As someone who made most of his wealth from BTC (really early proponent), I strongly believe there is no value to Bitcoin apart from the value people ascribe to it. There is no value in mining it and spending energy, just as there is no value in mining coal in a 100% green economy. If I put "work" to go into the bowels of the earth, only to mine a clump of dirt, does that make it valuable in spite of the amount of extraordinary effort it took?

If BTC were somehow linked to and used to solve some of the world's most pressing problems such as modelling protein folding or some equally significant problem, then that would make it partly energy efficient. I don't know of any such crypto, and I think I've heard of only one such crypto that's somewhat like that. And as recent evidence goes, no crypto gives you respite from the law - on the contrary, it will bind you in constant avoidance of the law.