Well yea isnt' it obvious?... it's working right now even when the mempool is empty because there is still a block subsidy
1. Using drivechains is optional though. People who don't trust it can compl...
No, it's not obvious, for a few reasons. Did you know that there have been days of fees far exceeding block rewards? On April 20, 2024, miners earned over $80 million in transaction fees in a single day, far surpassing the $26 million earned from block subsidies. It doesn't matter than this was just a spike in the ordinals craze... The point is that the mining infrastructure THRIVED with all that traffic and payments still go through that day.
But more importantly, bitcoin mining has massively changed in the last 5 years. The big plants like HUT8, Marathon, and Bitdeer are losing ground to the energy companies.
Nowadays, "profitability" isn't as important as simply being available at the source of energy production. Imagine you have an oil well or windfarm or some kind of energy to sell and the grid wants to buy it from you at different rates for the different times of the day. Because the nearby city has a massive solar field already, your energy is only worth a lot to them at nighttime.
So what do you do with the energy that you produce during the day? Bitcoin mining at ANY profitability would be a way to save massive amounts of revenue for you. For this reason alone, bitcoin mining will always have enough miners, and always be attractive in all jurisdictions.
But more importantly, bitcoin mining has massively changed in the last 5 years. The big plants like HUT8, Marathon, and Bitdeer are losing ground to the energy companies.
Nowadays, "profitability" isn't as important as simply being available at the source of energy production. Imagine you have an oil well or windfarm or some kind of energy to sell and the grid wants to buy it from you at different rates for the different times of the day. Because the nearby city has a massive solar field already, your energy is only worth a lot to them at nighttime.
So what do you do with the energy that you produce during the day? Bitcoin mining at ANY profitability would be a way to save massive amounts of revenue for you. For this reason alone, bitcoin mining will always have enough miners, and always be attractive in all jurisdictions.