And thinking that bitcoin is a terrible idea is not the same as thinking you can predict its market value. When something is as volatile as bitcoin, shorting it is almost as bad as going long; eventually its value will likely drop but being early is the same as being wrong.
PoW is also the most efficient way to do what Bitcoin is doing. Attempts to displace PoW have all failed, because the required trade-offs are always too high, and detract from the value of the network.
If you can figure out a fair way to seed value on a network that doesn't require burning energy, then please let the people know, and your new magic cryptocurrency will dominate the crypto-ecosystem overnight. No one would love that more than me. I could talk for hours about the various ideas people have had in the past, and why they failed, but I don't think this is the right place for that rant.
It's also important to recognize that there isn't a single watt of PoW power that's wasted. The power utilized reflects exactly amount of value that Bitcoin is providing to the world. Satoshi also made the mining rewards get cut in half every 4 years, so the value to power usage ratio gets better and better over time.
I could also go on about how mining facilities overwhelmingly are using excess power produced almost entirely from clean power sources. If the goal is reducing carbon emissions, there are so many serious offenders that are massively more wasteful.
Don't you mean reverse?
As I've said elsewhere: doing one transaction on bitcoin uses approximately the amount of electrical power that an average US household uses in 2 weeks.
About 700 KwH, far as I can tell. (Based on 76.87 terawatt hours annually in 2020, as an estimate for bitcoin). A house uses ~1000/month, ballpark.
If I could short bitcoin over a 20, 30, 40 year timeframe I absolutely would, unfortunately that's not possible. There might be utility in some cryptocurrencies for some applications, but bitcoin as it currently exists is worse than useless, it's actively harmful.
Maybe I'm willfully ignorant, but I just don't see any practical use outside of massive speculation game. Mind give us some examples? :)
It really doesn't matter if you don't recognize how big of a deal that is, but to A LOT of people, it's a complete game changer. If you don't need a service like that, well that's fine, but obviously a lot of people do, which is why the network is where it is today. Massive amounts of value is being moved through the network daily, and the fees that people are paying to utilize the network are not at all trivial. It's worth it to them though, or they wouldn't be using it.
If you actually believe what you're saying, then short it[1]. If you really think that the practical value is non-existent, then put your money where your mouth is, and take out a short.
This isn't some academic theory where the best you can do is throw tomatoes at it, and ridicule it from a distance. This is an economic theory, where if you are correct, and everyone else is wrong, you can profit significantly from it.
Maybe once you're faced with actually taking a stand on a belief like this, you'll come to understand why cryptocurrencies are beginning to dominate the global economy. It's also totally possible that you're right, but I think it's far more likely that you just like to ridicule things you don't understand because you get some sense of power from shitting on people who you consider to be beneath you.
[1] https://www.investopedia.com/news/short-bitcoin/