[kickopotomus]

There is no need for Bitcoin to use PoW. Bitcoin can continue to exist using a different algorithm to establish distributed trust. But since you brought up Bitcoin, yes, I would say that it provides little value to society in it's current state. It operates primarily as a speculative investment rather than a true currency.

[swensel]

What would you propose the Bitcoin core team should switch to? Have you looked into the other algorithms, the feasibility of migrating of the existing network, etc.? It sounds more to me like you've just written off cryptocurrency in general.

As far as I can tell PoW is the most proven consensus mechanism so far. PoS may be promising though. ETH2 successfully switching will be telling.

[kickopotomus]

I haven't written off anything. PoW is inherently flawed. It does not scale and Bitcoin has proven that. Bitcoin averages ~300K transactions a day while using more energy than some countries. That is unacceptable.