The pictures in this article and details of power consumption make the inherent proof-of-work approach very hard to defend.
The counter argument is that the resources required to secure, print and transport traditional currencies is probably still orders of magnitude greater. But on a MWh per $-equivalent flow, Bitcoin is probably orders of magnitude less efficient.
Would be great to see someone with actual numbers do calculations of that sort to watch trends over time. I wonder if the W / $-value-transaction is going down or up over time? That is, the energy spent vs. rate of flow of currency (as a rough measure of its utility), denominated in dollars.
The counter argument is that the resources required to secure, print and transport traditional currencies is probably still orders of magnitude greater. But on a MWh per $-equivalent flow, Bitcoin is probably orders of magnitude less efficient.
Would be great to see someone with actual numbers do calculations of that sort to watch trends over time. I wonder if the W / $-value-transaction is going down or up over time? That is, the energy spent vs. rate of flow of currency (as a rough measure of its utility), denominated in dollars.