[Darkstryder]

It does make sense if you accept two hypotheses:

1/ cryptocurrencies are here to stay, like it or not

2/ The environmental harm done by PoW is a much greater risk to oneself than losing some money on staking.

Then staking becomes a « vote with your wallet » situation to nudge the entire cryptocurrency ecosystem towards non-polluting algorithms.

If you prove switching to PoS can be done at Ethereum’s scale, the case to ban PoW altogether becomes much stronger.

[lambdadmitry]

It still doesn't, unless you mean as a cause for activists. Stocks are here to stay too, and SP500 returned about 12% since mid-20th century while being much lower risk and having no withdrawal restrictions. Why settling down for 4% when you can have multitudes of that with lower risk? There is no financial sense to do that, and "voting with your wallet" against your financial interests is by definition activism.

What you're saying is effectively "staking is a donation to Ethereum future", which I don't mind as long as it is explicit. In Ethereum's communications, it's anything but.

[Darkstryder]

I think our disagreement is that I vehemently consider global warming to be against my long-term financial interest, making it perfectly rational to invest in anything that has a serious shot at limiting it, while you consider this to be « activism ».

[spprashant]

Investors expect Ether to grow as an asset at more than 12% per year. The 4% staking reward is just a bonus for these people.