Protecting integrity of the most sound money human civilization ever had sounds like a worthy use of energy to me.
631 karma · joined February 1, 2013
No! It is of *critical* importance how the shared ledger is assembled, because Bitcoin's threat model assumes the World's governments descending upon the shit, eventually!
Employing PoW to protect against Sybil attack in anonymous network is the very invention that made Bitcoin possible.
Without PoW you must ID participants, which makes system trivial to regulate or shutdown (see Facebook Libra, or security fraud case against Ripple). And no, PoS isn't the answer, because PoS implies a handful of biggest exchanges control the coin, because they genuinly stake the most.
If Bitcoin was PoS, Mt Gox would run Bitcoin to this day!
This has been true for the last 12 years and will continue to be true.
How Argentina justifies using so much energy?
It is never good to see regulation. Never ask state to fix the problem or you will end up with two problems. Especially, the Big State.
Because Big State is worse than Big Tech.
If user can't be bothered to learn anything or read anything or accept months-pending Windows update, he should not touch cryptocurrency.
So, for the "average user", the answer is not storing on an online exchange, but to never touch cryptocurrency in the first place.
Ethereum aspires to have fun.
You have zero bitcoins if you don't control your private keys. Millions of bitcoiners worldwide got screwed by the exchanges.