This is probably the one "feature" of blockchains that will kill it, since they're based on proof-of-lots=of-work, and work needs power.
This proof of concept can now manifest itself in a variety of formats. Many of which we cannot fathom today, because they haven't yet been invented. There are many intelligent people now working on this problem and improving the way a blockchain works, or even pulling from that proof of concept and rethinking the solution without traditional blockchain.
People are too heavily focused on what the technology is capable of right now. That is irrelevant. The industry is in its infancy. Up until 5 years ago, the only blockchains that still exist today in any meaningful format are Bitcoin and Litecoin. Litecoin is just a Bitcoin clone.
Just wait and see how this space will develop over the next 10, 20, 30 years. The proof of concept is that people will assign value to digital assets without any authority backing them. That's the most important development.
> There are many intelligent people now working on this problem and improving the way a blockchain works, or even pulling from that proof of concept and rethinking the solution without traditional blockchain.
In other words, no blockchain is better than blockchain.
Why? There are many Proof of Stake coins out there too, for instance Dash and NEO (and many more coming).
I mean let me put it this way, how can you even claim that a blockchain requires more energy than a Visa transaction? Isn't the price of a transaction an indicator of the amount of energy needed for it, for ordinal comparison?
For instance, if Visa charges $0.3 per transaction, and another network (Whether it's cryptocurrencies or Gnomes carrying gold from you to the other person) charges $0.2 per tx, then as long as the two compete freely, you can say that the energy required by the latter is lower than the energy required by the former.
Keep in mind, I said 'compete' and 'freely'. Visa may have a higher profit margin because the alternate payment system isn't popular enough yet, so Visa's power expenditure could be much lower than reflected by their tx fee.
A means of exchange A unit of account A store of value
They satisfy the first but not the other two. I cannot know for sure what value my coins have on any given day, let alone what they are likely to be valued at by next year. Thus they do not act as a store of value nor a unit of account.
If it takes the electricity consumption of Denmark to secure less than $10bn in transactions, how much will it take to replace the $6tn daily Forex volumes?
Honestly I wish people would realise how utterly pointless crypto is as a currency. Maybe then I'll get a cheap graphics card.
A unit of account from my understanding simply means that other people are willing to price their goods/services in your currency. This is a by-product of people participating and using the token, and it being stable enough. So once there is a "stablecoin" that gains traction, this will surely follow.
To solve proof-of-work consuming too much electricity, Ethereum is upgrading to proof-of-stake which is on the roadmap and consumes a negligible amount of power.
