One troubling aspect of the bitcoin proof-of-work is its tendency to eat the world.
Miners will tend to expand their operations until the electricity cost approaches the block reward. So if we plug in some numbers[1] we can estimate that bitcoin may soon consume a significant fraction of all electricity production. And it gets even worse as the price rises.
Miners will tend to expand their operations until the electricity cost approaches the block reward. So if we plug in some numbers[1] we can estimate that bitcoin may soon consume a significant fraction of all electricity production. And it gets even worse as the price rises.
[1] http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=(2500$%2Fbitcoin+*+12.5...