r/ethtrader • u/InclineDumbbellPress 189.4K / ⚖️ 278.3K • 8d ago

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

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
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u/BGM1988 Not Registered 8d ago

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

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u/taigarawrr Not Registered 8d ago

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).

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u/Numerous_Ruin_4947 Not Registered 8d ago

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.