[Sohcahtoa82]

Imagine if all that processing power was used for Folding@Home.

The problem is that cryptocurrencies do not inherently need tons of processing power to operate. You could theoretically run the entire Bitcoin network on a Raspberry Pi. But the PoW algorithm was designed to always produce a block every 10 minutes, no matter how much hashing power was dedicated to the network. Everyone wanted a piece of the block reward pie, so the arms race was created.

Proof-of-stake algorithms would eliminate this problem entirely, but PoS is a shitty "rich get richer" method. Granted, with how expensive mining power is, even PoW results in the rich getting richer, but at least it doesn't result in the wasting of gigawatts of electricity.

[ilammy]

> Everyone wanted a piece of the block reward pie, so the arms race was created.

And that's intentional – getting people pursue the goal for their own egoistic reasons, because that's bound to succeed. As a result, they all increase the security and stability of the network whether they want it or not, the only way to not do this is to not participate. If the network were running on a single Raspberry, someone bringing two Raspberries could effectively outcompete the other person on block rewards.

I'm not sure how this can be avoided without fundamental changes in society with regards to competition and adversity.