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Re:Cryptocurrencies are collapsing by jhoechtl on Tuesday January 16, 2018 @06:38AM (#16157445)
The price of energy required to mine 1 BTC. What else? That's its inherent value.
Re:Cryptocurrencies are collapsing by steeleduncan on Tuesday January 16, 2018 @06:51AM (#16157507)
No, the energy required is a function of the price, not the other way around.

The bitcoin network adjusts the block difficulty (effectively the energy required to mine 1 BTC) every 2016 blocks such that the rate of creating blocks is fixed at one block (currently 12.5 BTC) every ten minutes.

If the dollar value of energy required to mine 1 BTC is significantly less than the current dollar value of a bitcoin then it is likely more hash power will be added to the network by the bitcoin farms, further increasing the network's hash rate, and as a consequence the block difficulty and therefore the price of the energy required to mine 1 BTC.

Re:Cryptocurrencies are collapsing by sethgecko on Tuesday January 16, 2018 @06:48AM (#16157492)
The price of energy required to mine a bitcoin follows the bitcoin price not the other way around.
Re:Cryptocurrencies are collapsing by paulgb on Tuesday January 16, 2018 @06:50AM (#16157499)
This is just the discredited labor theory of value, applied to machines instead of humans.
Re:Cryptocurrencies are collapsing by oneeyedpigeon on Tuesday January 16, 2018 @07:07AM (#16157580)
In other words, I could spend an hour exerting effort and have nothing of value to show for it at the end?
Re:Cryptocurrencies are collapsing by jrimbault on Tuesday January 16, 2018 @07:33AM (#16157701)
That's obvious... You can work for a year and still get nothing... Because your work has no value in and of itself.

In general things are only as valuable as the "market" is willing to pay for them.

Re:Cryptocurrencies are collapsing by oneeyedpigeon on Tuesday January 16, 2018 @09:12AM (#16158243)
> That's obvious

Sure, I was agreeing / checking my understanding was correct :)

Re:Cryptocurrencies are collapsing by glenneroo on Tuesday January 16, 2018 @06:42AM (#16157467)
This will end very soon since 80% of coins have been mined already. So the energy consumption will only be miners processing transactions.
Re:Cryptocurrencies are collapsing by teh_klev on Tuesday January 16, 2018 @06:53AM (#16157519)
In my book, 2140 isn't "very soon" (based on the current Bitcoin mining algos).
Re:Cryptocurrencies are collapsing by notsrg on Tuesday January 16, 2018 @06:57AM (#16157537)
The last 1% of unmined Bitcoin will last over 100 years. A majority of mining profits at that point will be from tx fees.
Re:Cryptocurrencies are collapsing by teh_klev on Tuesday January 16, 2018 @09:18AM (#16158291)
Sure, but "only" !== "majority".