Daniel Batten@DSBatten
There has never been an industry whose success has been determined by so few variables as Bitcoin mining
Hashrate
Bitcoin Price
Electricity Price
ASICS Price
Block reward (and fees)
Ancillary revenue
That's it
6 factors
Not in-store-spend
Not Customer conversion rates
Not market penetration
Not demographic data
And no sales and marketing campaign or customer outreach campaign will change this
You're at the mercy of 6 variables, 4 of which you have no control over, save a small bit of wiggle-room that you can create by negotiation in the case of ASICS price.
The only variables you can control is electricity price and ancillary revenue source. (More about this later)
For this reason, we can do something we've never been able to do for any industry ever
We can read the future non-speculatively, because it already exists today
In Europe, electricity prices are astronomically high. So much so, that it effectively simulates a future reality where the economics are similar to a US-based mining company one halving into the future (with half the block reward).
Yet, Bitcoin mining thrives in Europe: the most hostile electricity-price environment, regulatory, environment and tax environment in the world towards Bitcoin mining.
You'd never know it, because it happens mostly under the radar, and it is (legitimately) called "datacenters", "grid stabilization services", and "heat reuse" to avoid regulatory hostility and taxation hostility.
Bitcoin mining thrives here because of one factor alone: their ancillary revenue is very high compared to the rest of the world.
So high in fact that many European mining companies are more profitable than their US counterparts
This is why I have no fear about the future of Bitcoin mining
This is why discussions about security budget are redundant: Bitcoin doesn't need one
This is why we don't need to have speculative discussions about the direction of Bitcoin mining.
Europe already ran that simulation, and the data is in.
The future of Bitcoin mining is that it seeks out stranded energy at near zero marginal cost.
The future of Bitcoin mining is that it stabilizes grids and recycles heat as a primary revenue source, with the blockreward and fees being the by-product
The future of Bitcoin mining is that it solves hard problems the world desparately needs - keeping our grid safe and stable, making AI load flexible, reducing harmful methane pollution, stopping the wasteful practice of renewable energy curtailment in ways that benefit whole communities
The future of Bitcoin mining is that it is the usecase of Bitcoin that the world sees and embraces first.
