When you can't open a bank account, are discriminated against by institutions, live in highly authoritarian environments etc. This type of finance is not a "last resort" it's your first resort.
The reason it's not "popular" however you want to define it is simply a matter of time and not function.
Asking about use-cases for crypto is like asking for use-cases for the internet in the 90s. It's so general purpose that there isn't a specific use-case to sell you on but instead a set of smaller use-cases that add up to a large use-case.
For example, I would love for charities to be built on crypto. Many of the larger charities only use a small percentage of their funds on the problem they're trying to solve. I'd love to see exactly what my charitable donation is being used for. Luckily crypto is public and therefore publicly auditable.
I could list off similar use-cases and each one doesn't seem to be a big deal. But put together it's a huge change in how we view the world.
And as for your other arguments like crime, these don't match up with actual data. Crypto being public is a large turn-off for criminals so they tend to prefer cash instead.
They have already released the first of three phases. It's live now. I currently have some ETH on the new Proof of Stake chain. Second phase (where they merge it with the rest of the network) got pushed back a few months recently, but it's still expected Q1/Q2 2022[1].
I see and expect this argument from people who aren't in software, who expect everything to happen perfectly and instantly. But you should have been involved in enough projects to know you can't just Thanos snap a major software upgrade into existence.
Gamers: "No problem. Take the time you need to make it good."
Crypto developers (who are responsible for billions of dollars): "We need to push back the release date"
Techies: "How dare you. I'm going to imply you're incompetent even though I don't follow the development process at all."
Experiment away! But not with mega-scale proof-of-work projects that consume ungodly resource as a byproduct of securing the network (which is a financial problem in any case)
Are you familiar with any methods to achieve the same characteristics of Bitcoin but without PoW? Perhaps the energy is not the issue, perhaps it's your view to the importance of it.
CryptoA != CryptoB. Specifics matter, _a lot_
It takes 128gb of RAM just to run a Solana node. Higher system requirements = less decentralized. Fewer people can join the network. They also pump up their transactions-per-second numbers since they count proof-of-stake votes as transactions.
Cardano has a centralized development team. Whereas Ethereum invests in multiple, independent development teams. This means that a software bug is less likely to take out the entire network. Additionally the founder of Cardano is known to be a bit of a pathological liar and was kicked off the Ethereum team because of this and the fact that he wanted to take Ethereum private.
This is all stuff that anyone can look up.
In any case, the "unique characteristics of Bitcoin" are what makes it abhorrent.
I just mentioned the two top PoS crypto, but anything that doesn't gobble resources as a byproduct of the network security cost is fine. I agree that Cardano is run by a maniac and Solana is centralized and too affiliated with scammers (SBF)
PoS Ethereum would be fine by me, but they've been saying they'll switch forever, so I'll believe it when I see it.
Resorting to a such a fallacy is generally a sign you have nothing defensible to say about the absurd waste BTC produces
Even if you want to change the subject, I can't get a GPU because 1/5th of the GPU supply is shipped to ETH mines.
Regarding GPUs did it ever occur to you that YOU are wasting electricity? From my perspective I'm trying to use crypto to create a better world.
All of that without a popular usecase yet. Except for financial speculation, finance-of-last-resort, and crime.
I would say that laboratory is not using the research grants well.