What if we have free energy?

BLOCKCHAIN and SOCIETY
#1

Let’s say that at some point in the future, humanity will develop a technology that provide us with free energy. The incentive scheme for miners is that they have to pay for the energy they consume, and obviously they’re all trying to lower that cost. But what happens if energy becomes free?

It’s a theoretical question, I know, but let’s just for the argument sake assume that we can build some sort of power plant that taps into solar energy or something and makes electricity basically free. What happens then?

1 Like
#2

I believe Satoshi hoped for the development of better energy solutions when BTC was created.

Unless the laws of thermodynamics no longer will hold, energy will always come at some cost. Mining will still require hardware and the maintenance thereof. Even if we theoretically would have effectively cheap/free energy, there is time and work involved, and this cannot be overcome. Energy consumption is only one part of a functional mining system.

1 Like
#3

Ok, good answer, tanks. It was a theoretical question after all. :slight_smile: