Back to main

Old email shows Satoshi Nakamoto was already aware of high Bitcoin mining energy consumption

satoshi nakamoto

An old email conversation showed that Satoshi Nakamoto was already aware of the problem of high energy consumption of Proof-of-work (PoW) technology and also figured out multiple challenges regarding Bitcoin’s future.

Satoshi Nakamoto is the core developer & creator of Bitcoin (BTC) but no one in this world knows whether Satoshi Nakamoto was his real name or he created this fake name to interact with the world anonymously. 

As we know,  Craig Wright is on trial in a case brought by the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) to determine whether he is indeed Satoshi Nakamoto. 

In this case, a series of email discussions came to light where we can see that Bitcoin creator Nakamoto talked about several challenges of Bitcoin’s future with early Bitcoin code creators.

In one of the parts of the email conversation, Nakamoto said that Proof-of-work (PoW) is only the technology to save the Bitcoin network from attack as well as to prohibit double spending of the funds in the network.

Furthermore, Nakamoto already predicted that Bitcoin mining operations would consume a very high amount of power energy but clarified that it will be much less than the amount of electricity & resources used by traditional banks & other financial services which waste energy for junk mail credit card offers.

Satoshi Nakamoto already predicted high energy consumption by Bitcoin network.

He said: "The cost would be an order of magnitude less than the billions in banking fees that pay for all those brick-and-mortar buildings, skyscrapers, and junk mail credit card offers."

— Bitcoinik (@Bitcoinikdotcom) February 24, 2024

However, Bitcoin’s birth vision was only to provide an independent financial network for the world but Nakamoto said that it would not be better to declare Bitcoin as an investment asset. 

According to Nakamoto, calling a Bitcoin investment contract may draw the attention of regulatory bodies but future adoption will show a clear picture of Bitcoin’s potential benefits & in that case, they may consider themself as an investment asset. 

At the time, Nakamoto called Bitcoin the best open-source notary tool. He said that using some codes can help us to use the Bitcoin network to prove the existence of “something” at a specific point in time.

Read also: American government asks Binance co-founder CZ to surrender his Canadian passport & other travel documents 

Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Read on Bitcoinik Investment Disclaimer