[Kbelicius]

Well, if they are being bought for PoW mining there is a good chance that they would then become more expensive for other uses. It is not like we have solar panels just laying around and nobody tough of using them before PoW came along.

[WHATDOESIT]

Hmm, I'm not so sure about that. To me it seems much more like the increased demand has generated a lot of competition and that got prices way down from the levels just 5-10 years ago.

[DonHopkins]

And that is exactly why we should base plans and decisions on the actual facts we are sure about and can measure and verify and provide citations to prove, not just our feelings about how things seem and how we wish the ideal world worked in our childish libertarian fantasies and get-rich-quick pyramid schemes.

[WHATDOESIT]

So where's your data? I bought a pretty large solar array by adding a panel or two over the years. It's so big now that I have more than enough energy to sell/mine BTC even in winter - and that's for a large old EU-style village house and I like to shower in hot water a lot and keep 24 degrees (admittedly, I use a little coal the week/two it's -20 outside), and I don't even have new windows - still these 100 year old wooden ones - nor modern insulation (my ceiling is insulated with >50 year old straw, lol).

Today it's possible to buy a shipping container full of incredibly efficient solar panels for just around 8k EUR and have it delivered the same month. If that's not cheap and available I don't know what is - and it definitely wasn't this good 5 years ago, not even playing the same game.

5 years ago I had to talk to a sales rep who wanted to visit me and do special deals (and tried to bag the difference from grid costs through their shit leasing), now I just order on an eshop, pay with card and it's done in 15 minutes. My last shipment last year arrived within a week after ordering, now it's worse because of the Russian war - but that applies to everything related to energy, and there are new companies trying to cater to this new market already, it just takes some time to ramp up.

Each year the availability, efficiency and price of solar panels improved for me. You're claiming it got worse because of crypto - based on what? To me, your snark seems just like a childish socialist fantasy and anti-money/market scheme, and the reality starkly disagrees.