Like, from where I sit, Chia looks like it's trying to solve the unintended consequences of Bitcoin, which is a tacit admission from the Chia people that Bitcoin has those problems. It also looks like Chia has an easily foreseeable set of unintended consequences as well: doing to SSDs what Bitcoin has done to GPUs. It doesn't seem to me like the Chia people are worried about that, and I don't know why.
I understand your argument, but Bitcoin hasn't been mined on GPUs since 2011/2012. Broaden your argument from Bitcoin to "proof of work schemes" more generally, and from GPUs to "profligate (mis)use of resources", and it will land more effectively.
If you are against cryptocurrencies more broadly, inclusive of proof of stake and other more recent approaches that aim to address the resource consumption issue, then that position didn't come across clearly.
At least for miners in a PoW system, there’s a pressure for some liquidity by miners selling to cover the mining costs.
Bitcoin started the whole crypto craze, and etherereum wouldn’t exist without bitcoin.
And the eth (and who knows how many other coin) crowd certainly does still mine on gpus.
And is actively on the path to proof of stake.
Is this past the point of basic research?
Cold fusion has been on a path for 50 years.