Recently, I saw someone discussing Bitcoin mining again, and I couldn't help but share my thoughts. To be honest, this topic seems simple but is actually worth deep reflection.

Let's start with a piece of data: a few years ago, a study by Cambridge University pointed out that Bitcoin mining consumes up to 134.89 terawatt-hours of electricity. If we rank it as a country, it would be among the top 30 in global electricity consumption. This number sounds a bit outrageous, but upon closer thought, it's understandable. In the early days, Satoshi Nakamoto could mine 50 Bitcoins with just a home computer, but as more people entered the market, the difficulty increased exponentially. Mining became an arms race, with miners constantly upgrading their machines and purchasing more computing power to keep up. As a result, electricity consumption also skyrocketed, and this process is expected to continue until 2140.

What impressed me most was a report stating that before 2021, nearly 70% of Bitcoin mining farms worldwide were in China. Farm operators would go to Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan during the flood season to buy cheap hydropower, then move to Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia during the dry season to buy thermal power. Some predicted that by 2024, China's annual electricity consumption for Bitcoin mining could equal the annual power generation of three and a half Three Gorges Dam. Imagine that—this electricity could have been used in more productive ways, but instead, it was wasted on mining.

But that's not the most frustrating part. The real issue is that the enormous resources spent on mining yield Bitcoin that, frankly, has little practical value. It’s not a necessity, not a life-essential item. From a labor theory of value perspective, its worth is essentially zero. Bitcoin was originally created to challenge the dollar hegemony, but now it has long become a purely speculative tool. From a few cents at inception to $68,000, that bubble is evident. Its only real value might be the wasted electricity and the cost of mining hardware.

This is also why the government later took firm action against Bitcoin domestically. Besides the resource consumption, Bitcoin’s anonymity makes it a natural shield for money laundering and drug trafficking, posing a threat to financial security. More importantly, it threatens monetary sovereignty. The example of El Salvador is very illustrative—this small country adopted Bitcoin as legal tender, only to be severely hit by the bear market, losing millions of dollars. A nation’s economic stability cannot be built on such speculative assets.

In the end, Bitcoin mining is like a bottomless pit. Technology advances, difficulty rises, electricity consumption increases, but its value keeps declining. This mismatch alone reveals the core problem. For individuals, participating is essentially gambling; for countries, allowing its development is self-destructive. Therefore, domestic policy choices are actually the most rational.