| Thanks for the clarification. Regarding your crypto energy argument, I think I addressed this in the other thread but I will try to explain again. With the current 1MB block limit and current valuation of Bitcoin, you are absolutely right that the transaction rate per kilowatt can't exceed Visa. The argument in Nic Carter's post which you are missing is that transaction rate per kilowatt is just one possible way of judging the usefulness of a monetary system. Monetary systems can be useful for reasons other than their high transaction rate (for example, they might support a particularly high transaction volume, or have a particularly high cost to attack). Increasing the maximum possible transaction rate per kilowatt would be as simple as increasing the maximum possible block size, since transactions are effectively free (it is only finding blocks which costs money). There are trade-offs associated with changing the block size limit, but those trade-offs have nothing whatsoever to do with the energy usage of Bitcoin. Changing the block size limit won't affect the energy usage. If the market had enough demand for increased transaction rates, either Bitcoin will be forced to increase the block size or it will simply be outcompeted by a different coin which already has. > Your retort continues to be that "the state spends way more energy and resources defending the currency that you're not factoring in" -- but you've failed to quantify that in any way. I actually don't know that that is true, and I didn't mean to imply that I know that for sure. But, it is what you would expect assuming the market is accurately pricing Bitcoin for the value it provides them. If it weren't true, and USD is actually cheaper to secure for the value it provides, then it is an easy arbitrage opportunity where you can short Bitcoin and buy the relatively-cheaper-to-secure USD instead. Eventually with enough market participants it is sure to eventually reach the "fair price". |