Is it any worse than burning the electricity with electric cars? The energy burned is never coming back in either case...
I mean, why one is environmentally friendly and the other not?
Electric cars are moving a person from one place to another, often displacing fossil fuel engines that would otherwise be used. Bitcoin miners are... facilitating one of the least useful currencies for doing transactions?
"Is wasting a fire extinguisher on making pretty foam angels worse than using it to extinguish a fire? The used up fire extinguisher is never coming back in either case... I mean, why one is considered a sensible use of a fire extinguisher and the other not?"
Electric cars are replacing a definite fossil fuel with something potentially renewable.
Bitcoin is a brand new, utterly pointless use of electricity.