With the power requirements to run the BTC network continually increasing... what is the long term solution? It doesn't seem viable that it can go on forever like this. Anyone have good insight? It's easy to just assume... "well there will be cheaper energy in the future" or "BTC will just switch to POS".... I guess I'm looking for answers with a little more substance and detail. Thanks!
I'm not sure what you're getting at, exactly. Bitcoin's difficulty algorithm is meant to adjust to waxing and waning levels of miner investment. As Bitcoin becomes less profitable to mine, rational marginal miners will start shutting down their operations. By the same token, hash rate continues to trend upwards because of heightened speculation on the future price of BTC.
It's a "gold rush" so to speak. It will eventually die down when profitability drops (maybe because of miner oversaturation or a long term bear market), and difficulty will adjust accordingly. Just as difficulty has been trending upwards for so long, it's okay for it to trend downwards. We just don't want to see a
sudden, drastic drop in hash rate that puts security at risk by allowing old generation mining equipment to attack the network. As long as fees rise to replace the block subsidy, that risk should be mitigated.