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, let's say for $100,000.
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.
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 $100,000 the moment it reaches the miner's bank account.
Expense 1: The Electricity Bill ($40,000 - $60,000)
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.
For every single Bitcoin mined, an average miner spends between $40,000 and $60,000 just on immediate electricity and operational cash costs. This can be as low as $26,000 for miners with access to cheapest electricity, and as high as $84,000 for miners paying higher electricity bills.
This means, on average, 40-60% of your $100,000 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.
Expense 2: The Hardware Trap ($20,000 - $40,000)
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 a real economic cost of another $30,000 to $40,000 per Bitcoin.
So, another 30-40% of your investment flows to hardware manufacturers (mostly in China) to pay for machines that are rapidly turning into e-waste.
The "Black Hole" of Value
Let’s do the math.
You pay: $100,000
Electricity Companies take: ~$50,000
Hardware Makers take: ~$35,000
Result: On average, 85% of the $100,000 you invested 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: ~$20,000 (which they often spend on lifestyle or political lobbying)
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 $100,000 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.
Do let me know your views in the comment section.
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!!
Read book summaries:
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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