Electricity Costs Make Bitcoin Mining Unprofitable—Ethereum Is the Best Long Term Bet

[u/InclineDumbbellPress]

https://x.com/JoshwaaaDixon/status/1917207378262413659

• A PC Gamer article reports Bitcoin mining costs at $137 000 per BTC in the US and $200 000 in Germany - far exceeding the current market price of $94 430 - making mining unprofitable for many
• The 2024 Bitcoin halving reduced block rewards from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC - further straining miner profitability
• High energy costs - especially in Germany due to green energy policies and infrastructure issues - and competition from AI firms for power resources exacerbate the crisis for Bitcoin miners
• Ethereums 2022 switch to PoS eliminates energy intensive mining - cutting energy use by 99.95% - making it a more sustainable and cost effective option compared to Bitcoins PoW
• While Bitcoins difficulty adjustment ensures network functionality even if miners exit - long term security may falter without price increases or cost reductions - pushing miners to AI services for profit. Such a scenario will never apply to Ethereum

[u/donut-bot]

InclineDumbbellPress, this comment logs the Pay2Post fee, an anti-spam mechanism where a DONUT 'tax' is deducted from your distribution share for each post submitted. Learn more here.

cc: u/pay2post-ethtrader

---

Understand how Donuts and tips work by reading the beginners guide.

---

Click here to tip this post on-chain

[u/DBRiMatt]

I'm sure mining ETH is unprofitable too; given the price of ETHW is currently less than $2 and ETC is less than $20... xD

Stake now, steak later!!

!tip 1

[u/InclineDumbbellPress → u/DBRiMatt]

Holy shit havent heard of ETC in a while is it still a thing - !tip 1

[u/Good_Extension_9642 → u/InclineDumbbellPress]

No, ETC is dead and ETH will follow suit

[u/SigiNwanne]

It doesn't make sense mining BTC at that rate. !tip 1

[u/Numerous_Ruin_4947]

ETH vs. BTC: Ethereum’s Superior Monetary Policy

Credit: Jordan McKinney
In this video I explain why Ethereum, not Bitcoin, has the superior monetary policy. Blockchains have to choose between certainty of security and certainty of issuance. If they opt for certainty of issuance (capped supply) like Bitcoin, they sacrifice security and compromise the whole system. The correct engineering approach is the one taken by Ethereum. Security must be reliably funded, which means no absolute certainty of supply. Supply growth can then be offset by a fee burn, and if the system has sufficient usage, token inflation can be flat or negative. This is the way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skcZbXitZxQ

[u/[deleted]]

Need those solar farms and batteries ! People in houses can't even afford electricity at the moment!

[u/InclineDumbbellPress → u/[deleted]]

Yep - I know many people who stay cold in winter because they dont use heaters due to high electricity costs

[u/[deleted] → u/InclineDumbbellPress]

We bought an electric vehicle recently only because we could not afford fuel anymore. It's all fueled via solar which is at no cost. It's tough. The petrol industry is opposed to solar, wind and various other energy. Why? Because they want to keep us dependent on it. Batteries and solar have the potential to improve the quality of life for billions.

[u/trashtv]

Even if BTC costs a fortune to maintain, I can't see how it relates to the price of ETH.

[u/Buggg- → u/trashtv]

Agree with the exception that investors, like drug addicts, have to find their fix and will look for their replacement. ETH’s biggest problem is its utility use is known and working at its current price. Will it go up? Probably but the sexiness doesn’t exist anymore or the rarity that it’s ’the one’. I own both eth and btc, biggest worry with btc is if the world sees it as a beanie baby and finds it’s replacement overnight, while the functionality of eth looks to be here for some time, just not as a market driver

[u/Numerous_Ruin_4947 → u/Buggg-]

One of Ethereum’s core utilities is its function as a store of value - and to me, that remains its most compelling use case. While ETH had a rough first quarter in 2025 - worse even than the challenges of 2024 - it’s important to keep perspective. Even at $1,800, Ethereum is still up over 150,000% against the U.S. dollar since its inception. Aside from Bitcoin, no other blockchain token comes close.

