[jeffk_teh_haxor]

At the very worst it is a blight on the environment.

27kWh of energy burned per transaction, with a maximum scaling limit on the order of 5 or 6 transactions per second. If everybody in the world used Bitcoin, then you'd be entitled to your one transaction every few decades.

[duxup]

Yeah the scams and environmental type stuff is a huge downside.

A costly lesson, interesting, but costly.

[whatshisface]

If cryptocurrencies saw serious use, Bitcoin would self-limit at a sustainable level and new currencies would be invented to deal with those issues. The biggest problem with cryptocurrencies is that US dollars are actually pretty good.

[duxup]

>and new currencies would be invented to deal with those issues

That seems like a pretty big hassle.

[whatshisface]

That's what the research is now, and many partial solutions already exist.