Quote from: keystroke on November 18, 2014, 07:28:30 PM

There's a limit on the price not least because too much electricity would be used to mine the coins.

i.e. If BTC were to go to $500,000 in this era it would cause a catastrophic mining bubble:

$500,000 x 25 = $12,500,000 per block = $75,000,000 per hour

$75 million per hour would drive the mining to attempt to use 675 GW. This is about 30% of all the power generated on the planet.

Ref: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=518111.msg8674306#msg8674306

That calculation is only valid for a stable state and assumes that mining equipment costs nothing.

If my estimates are correct and if bitcoin were to be valued at 100k USD a coin the calculations for energy consumption for this era dictate mining equipment
roughly valued at 40 Billion USD to be able to consume that much power.

I agree that at too high a valuation a "catastrophic mining bubble" will ensue but initially not in regards to energy consumption.
First we would see insane investments into mining equipment and only then will energy consumption catch up.