[ephbit]

Some whataboutism .. individual people expend energy for countless things that are useless or even harmful to many others. Most people in the west are totally egoistic when it comes to the sheer amount of energy/resources they use/consume. > "... what a colossal waste."

Compared to all this, the energy/environmental footprint of bitcoin is laughably tiny.

IMO bitcoin does indeed have the potential of solving a global problem (not easily manipulatable reserve currency) .. that'd be a political/economic benefit that would justify a non trivial expenditure of resources. We'll see in the future whether it can come true. The experiment itself appears already useful to me. More useful than many other things humans have done. Yeah, totally subjective.