DETAILED Exploration Of The #Bitcoin Mining Economy - (Chris Coney & Juan M. Villaverde) WCSS:009

Talking points:
What components does the Bitcoin mining economy consist of?
Hardware manufacturers
Energy producers
Mining farms
Pools
Software vendors
Perhaps an obvious question but why are China so often in the news being hostile towards Bitcoin and mining in particular?
Is this specific to China or will we see this trend continue?
Does it even matter if the trend continues?
Is Bitcoin mining ever truly at risk?
The Bitcoin price often takes a leg down when there’s some bad news about mining, so let’s take that to the extreme…

What would it take to cripple Bitcoin mining to the point that Bitcoin fails?
The miners of last resort would be the types of people who mined Bitcoin on their home computers at the very beginning. We could return to that if necessary.
How similar or different is the Bitcoin mining business to the Gold mining business?
Gold mining is geographically specific to the Gold deposits
I.e. you can only establish Gold mines in certain countries
Is Bitcoin similar in terms of geographic features such as the opportunity for hydroelectric power?
I.e. you technically can establish a Bitcoin mine anywhere, but can it be profitable anywhere?
Could Bitcoin mining ever be regulated? And if so how?
I.e. Regulators mandate that Bitcoin mining can only be done with renewable energy
That would only work with hydro really because it’s the only one that produces power reliably
Doesn’t Bitcoin ‘regulate’ it’s own mining system anyway via an algorithm?
Block times and difficulty adjustment based on changes in hashrate
Don’t we see that happening now while Bitcoin mining equipment owned by Chinese mining companies is turned off and shipped to other countries?