[wlesieutre]

Most of those energy-intensive services are providing a useful service that makes the energy expenditure worthwhile. Bitcoin has some novel features like its decentralization, but I don't believe its benefits outweigh the deliberately energy-guzzling architecture. That is, of course, just my opinion.

The bitcoin network's integrity basically boils down to "Waste so much energy that a single adversary couldn't possibly waste more energy than everyone else." It then rewards individual actors for wasting more energy to make sure that stays true.