Macro strategist Lyn Alden, creator of Lyn Alden Investment Strategy and board member of Swan Bitcoin, has posted an explanation about Bitcoin’s energy consumption and mining revenue on her Twitter page.
As the block subsidy declines and moves toward transaction fees solely, Alden predicts that Bitcoin mining income will rise more slowly than market valuation and transfer volume. This is the flaw in the logic of those who believe Bitcoin’s energy consumption is an exponential concern.
The average yearly money velocity of bitcoin is very unstable. When tweaked to omit rapid hops for mixers and exchange shuffling, it’s less volatile.
In her words:
“Some people argue that Bitcoin uses (or will use) too much energy. Ironically, other people argue that Bitcoin eventually won’t use enough energy to be secure, once the block subsidy mostly goes away.”
Since Segwit’s soft fork, anytime bitcoin costs go high, Segwit adoption spikes and the network grows more efficient, argues Alden. She continued by saying that ultimately this will be used up. As volume rises, fees will rise.
Alden believes that many individuals who worry that bitcoin would become unsafe due to a lack of fees fail to account for Segwit adoption; these people mistakenly believe that transfer volume is remaining constant.
From here on out, scaling Bitcoin will need action on a higher layer of the network, or even a future soft split. If fee pressure exists, it may push adoption of top layers and encourage further development.
Long-term, adoption and efficiency concerns. If Bitcoin adoption stagnates, its energy use will fall; if it continues, it will consume a considerable amount of energy but more efficiently, says Alden. The network’s energy consumption is limited by its usefulness.
