But, the mining cost would not stay at that price. Like you said, every man and his dog would mine BTC if the production cost were that low, and the result would be a swift rise in the difficulty and the production cost. So, whatever affect of production cost on price you think there might be would be temporary at most.
thank you for finally being part of the conversation where you now realise the cost is beneath the market price for a few lucky few.. welcome to economic fundamentals, im glad you finally arrived into the conversation with your realisation
thank you for realising the mining competition then pushes up the underlying cost, where the rise in cost leaves a non zero bottom no one goes below.. where the market then sits above the cost bottom
now run your scenario through a few competition and halving cycles as if your running it through 14 years of value rising and "price discovery".. and come to a position of 2023
where a few lucky people get to mine at $18k.. no one below.. and the rest speculate above $18k on the spot market
do you finally see it.. ?
what you need next to realise, is these lucky few most efficient miners on the planet are not paying bills per block. nor changing asics per block
they buy asics in bulk that have a 2 year lifecycle before upgrading
they also dont pay electric monthly. they instead prebuy lumps of MWH to cover a 6-24month running period. to get the best electric contract deals
and so this set 2 year cost is set. and they look at how much coin they have acquired in that long period. to come to their $18k cost per coin
now i hope you can see where the whole ROI part comes into the economics of the underlying value line