What happens when you buy a share of Apple, Tesla, or Google? Your money goes into the stock market ecosystem. You buy yourself a slice of a company that owns factories, data centers, and intellectual property. That company produces goods, sells services, and generates profit.
Now, imagine you buy one Bitcoin instead. In this case, you can't say that you've put that money into some kind of a digital vault. You can't call it "savings." And, I'll prove you in this post, it's not even a "store of value." In reality, the moment your money leaves your bank account, it sets off on a one-way journey toward a blackhole of wealth consumption.
As an engineer who has analyzed the cost structures of mining operations, and the author of The Bitcoin Pyramid, allow me to show you exactly how and where your money goes. It doesn't stay in the system. It gets burned.
In this post, we'll consider Bitcoin prices of $100,000 (past price), $70,000 (current average), and $40,000 (just in case it drops this low) to cover different scenarios. Such cases need to be considered because the Bitcoin price varies significantly due to volatility. The round figures round figures were considered just to simplify our math. We'll also use percentages in this post so you can do the math yourself for any Bitcoin price. Let's proceed!
The Seller is Not Your Friend
When you buy Bitcoin, you aren't buying it from a central bank or stock market. You are buying it from a seller on a crypto exchange.
In the crypto ecosystem, the ultimate source of selling pressure is the miner.
Miners are the people running the warehouses full of specialized computers (ASICs) that secure the bitcoin network. And unlike other buyers, miners cannot afford to "HODL" (never sell) their Bitcoin. They have massive real-world bills to pay.
Based on detailed mining cost analysis from late 2024 and early 2025, here is the breakdown of what happens to your money the moment it reaches the miner's bank account.
Expense 1: The Electricity Bill (40% - 60%)
Bitcoin mining is an energy-intensive competition. To "win" new Bitcoins, miners must run powerful computers 24/7. This requires colossal amounts of electricity. Consequently, the annual electricity consumption of the bitcoin mining network exceeds that of most nations.
When BTC price was 100,000, for every single Bitcoin mined, an average miner spent between $40,000 and $60,000 just on immediate electricity and operational cash costs. This was low as $26,000 for miners with access to cheapest electricity, and as high as $84,000 for miners paying higher bills.
This means, on average, 40-60% of your investment is immediately transferred to energy companies to pay for electricity that has already been used. That value is gone, lost. It’s never generating any profit for you or the miner.
As the average bitcoin price falls, say from $100,000 to $70,000 as we recently witnessed between October 2025 to February 2026, miners who can't afford to mine bitcoin tend to leave, which drops the hash rate. The mining difficulty is adjusted based on the hash rate roughly every two weeks. A lower mining difficulty makes mining Bitcoin easier, which reduces the cost of mining each block. Then, the miners who quit join back. This increases the hash rate, causing the mining difficulty to rise again. And the cycle continues.
Assuming a stable scenario, where the hashrate and mining difficulty drops with bitcoin price, the following table estimates the corresponding bitcoin mining costs. Note that this is the best case scenario, and does not reflect the current reality, where mining cost per bitcoin ($82,000 — $88,000) at higher end is higher than the price of bitcoin ($67,000 — $69,000) by $13,000 — $19,000!
| Average Price | Lower End Average | Higher End Average |
|---|---|---|
| $100,000 | $40,000 | $60,000 |
| $70,000 | $28,000 | $42,000 |
| $40,000 | $10,000 | $24,000 |
Expense 2: The Hardware Trap (20% - 40%)
This is the hidden cost most investors miss. Bitcoin mining uses specialized chips called ASICs. These machines do nothing but mine Bitcoin.
Because the competition is so fierce, mining hardware becomes obsolete incredibly fast—often within 1.5 to 2 years. This means, miners must buy new machines roughly every 2 years to remain competent. This "depreciation" represents an additional real economic cost. When the average Bitcoin price was $100,000, the deprecation costs were $30,000 to $40,000 per Bitcoin.
In percentage terms, another 30-40% of your investment flows to hardware manufacturers (mostly in China) to pay for machines that are rapidly turning into e-waste.
| Average Price | Lower End Average | Higher End Average |
|---|---|---|
| $100,000 | $30,000 | $40,000 |
| $70,000 | $21,000 | $28,000 |
| $40,000 | $12,000 | $16,000 |
The "Black Hole" of Value (85% lost)
Let’s do the math.
| You Pay | Electricity Companies Take | Hardware Makers Take | Miners' Profit |
|---|---|---|---|
| $100,000 | ~$50,000 | ~$35,000 | ~$15,000 |
| $70,000 | ~$35,000 | ~$24,500 | ~$10,500 |
| $40,000 | ~$20,000 | ~$14,000 | ~$6,000 |
Result: On average, 85% of your investment has effectively evaporated. It wasn't invested in a productive asset. It was consumed just to keep the machines running in a mining farm.
Miner Profit per Bitcoin: Currently, based on the $70,000 average Bitcoin price, the average profit made by miners, assuming best case scenario, is ~$10,500, which they'd spend on lifestyle or political lobbying. This is the best case scenario!
The current reality is, the mining costs didn't decrease as bitcoin price dropped over the past few months. The mining cost at current average BTC price of $70,000 remains roughly the same as it was when BTC was worth over $100,000. This means, right now, your money doesn't suffice. All of it evaporates, and the miners end up paying additional $13,000 to $19,000 from their own pockets.
This reveals the fundamental truth:
Bitcoin is not a store of value. Instead, it is a mechanism for value transfer.
You have simply transferred your wealth to energy providers, mining hardware manufacturers, and the miners. In exchange, you received a digital token, which you are advised to never sell.
The Only Way Out
Now, you own a Bitcoin. The miner has paid their bills, purchased a new ASIC or two, and taken their profit. They have no obligation—and no incentive—to buy that Bitcoin back from you at the same price.
In addition, this asset does not generate a revenue (it has none), and there are no dividends.
For you to get your money back, your only hope is to find someone else—a new investor—who is willing to pay the same price or more.
In other words, you need to find a "greater fool" than yourself.
This is why I argue that Bitcoin mathematically operates as a wealth extraction mechanism—more commonly known as a Ponzi or Pyramid scheme. It requires a constant, never-ending stream of new money just to pay for the massive electricity and hardware waste that secures the network. It would need even more money to pay for the early buyers, hence the rally cry for investors to never sell (HODL).
When that incoming stream of new money stops, the miners will still have bills to pay. They will keep selling. And without new buyers to absorb that selling pressure, the bitcoin price has only one way to go. Number Go Down.
I'm sure you have something to add. Please let me know your views in the comments.
For a deeper dive into the mining cost analysis and the proof of this extraction mechanism, read The Bitcoin Pyramid available now as an eBook on Kindle.
To better understand the waste caused by proof-of-work consensus, read The Bucket-Water Analogy.
Kindle Unlimited subscribers can read both eBooks for Free!!
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Read the next articles in this series:
Can Crypto Really "Bank The Unbanked?"
6 Essential Jobs Money Must Do (And Why Bitcoin Fails at All of Them)
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