I live in SoCal and see BMW 7 series diving around looking for street parking to save the $1.50/hr parking charge.
I can't imagine what would happen to sla politician who would suggest putting in parking meters!
On the other hand, if you could just have it auto-deduct from the same account that pays tolls on the bridges in the bay area through license plate recognition with a similar level of "you park and walk away" automation, I think most people would happily just deal with it because of the convenience.
My idea is to trade less stuff for more economic security.
We make non-market determinations all day long because we're also rational and can apply reason in systems.
Using tons of energy to distribute crypto is a 'waste' that just might not seem like it because of how a small group of individuals want to spend their money.
What would we think of a bunch of billionaires, getting together, and burning giant amounts of oil in their backyards, 24/7, for no other reason than 'they want to'?
Well, the market would deem that 'efficient' because the Billionaires value the Oil just to burn it for no reason. It's their perogativem, technically.
But we would view it as wasteful, because it is.
So use another mechanism to distribute crypto and that's that.
So no, you cannot "absolutely" state that it is a waste as if it is an established fact.
You likely consider it a waste as you believe it has no function, and zero value. You're free to believe that, but it doesn't make it fact. Clearly, the high energy usage is not "because they want to", it has an essential function: securing the network.
Bitcoin will never switch to another distribution mechanism.
BTC has zero 'users' - because it can't be used for anything, and it's a waste.
This is mostly a fact, because it's possible to be objective about things.
If Bill Gates burned $2B in Oil in his backyard for no reason, we would instantly make a law banning it. Why? Because it would be an easy way to stop 'waste' even if Gates did not think it was a 'waste'.
There are other ways to distribute cryptocurrencies, they should definitively ban power consumption for such activities.
It doesn't matter that BTC 'will always do such and such' - it's an irrelevant Ponzi scheme.
At least the scammers can pick a scam that doesn't involve wasting energy which could be used for literally anything else.
Bitcoin doesn't even meet the most basic definition of a ponzi. A ponzi promises (and initially delivers) a guaranteed return on your investment, funded by an ever larger group of newer investors.
Bitcoin doesn't do any of those things. It doesn't give or guarantee a return and may in fact cause a massive loss. It's a speculative, scarce asset subject to price discovery.
So no, you're not objective about things, you're clueless.
Bitcoin doesn't "burn oil", it's at 55-60% renewable energy and rapidly improving, which is a whopping 3 times better than the average of any other industry.
As for it having "no use", it stores (and grows) monetary value. An important function for people's savings. And not just that, in countries with failing currencies, it is a life raft against double digit inflation. It's also massively embraced by young people, as they came into a world with zero access to anything that preserves or grows wealth.
As for relevancy, it has an exponentially growing user base. The first institutional investors are in, ETFs are coming and the first country has embraced it. ATMs are being mass deployed and even the most conservative banks (like Goldman, JP Morgan) add it to client portfolios now. Google has unblocked crypto ads, Apple and Amazon are working on support, and Twitter's CEO is all-in. Tesla has indicated to reverse their statement.
A trillion dollar market cap that is exponentially growing is not "irrelevant". You're stuck in a narrative from 5-10 years ago and have no idea what is happening.
"Bitcoin doesn't "burn oil", it's at 55-60% renewable" - 'it doesn't matter' from which source it draws energy because it's effectively (by and large) the same pool of energy that other, far more useful mechanations are bidding on and drawing from, and of course, it's an enormous amount of energy wasted.
"As for relevancy, it has an exponentially growing user base"
Which is false, it has zero user base, because it can't be 'used' for anything, which is the entire point.
"A trillion dollar market cap " again a bit 'clueless' to get into pedantic definitions because that has absolutely nothing to do with what a 'market cap' is.
Bitcoin had some promise even as it was a little bit of a hustle, it never materialized, now it's a total waste of time and energy.
People can waste each other's time, but not our energy.
Thankfully, it's so wasteful politicians will eventually hone in and ban mining it, they'll have no choice.
You have no point. I already explained how it's secure savings technology. Hence if you use Bitcoin for that, you're a user, and it has a use.
