GPUs are obsolete for BTC and were mostly used recently for Ethereum, but are powered down there as they switched to proof-of-stake a few months back. ASICs are far more throughput and power efficiency than GPUs for BTC which is the only remaining major proof-of-work.
At 25pJ per hash I calculate each coin costs $9,000 to mine with electricity at 5 cents / kWh. I've seen other estimates at $19k because not every miner has the most efficient ASICs. Your costs may vary, but some miners will be running in the red already even with full depreciation (those are the older ones less efficient). It is at $16,615 at the moment. If it falls further more miners are going to hurt just paying the electricity bill.
BTC is not "hard money", as any fool can see clear as day in the past year. That has been fantasy, just like the goldbug narrative - indeed it was modelled on gold. A very simplistic concept of money which repeatedly failed in history and was abandoned in the 20th century for good reason. Money is literally a promise, not a finite object. If you get a dollar today, it buys you a dollar's worth of stuff a year from now. Or remarkably close to it, if you look at the history of money the dollar is a miracle of stability. The stability of money has nothing to do with "government printing press". The dollars are issued in practice by banks lending against assets, which is why monetary policy centers on interest rates and depositary rules. When you got a mortgage you - not the government - printed money. But it was linked to assets, which is to say linked to the size of the real economy, at least if done right. That was the genius of central banking last century. Now, it takes a lot of experience to run it right, and when interest rates go too low you have the 1% kind of inflation - the kind where 9% of the country grows its assets (peaked close to 200 trillion) while everyday prices barely move and 90% of the country sees no gains, while the 1% make out like bandits. That happens because the conventional measures of inflation exclude asset prices - of course they do - but eventually if you allow banks to issue loans as essentially free money (interest rates too low) the distortions cannot be ignored, and we get the reset we see now.
Thanks, I like your explanation, simple and clear
