficulty pressure will be lower (hashrate will probably grow more slowly), and will help them to stay in the business.

There is only one factor I could be a little bit more afraid of - if a country becomes too dominant, then an event (be it a new tax, a ban or a sudden rentability problem) driving out miners from there could drop hashrate again like during the China ban. However, the US has currently probably around 35-40% of the worldwide hashrate, so in the current situation it would be less of a problem than in 2021, and 60% of the current hashrate would be still "secure enough". But such events could be problematic in the far future when the attack cost has lowered. So I share a bit your concerns about decentralization problems.

But I anyway expect a change in miner behaviour in the next 5-10 years. As electricity cost is about 70% of the cost of each Bitcoin mined (for the miners) and renewable energy share is growing around the world, I expect to switch them slowly from a 24/7 mining model to a model where they use a wholesale energy tariff (these are becoming more common now) to benefit from very low prices in times of high solar/wind production and thus at least turn off their gears voluntarily when energy is expensive, mining e.g. only 70-80% of the time but to a even lower price than now (< 5 ct/kWh is easy with this strategy, even < 3 ct is feasible. i.e. better than the famous Riot agreement of 3.5 ct). This model is much more likely to be adaptable all around the world (the "duck curve" is starting to look the same in several countries), so mining could decentralize again due to this evolution. This is controversial and has been disputed by some forum members, but they haven't convinced me that my thoughts are wrong.

There is also an additional point. Bitcoin mining companies are basically server farms. In periods of low profitability, they can diversify their income sources offering servers for other cloud services. This is already been done by most big mining companies, and it is also one of my reasons why I think that if profitability drops there will not be a "big hashrate crunch", but a very gradual process, because bigger miners will slowly dedicate more percentage of their farms to other cloud services once their hardware becomes unprofitable, instead of going offline completely. And that will re-balance with difficulty growth again and again.

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cryptosize
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June 18, 2024, 10:58:52 PM
Merited by d5000 (1), ABCbits (1)
 #22

But I anyway expect a change in miner behaviour in the next 5-10 years. As electricity cost is about 70% of the cost of each Bitcoin mined (for the miners) and renewable energy share is growing around the world, I expect to switch them slowly from a 24/7 mining model to a model where they use a wholesale energy tariff (these are becoming more common now) to benefit from very low prices in times of high solar/wind production and thus at least turn off their gears voluntarily when energy is expensive, mining e.g. only 70-80% of the time but to a even lower price than now (< 5 ct/kWh is easy with this strategy, even < 3 ct is feasible. i.e. better than the famous Riot agreement of 3.5 ct). This model is much more likely to be adaptable all around the world (the "duck curve" is starting to look the same in several countries), so mining could decentralize again due to this evolution.
IIRC, what you're suggesting is already a reality in Texas.

Miners there don't work 24/7/365, but only when the state has a surplus of energy.

When there's high demand for energy (during heat waves or harsh winters), they switch off ASICs.

This is controversial and has been disputed by some forum members, but they haven't convinced me that my thoughts are wrong.
Why should we trust them? Are they the sole arbiters of truth or what? Roll Eyes

I've been saying for a long time that BTC + renewable energy + AI (to manage the energy distribution grid faster and more effectively than human beings) will be the ultimate combo until 2050 at least.

How it started:

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/12/bitcoin-consume-more-power-than-world-2020/

How it's going:

https://www.instagram.com/worldeconomicforum/reel/C35FfRytPtJ/

 Grin

Net Zero/Greta fanatics still cannot believe that Bitcoin/PoW is more ecological than they thought! Cheesy

Imagine if BTC was centrally planned (like ETH) and switched to PoS:

https://cleanupbitcoin.com/

Bitcoin will help speed up the green energy transition. Few people understand this (even among the BTC community, let alone no-coiners). Wink

ps: I'm not saying Satoshi invented it for this purpose, nor that WEF had this planned from the get-go.
pooya87
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Today at 03:04:17 AM
 #23

Hint: Profitability - It's not going up.
And there's nothing wrong with it until it hits the wall of no profit.
The hashrate is constantly rising and it has risen massively. That means mining has to be increasingly more profitable to create that incentive for people to join the mining scene by making that commitment and investment every year.

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d5000
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Today at 04:13:35 AM
 #24

IIRC, what you're suggesting is already a reality in Texas. Miners there don't work 24/7/365, but only when the state has a surplus of energy.
Yes, it's beginning, but I think it's still a 95-99%-on model. AFAIK those miners only turn off the gears in periods of extreme demand surplus, when they're "ordered" to turn off operations by the electricity distributor, as a condition to benefit from energy credits (Riot case).

Anyway, I think soon we'll start to see miners doing the same but voluntarily chosing their on-/off-cycle due to them using the wholesale price (i.e. participating in auctions in the energy exchanges themselves, or with access to a tariff which follows the wholesale price - something already available in several European countries even for retail energy consumers). By the way this method would even stay relatively attractive if the "DAME" mining tax is implemented in the US, as the prices they would pay when they effectively consume would be low, and thus also the tax (Anyway I don't like the tax concept, above all own renewable generation should be always excepted.).

Why should we trust them? Are they the sole arbiters of truth or what? Roll Eyes
Of course, that's also why I will repeat this argument until somebody proves I'm wrong - but then I've no problem to admit an own error. But I think evidence is clearly pointing into this direction Smiley

The hashrate is constantly rising and it has risen massively. That means mining has to be increasingly more profitable to create that incentive for people to join the mining scene by making that commitment and investment every year.
I think you can't deduce from the risen hashrate that mining has become more profitable. Only that it stays profitable, but currently only for those who can afford efficient ASICs and cheap electricity. The hashrate increase is very likely largely a product of hardware improvements (Moore's law).

However I agree with you that MeGold666's fears are probably unfounded - if profitability was that bad we would see a slower increase.

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