Why bitcoin will fail

Last modified: July 19^th, 2025

Although bitcoin still stands and has gained traction with the approval of bitcoin ETFs and new crypto legislation in the USA recently, I am still convinced that bitcoin will fail in the end. As I already explained most of my reasons why I think bitcoin is nothing more than a con and you should be able to extract why bitcoin will fail, I think it is better if I do some additional explanation and focus on why bitcoin in it's current form, using Proof of Work (PoW) and halvings, isn't sustainable.

The costs of keeping the bitcoin network (aka the miners) running, has mostly been carried by the creation of new bitcoins that miners receive after they successfully find the PoW hash. But as the halving progresses, the costs need to be carried by an ever increasing bitcoin price or need to be added to the transaction costs. If people are starting to notice these excessive costs, that will not be so favorable for bitcoin. But if the bitcoin exchange price keeps on doubling, the main part of the costs can still be coming from the new bitcoin mined, so people will not notice it that much. But as bitcoin prices rise, it gets more profitable to start cheating and to prevent this, extra mining costs have to be made, this is the rising mining difficulty level. I hope you can see the 'price of bitcoin and the cost of keeping bitcoin running'-spiral clearly now.

So there is each halving that requires the raising of the bitcoin price to at minimum double each 4 years. But it is not only the halving that needs to be compensated, but also the inflation, as mining costs are not paid in bitcoin but in fiat currency. And don't think miners are doing all this at cost price, they are in it for the profits, so it is not only the cost price that needs to be paid. The more bitcoin is worth, the more mining is done, and the more costs there are to sustain the bitcoin network.

So with today's price of bitcoin of about $118,000.- in 4 years time it should double (excluding inflation), lets show that using a similar table I created earlier, showing the price doubling each four years (excluding inflation) and this doubling and a 2% inflation added (this is the scenario where the cost of bitcoin is still largely financed by bitcoin creation), also compared with only inflation on current price:

So this is needed at minimum to keep up with today's profits on mining, this is clearly not sustainable, so as cost rise and can less and less be financed by new bitcoin creation, these cost will start to become clearer each halving. There is a huge difference in price in 2061 of some 123 million dollar between doubling including keeping up with 2% inflation and keeping the current bitcoin price up with 2% inflation, this difference is this cost. So to make clear the "Price 2% inflation correction" column is the price needed to obfuscate the costs of mining in the same way as today in 2025. And remember, if prices for bitcoin rise so does mining and with that the mining costs, this is not accounted for in the table I created. This PoW is an expensive and wasteful system, but people just don't see the costs because this is paid largely by new bitcoin currently.

So I think from this it is clear that bitcoin cannot keep up maintaining a doubling each 4 years, so the costs will move partly from the generated bitcoin to transaction costs. This will make these excessive costs more clear. With higher transaction costs, less transactions seem inevitable, but this will increas the cost per transaction even further, as a transaction on the blockchain is required in approximately on average in 10 minutes. Bitcoin is not much used for real world transactions, mostly only for buying and selling with people that are speculating on the price of bitcoin. This will become a problem. If these costs cannot be compensated, this could trigger a death spiral. So that is why I think bitcoin will eventually fail. Also I think this was clear from the start, that is why I think bitcoin was a con from the start.

I hope that I have now made it even more clear why bitcoin will fail. Please check out my other articles on this site for more information on why I think bitcoin is nothing more than a con, links to those are at the bottom of the main article.