[kenpomeroy]

It doesn't sound like you really understand how Bitcoin works. If Bitcoin were to become widely adopted and supplant traditional financial institutions, the environmental impact would be enormously net positive. Sure, it takes energy to confirm transactions. But, we could massively decrease energy consumption by eliminating the need for: bank buildings, armored vehicles, physically printing money, etc.

[simias]

I don't believe that at all. The idea that everybody would walk around with their own hardware wallet and sign transactions directly when buying bread seems as likely to me as having the average public drop facebook chat for IRC.

People want simplicity, people want convenience. People don't want to risk losing their life savings because they get scammed or because their secret keys become compromised or destroyed.

People want banks, or at least a subset of what banks do. People want insurance, people want chargeback. People want to get loans to buy houses and cars.

Bitcoin solves a tiny portion of the service provided by banks.

A lot of what bank does is getting automated anyway, now you have banks that are only available online who probably need a lot less personnel and obviously fewer buildings. Armored vehicles and printing money can be replaced by credit and debit cards, no blockchain needed. I personally use cash less and less, and I know it's a trend in many (albeit not all) countries.

[teekert]

The wallet app I use is the very definition of simplicity, both paying and receiving are as simple as scanning a QR code, many people already do that when paying with the European Ideal system. As for safety, central storage with insurance and a police that understands cyber crime will still have a role in a BTC(-like) economy.

[simias]

>The wallet app I use is the very definition of simplicity

Simpler and more convenient than Visa? What if I buy something online and the other party scams me by not delivering the goods?

There's more to the economy as a distributed ledger. If bitcoin was to replace fiat entirely it'd still need 3rd parties to settle disputes, provide insurance, distribute the risks etc... In other word banks, or "central storage with insurance" as you prefer to call them.

The cost of the PoW algorithm is on top of all of that, not an alternative to it. It's not the problem it's solving.

PoW is there to solve the "distributed ledger without trust" issue. Except that if you end up having to trust your bitcoins to a "central storage with insurance" anyway I'm not sure I see the added value over the current solution.

[wila]

The iDeal payment system is great. Unfortunately it is only used in the Netherlands. Not quite a European system yet.

[albertgoeswoof]

But you could eliminate all of those things without bitcoin, and they are actively being reduced already.

There's nothing special about blockchains that will mean people suddenly won't use physical money, have a bank on their high street etc.

[root_axis]

Banks are not going anywhere regardless of what happens with bitcoin. Physically printed money is not going anywhere; people need to be able to buy and sell when the power is out or the internet is down, bitcoin is something new, it will not replace existing financial infrastructure.

[GhostVII]

Unless Bitcoin becomes more efficient by orders of magnitude, it will still take far more energy than bank buildings, armored vehicles, etc. when everyone is using it.