I think people need to consider the effect of how many coins are lost on average - I dont have the study in front of me - but an average of 19% of digital coins in hard drives are lost per year - and its higher on the percent scale for coins that have billions of quantity like us. So I can offer a counter argument that in scenario B when we have 2000 laptops mining as compared to 200 PODC miners, not only did they collectively spend as much in electricty, but they lost more biblepay coins.
If you think of it, could you dig up that article later and share it here? The 19% number sounds a little off to me. If we start with 100% of a coin, after the first year we're looking at 81%, then 65%, then 53% at the end of the third year, if my math is correct. This would mean about 50% of a cryptocurrency disappears every 3 years? Someone smarter than I, please compute how much BTC is left with a 19% loss per year since its beginning? I'm just having difficulty believing those numbers. If this effect happens smoothly across coins, then it's not much of an advantage to BBP, as there are many many coins that will suffer the same effect. If the number of users losing their wallets is significant, wouldn't it be safe to assume that a certain number of them would just give up the on whichever coin instead of starting over? Wouldn't this "benefit" have some loss of users as a side effect?
That BBP would benefit by its users losing coins at an even higher rate, is puzzling to me why it hasn't provided upwards pressure on its own?