[RayVR]

The extremely simple answer is: No.

Cryptocurrencies require significantly more power to verify a single transaction[1]. The ability to scale to a meaningful size does not exist now. They need to improve efficiency by 3-4 orders of magnitude to be competitive.

[1] http://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption

[clarkmoody]

The article is misleading, as it compares Bitcoin power consumption to VISA, which is a payment processor.

Bitcoin is a sound money system, so the proper comparison is all the people, buildings, vehicles, weapons, etc used in the creation and protection of the global fiat currency system.

I don't know for sure, but I bet fiat costs dwarf the $640M or so that Bitcoin costs.

[deepvibrations]

Also worth mentioning that other crypto-currencies do not require mining (proof-of-work). They instead use "proof of stake" or "Proof of burn" systems which would use less power. Things are still evolving very fast in this space, so you never know what's around the corner!

[root_axis]

This is wrong. Those people aren't employed to mint coins and facilitate payments, the vast majority of the traditional banking industry provides consumer services that would still exist even in a far-fetched future where cryptocurrencies are more than a blip on the radar.

[Jabanga]

If you break down the necessary costs (storage, bandwidth, CPU cycles for verification), it's actually very low, at about $0.001 (a tenth of a cent) a transaction:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3332.0

The only reason Bitcoin transactions cost so much is artificial scarcity of block space, which increases the proof of work generated per transaction. The absence of a static limit in Ethereum is one of its major advantages over Bitcoin.