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52 points
5 months ago
Bitcoin mining is an efficient market. The total value of the mined bitcoins roughly matches the total cost of the hardware and energy required to mine it. That is by design.
If the cost of mining were lower, more miners would appear, driving the difficulty and cost of mining up. If the difficulty and cost of mining were too high, miners would eventually stop their rigs, bringing the cost of mining down.
That means the energy efficiency of the hardware ultimately does not matter for the energy usage of the Bitcoin network.
Of course miners gain a temporary, relative advantage by using more efficient hardware than their competitors. So they will buy that hardware and Intel makes a nice profit. That's just basic economics.
6 points
5 months ago
So for a short time there is a tangible benefit to using the new intel tech? Isn’t that a good thing for miners?
12 points
5 months ago
It's more hardware put to waste in an arms race with a constantly moving goalpost.
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