You lack even the most basic understanding of Bitcoin as mining cannot be banned. If you outlaw large scale mining, as recently done in China, the Bitcoin hash rate recovers in mere weeks. Which is what just happened.
Even if you'd outlaw any and all large scale mining in the US, it will just move to another country. Many happy to host such a profitable business. Many places with surplus energy.
And if that fails, we just go back to home mining, which would decentralize Bitcoin further. Drawing power from a solar panel, what exactly are you or the government going to do about it?
None of this will even happen as it won't be banned in the US.
Right now, if I have money, I am free to use it on wasteful products as I please. I can buy a massive truck, 5 times too large for my needs, just because I can.
People are used to this liberty. You may get some public support when something is banned that a huge majority agrees on, but things will quickly turn sour when it actually starts to hurt. When people are simply banned from buying that 75" TV. It's all cool until it's not.
You can imagine the political opportunity of being the party that does allow everything.
Pricing by CO2 output, as the other commenter suggested, likely is simpler.
As for things like massive trucks and giant TVs - well, steps are (slowly) being taken to regulate the former, at least; think of all those countries that swear up-and-down that all cars sold there will be electric in 10 or 20 years or whatever. But that's an extreme example, and this isn't really a new concept at all: plenty of things are made illegal or economically impractical due to regulations, environmental or otherwise.
Giant TVs, though - yeah, those are unlikely to be regulated any time soon. But then, that was the substance of my comment that I sort of feel you failed to engage with: government is absolutely free - via public opinion, some objective metric, or their own whims - to decide what's too wasteful to allow. Giant TVs, probably not. Massive trucks, getting there. Bitcoin? Well, it's not crazy to suggest it, anyway.
ETA: also, speaking of political feasibility and carbon taxes - do you think a regressive tax that drives up the price of virtually everything has more popular appeal than a targeted ban on crypto mining? Here in Canada our carbon tax has faced enormous political opposition, as did the one in France.
Even just in the US there's now crypto-friendly states, neutral ones, and skeptical ones. Realistically, it will not really be banned, rather a compromise will be found. For mining to use renewables, and ideally stranded renewables. The mining industry is already self-regulating, as they can obviously see the writing on the wall.
The fact that you don't expect giant TVs to be banned is quite telling. It's subjective and based on popularity. I get it, people like their TVs. It's considered more important than a giant truck, which few people have.
Yet if the goal is to conserve energy, the savings on those TVs would be far more impactful compared to a small amount of massive trucks. So that would mean that we're merely virtue signaling rather than addressing actual usage.
Now let's talk ACs. Most Americans can't imagine life without them. But a few decades ago, nobody had one. In most countries, including far hotter ones, many if not most people function without one.
So let's ban them.
I hope you see my point. Bitcoin mining and big trucks are easy targets but a mere distraction from the heart of the matter. Large scale energy savings inevitably cut into the quality of life of the typical household, and will therefore be unpopular or politically not feasible.
As for carbon taxing, it's complicated. I'm from the Netherlands, by the way.
Personally, I am a 100% supporter of products having externalities priced in. Including paying staff a living wage, environmental costs, taxation in the country of production and real non-subsidized cost of transport. I truly believe that a number of categories of products are unnaturally and unsustainably cheap.
I'm in favor of such system but it will be a cultural shock for most of society. I have many thoughts on potential consequences, but this comment is already getting quite long.
I still won't stop the massive trucks though. We have crazy taxation on vehicles as well as fuel over here, yet there will always be people whom can afford it anyway. Our country isn't designed for such large cars yet they are on the rise. I've never seen one in my childhood yet now they appear everywhere.
A distraction though. It may anger you, but it's not the heart of the matter.
You can't just pick one thing you happen to dislike or find unimportant whilst at the same time listing your own waste as in fact being very much needed.
The idea of mining being wasteful is of course a popular talking point for those not in crypto, yet the 100+ million owners of bitcoin would disagree and see it as the essential feature to secure the network.
Further, the word "waste" needs far more nuance. Clearly, mining is highly energy intensive, yet that doesn't mean it has to be wasteful. Increasingly, mining is done using clean energy whilst also in particular seeking out stranded energy, which is not in competition with other uses.