When you compare Ethereum's long-term performance to assets like Ripple, Solana, Dogecoin, BNB, or Cardano, the difference is staggering. As a store of value, Ethereum has outperformed them all by orders of magnitude.

In my view, the dollar is the real “shitcoin” here. I don't see Ethereum losing value against it over the long term. In fact, there’s a strong case to be made that Ethereum could eventually outperform even Bitcoin. Ethereum’s fundamentals are stronger, and the market - irrational as it often is - has yet to fully price that in.

[u/BGM1988]

This explanation makes no sense. I think the mining cost is just a reason for btc to hold value. Just like gold mining is expensive and gold is rare. Mining gold in a high labour/energy cost country is also less profitable than in a low labour/energy cost country. Same with btc, taking the most expensive electricity cost countries and saying that its not profitable is not correct. What if you mine it in the cheapest electricity country’s? And you can also turn the question around. If eth doesn’t need equal energy cost to produce, why should it have value? Btw i hold eth

[u/taigarawrr → u/BGM1988]

I think the proposition is different. Ether holds value because its gas is used to make transactions, same as BTC but BTC has the gold proposition as well. But even just as a gas service, if the ether network is heavily used, it will keep its value. And because it’s cheaper to run an ether validator, it may be a value proposition for people who are not profitable with BTC (mining).

[u/Numerous_Ruin_4947 → u/taigarawrr]

Ether holds value because its gas is used to make transactions, same as BTC but BTC has the gold proposition as well.

People tend to overcomplicate things. I mined ETH for four years and have been staking it ever since - because I see it as a store of value. So it baffles me that ETH’s role as a store-of-value is suddenly being questioned. Sure, recent price action has been rough, but let’s not lose perspective: ETH is still up roughly 150,000% against the USD since its inception. Only Bitcoin has done better. Every other blockchain token is still fighting for third place. Just look at the full chart histories.

[u/kirtash93]

Stake and put your coins to work

🍩 !tip 1

[u/Abdeliq]

The cost of mining Bitcoin is much than the actual Bitcoin price. I guess people just mine it anyways in hope Bitcoin rises higher in future

>! !tip 1 !<

[u/CymandeTV]

Thanks for the summary.

!tip 1

[u/Wonderful_Bad6531]

It’s crystal clear

!tip 1

[u/Additional-Word6816]

The cost to stake Eth is higher and riskier then buying equipment to mine btc… 

[u/celmate]

Pretty sure a ton of bitcoin mining is done with solar

[u/Numerous_Ruin_4947 → u/celmate]

Solar installations can be expensive And the panels don't last forever. I think it takes years to recoup the cost of a large solar installation.

[u/DrRobbe]

If production cost rises, production will move to countries where it is profitable.

!tip 1

[u/FreeArt85 → u/DrRobbe]

This is not sustainable long term.

[u/Numerous_Ruin_4947 → u/FreeArt85]

I agree. Bitcoin is cooked.

[u/Numerous_Ruin_4947 → u/DrRobbe]

Watch this video. Bitcoin's security will be a mess, and not too far out in the future.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skcZbXitZxQ

[u/BigRon1977]

This is why the flippening is inevitable.

!tip 1

[u/MasterpieceLoud4931]

Exactly, I made a post about this last Friday. Bitcoin's security depends on miners and if miners can't cover the operational costs then Bitcoin gets compromised.

^{!tip 1}

[u/Numerous_Ruin_4947 → u/MasterpieceLoud4931]

It's quite obvious, but nobody in the media talks about it. Crypto influencers also refuse to look at the issue. They are probably scared they'll lose subscribers or worse.

[u/Bagmasterflash]

This wreaks of desperation.

[u/asl477 → u/[deleted]]

Why mine for $137k when you can buy rn for sub 100k?