Does the "complex math problem" that gets solved by burning energy to magic bitcoin into existence actually do anything. Like, is that complex math problem helping cure parkinsons or learn about string theory, or is it literally going in the bin as soon as its solved?
There is no other existential purpose or goal other than providing the value for the currency through security. It's not like "folding" -- the 'fad' 10 years ago of providing your unused processor power to help expand our knowledge of the human genome, or help accellerate gene discovery for rare diseases (I'm sure it might still exist today, I just remember it being a big thing 10 years ago like ... "Donate your unused processor power to help find cures for cancer!" and stuff, it doesn't have the same viral attention it used to have)
My current thinking is that crypto is one of the best examples of coming up with a "solution" for a problem that didn't exist. Or, better put, conjuring a problem that needs solving, and then coming up with an insanely inefficient, destructive way of solving it.
I find the justifications for this massive waste, like country-scale waste, are all copouts that make the "problems" that bitcoin are trying to "solve" bigger than the actual problems that 'mining' is introducing. Like, the justifications seek to turn these things that really aren't problems -- trust with financial transactions, anonymity on the internet, secure anonymous ledgers, etc -- into things that are bigger problems than, say, global climate crisis ...... Which is a
real problem. I think evangelists for bitcoin, blockchain, crypto, or whatever, tend to conflate public societal problems with individual financial opportunity ... which is appropriate, most of the evangelists are techbros and that's an axiom of tech culture.
And the people that believe those things believe them because it's
religious for them. They heard someone say "anonymous secure financial transactions are a problem that needs solving," and they've come to believe that as a matter of faith and people who challenge that faith are like, worse than skeptics, they're haters or they don't get the problem or something. I don't see it as that different than evangelical proselytizers of a controversial new religion.