Bitcoin's value could collapse to nothing if governments and societies are forced to prioritise cutting energy consumption, according to Steve Keen, the Australian economist and author.
Speaking on the Diary of a CEO podcast, Keen argued that the cryptocurrency's entire security model rests on energy use.
Keeping the public ledger safe requires 10 minutes of continuous global computer processing for each transaction, making it prohibitively expensive for any bad actor to break the system. That same feature makes Bitcoin an enormous consumer of electricity.
Why crypto could be first to go
Keen said climate scientists are clear that global energy consumption needs to fall, and cryptocurrencies represent one of the easiest targets for cuts. Unlike electricity used in manufacturing, healthcare or heating, the energy underpinning bitcoin transactions is harder to defend as essential.
International financial transactions are also in his sights as areas where consumption could be trimmed, but he singled out crypto as particularly vulnerable given its discretionary nature.
The argument echoes concerns raised in the context of Anthropic's recent multi-gigawatt compute deal with Google and Broadcom, which highlighted the growing competition between AI infrastructure and bitcoin mining for scarce grid capacity and low-cost power.
If energy rationing becomes policy rather than aspiration, Keen's logic suggests crypto would struggle to make the case for its share of the grid.