Re: Bitcoin needs to change to avoid the inevitable environmentalist backlash
Perhaps you missed it:
I hadn't. That's actually very useful - this says that current bitcoin mining electricity usage is roughly 600 times less than the fiat banking system. Taking into account my previous point about the cost per user, that means that, per user bitcoin mining uses 11 times more than the fiat banking system.
Talking about cost per user is important because currently bitcoin is far from at mass adoption levels, whereas fiat certainly is.
However, if the bitcoin network acquired 100x more users, the consumption of electricity would not need to increase to sustain the other users, bringing the ratio per person to a more respectable level.
Also, as the profit ratio of mining decreases, I think that the overall hash rate will decrease. Many of the units that will be shut down will be older and less efficient, because they have completely lost profitability.