I've been thinking about digital money for 25 years. I have an early proof-of-work patent. I very much think for myself.
I really don't like proof-of-work for ledgers: they're resource intensive and wasteful. I don't really like abrogating the power of states and central banks to mint unbacked currency to various coalitions. And this looks like a scary, poorly regulated asset bubble that may pop with rather extreme effects.
Proof of work? The entire worldwide bitcoin network uses less power that all the appliances in stand-by mode just in America, and I still have to see someone complaining about how wasteful stand-by mode is. Now, suddenly, the Bitcoin network is wasteful.
This is not ecological consciousness. This is Luddism all over again. A bunch of old people scared about the world changing.
Except for crypto currencies. They operate in a grey market, not forbidden, not approved.
Without bitcoin, I'd have to transfer money at the oficial rate, and I'd have to have another person on the other side filling the endless paperwork they require. With bitcoin (litecoin nowadays, cheaper transactions) it's done in a few hours.
We've spent tons of money and had massive amounts of regulation and standards over the past couple of decades to try and reduce standby power. It's presently estimated at 5-10% of US power, versus 10-20% a couple decades ago. A relatively big share of it is very old devices.
I'm not opposed to distributed ledgers. Proof of stake will be augmented to provide nearly the same level of guarantee as proof of work, without all the power draw.
The poster above was parroting concerns du jour about bitcoin miners to shit on a policy regarding bitcoin nodes. I'm just saying lets be serious in our critiques.