>To decentralize Bitcoin mining once more and eliminate its massive electricity consumption, a proof of work decoupled from energy-intensive computation is clearly needed.

Here's the central thesis and there's so much wrong with it.

Leaving aside the topic of whether you think the way bitcoin requires the consumption of electricity is good or not, the consumption of electricity is not a side effect, it's the whole point.

You must burn electricity to be part of the game. If you are part of the game, you have a chance to win. If you win, you will well and truly cover your electricity costs. If you cheat, you will be ejected from the game, and lose all the money you've spent on electricity. It is to your advantage to discover other cheaters so you can eject them, as that will allow you to win more.

Bitcoin 101. Reducing the energy consumption of the hashes will not decentralize the network more.

The reason the bitcoin network is less decentralized today than it was in 2010 is because ASICs are hard to manufacture, which means they are only made in a few places and are very expensive per unit. That makes them hard to buy in small batches, and near impossible to buy in many countries.

This situation will not be improved by making photonic ASICs.

There's more nuance to this, and that nuance makes this proposal even worse, but lets leave it at that.