Quote from: BurtW on July 14, 2014, 04:35:49 PM

Quote from: BurtW on July 09, 2014, 08:16:59 AM

That is an interesting point with respect to the dream of having 1 BTC = $100,000 (or pick your favorite high number).

Using my previously derived formula for the power consumption:

P = (6(50/2^e) + f)(x)(1 - g)/c [kW]

where:

x = exchange rate [USD/BTC]
e = era [0..32] (we are currently in era 1)
f = average fees per hour [BTC/hour]
c = cost of energy [USD/kWh]
g = average gross profit margin [unitless ratio]

we can look at the power consumption in each era assuming a price of $100,000 per BTC.

In order to make it simple I will make the following assumptions:

x = $100,000 per BTC
f = fees per hour will keep the coinbase above 6 BTC/hour (1 BTC/block) in all eras
c = $0.10 per kWh
g = 0.1 miner gross profit margin

Code:

Original target Subsidy Est Fees Power
Era starting year BTC/block BTC/hour GW
--- --------------- ----------- ---------- ------
  0 2009 50.00000000 0.00000000 270.00
  1 2013 25.00000000 0.00000000 135.00
  2 2017 12.50000000 0.00000000 67.50
...

Based on the same premise of a 100,000 USD bitcoin for this era (1):
I am assuming an energy consumption of 0.5 W/GH/s and 1.5 GH/s/USD for new miners and a current hashrate of 2,65×10¹⁷ Hashes per second.

Code:

6,75×10¹⁹ ( hashrate at efficiency of 0.5W/GH/s for 135.00 GW)
6,75×10¹⁹−(2,65000000×10¹⁷) = 6,7235×10¹⁹ ( the outstanding hashrate required)
6,7235×10¹⁹÷(1,5×10⁹) = 44823333333,333333333 USD (The amount of USD needed to buy mining hardware with the above specs to actually reach that hashrate)

Does that make sense? Did I miss something?

I'll look like an idiot if I've made a gross miscalculation but according to this you would need roughly 44 billion USD in current mining equipment to actually reach
that energy consumption level.

[edit]

First mistake already! ;-) (~~I used a more specific hashrate beforehand~~ I have no idea where that number came from! Calculator memory? who knows. Apparently it wasn't insanely far off)
Numbers before edit: 6,643811699×10¹⁹ outstanding hashrate in usd -> 44292077993,333333333 USD