Bitcoin is an extremely inefficient computing platform. There's no silver lining to BTC, it's simply a moderately big, potentially huge mistake in the history of modern technology.
Decentralized projects will always be less efficient than centralized ones why are we suddenly so surprised?
The value of decentralized system far outweighs the cost of maintaining it especially when it comes to money. Could bitcoin be more efficient? Absolutely, but to call it big mistake of modern technology is just silly.
The fact that most users choose to use centralised exchanges over on-chain transactions suggests the advantages of decentralisation do not outweigh the costs in the opinion of a great majority.
We started having decent decentralized exchanges fairly recently and there have already been days where they have processed more volume than centralized ones.
It takes time to build/deploy/grow these exchanges (since they are essentially a 2 sided marketplace).
Your facts are wrong. The global, yearly energy use of Christmas lights is ~2x Bitcoin's energy use.
People way overestimate how much energy Bitcoin uses and way underestimate how much simple things like christmas lights, video games, hockey rinks, etc. use.
That means that Christmas lights are more popular than BTC. A BTC transaction consumes as much power as the average household in more than 3 weeks. If there were as many BTC users as Christmas lights users, the consequences wouldn't be pretty.
Mining rate and therefore energy costs are based on the blockchain mining parameters, not the number of users. If there were a ton more users, you'd likely see more transactions on the Lightning network, with Lightning nodes settling out on the main Bitcoin blockchain, but it wouldn't impact energy use substantially.
About the only thing that impacts energy use at this point is the price. One can reasonably estimate that, steady state, the value of the energy used is roughly equal to the total block rewards.
Gold is an chemical element very useful properties.
As for the banking system, Bitcoin is part of it now. Banks offer cryptocurrency-backed accounts, and if it becomes big, you will probably get all the stuff that banking does like loans, escrow services and fast, reversible transactions. There will be regulations and I guess a fractional reserve system will follow.
And how is it uncensorable? All it takes for a state to censor it is to declare it illegal with harsh sentences for those who get caught and embargoes on countries that don't play along.
As for Christmas lights, I think you are way off. Care to share the numbers.
You don't go your shop with gold bars either. You store them in your bank account and use 2nd-layer currency (fiat used to be tied to gold). Same way you store bitcoin and use 2nd-layer currencies like lightning-network.
I'm not saying it works particularly well yet but the idea is sound.
To sell if for 2 Billion after the jump in price? Or to drop the price and annoy some people? I mean he openly manipulated the price and exited pretty fast. Now it's even lower than before. Longterm he probably made more harm than good.
understanding the difference between rich and ethical (last comment) to
rich investors being wise or not (you again)
To make it short: Just because Elon or rich investors buy doesn't mean they are unwise (for themselves) just that it's bad for the world (ecologically), so basically both can be true. Just the difference between thinking about themselves and thinking about other people as well...
The value of decentralized system far outweighs the cost of maintaining it especially when it comes to money. Could bitcoin be more efficient? Absolutely, but to call it big mistake of modern technology is just silly.