Inefficient compared with what? Gold requires a ton more energy. As does the existing banking system.
Bitcoin uses less electricity than Christmas lights and provides a completely electric, transparent, uncensorable currency.
Bitcoin uses less electricity than Christmas lights and provides a completely electric, transparent, uncensorable currency.
You could power Christmas lights for several Christmas if not a lifetime with the electricity used in a BTC transaction. Let that sink in.
People way overestimate how much energy Bitcoin uses and way underestimate how much simple things like christmas lights, video games, hockey rinks, etc. use.
Mining rate and therefore energy costs are based on the blockchain mining parameters, not the number of users. If there were a ton more users, you'd likely see more transactions on the Lightning network, with Lightning nodes settling out on the main Bitcoin blockchain, but it wouldn't impact energy use substantially.
About the only thing that impacts energy use at this point is the price. One can reasonably estimate that, steady state, the value of the energy used is roughly equal to the total block rewards.
Bitcoin doesn't work that way. Energy usage doesn't scale anywhere near linear with the number of users.
Think of it this way: the Bitcoin network is buying security, not transactions, from miners.
As for the banking system, Bitcoin is part of it now. Banks offer cryptocurrency-backed accounts, and if it becomes big, you will probably get all the stuff that banking does like loans, escrow services and fast, reversible transactions. There will be regulations and I guess a fractional reserve system will follow.
And how is it uncensorable? All it takes for a state to censor it is to declare it illegal with harsh sentences for those who get caught and embargoes on countries that don't play along.
As for Christmas lights, I think you are way off. Care to share the numbers.
If gold was invented today, what would it look like, and how would it function?
I'm not saying it works particularly well yet but the idea is sound.
But there are literally thousands of those!