This is possible some miners have this advantage of almost zero cost for electricity, but for the masses no.They must be stealing it from the governenment, either way someone pays the cost.  

There is also land rent and maintenance expenses.

How do we know miners are running at a loss while difficulty is up up and up? In my mind, the pure cost is only electricity, the others could be regarded as sunk cost. How much is the electricity, anybody knows here?

Also in my mind, leverage shorting is the main power driving prices down. Others could be negligible. Importantly, where does the shorting cover to close their shorts?

Nonsense.  Neo Bee was the first Crypto bank.

It is about risk vs. reward.  Sure, the "runups" might be over.  In fact, Bitcoin could go to zero.  

However, it could still be very early in it's growth and we could see $100,000 per coin or more.

The question then becomes is the risk worth the reward?  I believe it is a resounding YES!

In a way, we all have the chance to become venture capitalists in Bitcoin with any small amount we are willing and able to throw in.  Usually these kinds of investment opportunities are not available to the "little people" or people like me with very little money to throw in.  By the time we get the chance to invest in the best companies, the VC's have already made millions and moved on to the next investment. These VC's are the risk takers.  They throw money into companies that lose everything.  However, for the few that make it their reward is beyond what we can imagine because most of us do not get those kinds of opportunities.

So that is why we are willing to be "all in" with what we have.  For some of us, we had very little to begin with and if we end up back to where we started we can at least say we gave it a shot.  That is a much better feeling than seeing the price rise to $1000, $5000, $10,000, or even $100,000 someday and then crying, "Why didn't I invest when it was $350!  

Low fee if compared to international wire transfers, yes. Buying things, I don't think so.

Let's look at an example. In Tokyo at least I can use a PASMO/Suica card to buy a bowl of ramen. Say, 1000 yen (I know, pricey ramen). To get that money on the card I put a 1000 yen note in the machine and it loads my card. So there is 0.- fees involved for me as a user and can all be done in 5 minutes. Similarly, Edy can be charged for 0.- fees, if I'm not mistaken. And Edy I can use on Rakuten, Amazon (JP).

To get that amount in BTC, I would have to send money to the exchanges' bank (a bank fee there if it's not the same as mine), exchange it there (exchange fee applies) and, for convenience and safety, get the BTC to my wallet (another small fee there, potentially). No way that could all be done in 5 minutes. Additionally, since it does take longer, I'm exposed to the exchange risk. So what I thought I had put on my wallet to pay for the ramen, might not be enough by the time I finally make it to the shop.

So, no, I don't think the "low" fees will be the trigger for the Japanese to accept it to buy things.

Rakuten was only established in 1997. I'm more interested to hear about keiretsu type companies when talking big money. But, well done you found one. I can see where you're sentiment of "huge adoption" comes from.  

Even if Rakuten goes with bitcoin integration in Japan (their only one currently is in the US), it does not mean that bitcoin will be largely adopted by the general public. Exactly because - like you pointed out in the other thread - there are many, many options available to the Japanese already, most of which are more convenient than the use of bitcoin.

Also, keep in mind that the "big money" in Japan is with the older generation, so even if the younger generation may seem to be more open minded, they don't have the money to invest in new things.

The Chinese mindset is different to the Japanese. The Chinese invest money in pretty much everything they can get their hands on to. The Japanese are much more reluctant to jump on "new things".

Well, I have doubts that japanese people will really want to play, speculating on Bitcoin.
We have a big handicap here (I live in Tokyo) : MtGox. Everybody think that MtGox = Bitcoin so Bitcoin = dangerous.
Japanese people love new technologies, but without a very heavy "back up" from a very big Japanese company, Bitcoin will have a hard time being trusted. I hope Rakuten will change that !
I don't think exchanges in here has 0 fees on transactions.
I'll try Kraken later, but for the moment the BTC/JPY pair has 0￥ volume. Even if I was really disappointed on Kraken decision to delete the DOGE/EUR pair which had ~1500$/day volume.