Funny how these quarrels amongst coders get so many people so excited when we are actually just on our way down from willy/markus artificial highs towards the actual production cost of bitcoin (as any "regular" commodity would behave). As long the max amount of btc has not been mined (or that event is even poking from the far horizon), the amount of cash needed to mine a bitcoin is where the price is pulling.
Yes that is kitchen economics, but ffs that´s just how stuff works.
Fear not forks, fear free energy.
Wrong.
As long as there is speculation and demand the price can remain above production cost indefinitely.
You presume every mined coin is sold which is an asinine assumption.
The caveat of course is the price can also go below production if existing coins are added to the supply side.
The point being to use the cost of production as a metric for the true price is misinformed.