Bitcoin's energy consumption: Is it the Achilles heel to miner's revenue?

In this paper, we add a new dimension to the cryptocurrency literature by examining the relationship between Bitcoin's energy consumption and miner's revenue. By resorting to quantile and Markov regime switching regression, we report a negative association between these variables. Further, the negative impact is strongly significant when the miner's revenues are low and volatile. Thus, the higher energy consumption in the wake of escalating global energy costs amid bearish market sentiments impedes the miners to break-even. Hence, it would not be viable to sustain the business unless cheap energy sources and efficient mining hardware are relied upon. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.