Bitcoin’s energy usage is huge – we can't afford to ignore it

More commentary found here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16173345

> it thinks that power consumption of mining will fall over time as better technologies are used for miners

No, no, no! Why doesn't anybody ever mention the real reason why power consumption of mining will fall?

The amount of the block reward halves every couple of years and soon becomes negligible. This is guaranteed and inevitable. There will still be mining rewards, but they will all come from transaction fees, the amount of which is chosen by the people making the transactions. So the people using the system will be the ones paying for the electricity used, and obviously they aren't going to pay for all of the electricity in the world. The sky will not fall.

January the 17th. Vaguely relevant though, even now.