If we would monetize your manual labor by putting you on a rowing machine you would have produce approximately $0.30 of value per day.
I often hear the argument: Bitcoin mining is wasting enormous amounts of energy.
Bitcoin mining uses about the same amount of energy as a small country and that is fine!
Time for a thread:
If we would monetize your manual labor by putting you on a rowing machine you would have produce approximately $0.30 of value per day.
This brings the need for balancing the network. Without it, the grid will become unstable.
Solar energy only creates energy when the sun shines. Wind energy only creates energy when the wind blows.
Producers have to produce at sub optimal levels which hurts their profitability and stability. Excess energy is dumped or even sold at a negative price!
Another example are hydroelectric dams, where because of their location, sometimes the energy created can simply not be transported far enough to meet demand.
Therefore miners will move to the edge of the grid where energy is cheapest and there simply is no other use case, if there was, they would be outcompeted.
It provides an opportunity to monetize excess capacity in situations with varying load and will even help our transition towards a more sustainable future by making those solutions more profitable.
@saifedean @johnkvallis @stephanlivera @Breedlove22 @wmiddelkoop