[mondoveneziano]

Understanding proof-of-work down to the very details, I can make some evaluations based on simple technical properties. For example, Bitcoin can never become "more efficient": If efficiency of computing hashes goes up, difficulty goes up to counteract this, and the energy usage remains the same.

This is different from almost everything else, where advances in technology that increase efficiency are usually a direct benefit.

All this energy goes into what is essentially a lottery for miners. Except for 6 hashes per hour, all of the literally 100.000.000.000.000.000.000 hashes per second get thrown away entirely, not even advancing the same miner, the same ASIC, towards one of the qualifying 6 hashes per hour.

[baby]

You’d be surprised to learn that there are other cryptocurrencies that aren’t based on proof of work.