> I think Bitcoin makes particularly elegant usage of energy, and is getting more energy efficient over time.<p>I see no logical basis for the latter. With a fixed amount of miner rewards, the amount of electricity spent on competing for it will approach its value. With each new generation of more efficient ASICs, miners just end raising the hashrate.<p>> That’s what journalists and other people who don’t understand the algorithm often miss: the declining block subsidy. This results in Bitcoin’s inflation rate going down<p>The inflation rate would go down as well without a declining block subsidy. The latter just makes it go down faster.<p>> some analysts and critics of the network are concerned that Bitcoin won’t use enough energy to remain secure in the future when it relies mostly on transaction fees. I don’t view that as a primary concern either<p>Strangely no reason given for this wishful thinking that declining rewards leading to declining security won't be a long term problem.<p>> Since they don’t need to expend resources to stake, they can simply increase their overall staking amount as they earn ongoing coins from staking rewards, and exponentially grow their influence on the network over time,<p><i>Every</i> staker increases their stake by the same percentage; each one is just holding on to their share of the pie; there is no exponentially growth.<p>> I think money that doesn’t have a cost ultimately ends up being political in nature. So people closer to the money, the so-called Cantillon Effect, are going to be advantaged.<p>Early miners/adopters were (exponentially!) closer to the money in bitcoin.
The most apolitical money is one without reward reduction.
<a href="https://futurism.com/bitcoin-mining-company-buys-entire-coal-power-plant" rel="nofollow">https://futurism.com/bitcoin-mining-company-buys-entire-coal...</a> sums it up for me.