Conversation

SBF
@SBF_FTX
1) So on energy usage of BTC: The profile will change long-term. Right now the main driver is from block rewards. But as block rewards exponentially decay, those will become less relevant. Long-term, there are really two core drivers.
46
1,327
SBF
@SBF_FTX
2) First, transaction fees. There's limited block space, and transactions will basically be bidding in auctions for those. That means that greater demand for BTC transfers --> higher tx fees --> breakeven point with more miners --> more energy used.
1
210
SBF
@SBF_FTX
3) So long-term energy used by BTC will scale with total demand for BTC transfers. The other thing it scales with is security. If anyone accumulates 51% hashrate they can attack the network. So for BTC to be secure, it has to be prohibitively expensive to get 51% hashrate.
3
219
SBF
@SBF_FTX
4) The payoff from attacking the network scales roughly linearly in BTC price (market cap and/or $ value of xfers per block). So I think this scaling is similar to the tx fee scaling.
1
172
SBF
@SBF_FTX
5) Which means that: a) most of the current energy usage will decay away as block rewards go down b) the rest of the energy usage will scale ~linearly with BTC price
2
215
SBF
@SBF_FTX
Replying to
@SBF_FTX
7) But I think there _is_ long-term pressure to find a chain with great long-term scaling, that can power billions of users' transfers at minimal cost and latency. Anyone know a chain that fits that description?
65
404