Zero Sum Property

Bitcoin mining is a zero sum game. When On average the chain grows by one block every 10 minutes, with the full reward controlled by its miner. Miners compete to achieve this reward and will, apart from pooling pressures, each average a number of rewards proportional to hash power. The difference between a miner's cost and this reward over time is the rate of return on capital invested in the mine.

There are two aspects of the zero sum property:

• For the time period between organizations one miner earns a reward and all other miners earn no reward. Neither price, hash rate, difficulty, inflation, fees, nor anything else has any effect on this property.

• The magnitude of rewards, in either coin units or exchange price, has no effect on the rate of return on capital.

Idealized Bitcoin mining is a closed system. Return on capital does vary relative to other mines, due to the proximity premium and variance discount protocol flaws, as well as economies of scale and operator efficiency. Yet because these only impact the relative cost of hash power, it is the proportionality of return rates is affected.

But actual Bitcoin is not a closed system. The market and anti-market pooling pressures of variation and distortion (respectively) are external. Fundamentally Bitcoin exists to defend markets, necessarily pitting distortion against variation (or lack thereof).