Bitcoins resource usage was definitely a key point in the anti-crypto-hype arguments, can see from the Wiki lots of the references are from 2021:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_bitcoi...

Also were not building out compute in any meaningful way, theres only actually been a couple of fundamental advancements to how we understand NN on a fundamental level, whats really changed is theres now a few companies with enough resources to throw an ungodly amount of compute power at a clearly already plateauing line of tech. To the detriment to every other opportunity.