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> The second this changes, and we have a cryptocurrency that is actually used as money and not a plaything, I'll happily stop complaining about it.

I won't: we still have proof-of-work to get rid of (and generally, the unreasonable energy consumption and chip usage).

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Is there any other unreasonable use of energy consumption than proof of work? Solana (using proof of stake) uses similar energy as hosting a website. If this tiny energy usage is also problematic then we would need to start also shaming people for uploading Youtube videos or scrolling through Instagram.

If this low energy consumption confirms itself at scale, that will be a huge progress. Possibly not quite there (there’s still the Ponzi problem to contend with), but at least that’d get rid of most of the externalities.

Now we need to nuke the Bitcoin farms. (Half serious: I wonder whether launching tactical nukes on those farms would generate less pollution in the long term than letting those farms be.)

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