Exactly 14 years ago , Satoshi Nakamoto designed the most pathetic / inefficient system ever invented by humankind : the blockchain.
Today, it weights 60 000 tons, wastes constantly 10 gigawatts .. to process less than 7 transactions per second :
Less than a 33 bps modem from 1990.
This could be joke if it didn't have such gigantic environmental impact, wasn't enabling billion dolllars ransomware industry and was not crushing thousands of lives in the process.
@wobweger @FranckLeroy it is more the other way around, i.e. expensive price causes high energy consumption -- the amount of energy consumed is based on capacity (difficultly automatically scales), and capacity based on what the reward is for processing, which is based on what fees people are willing to pay. For #bitcoin high fees paid means high energy usage (as it is proof of work); other systems, like #ethereum2 use proof of stake where high fees means high $$$ stake ($$$ are fungible, so this takes away from the least productive alternative use; which is not necessarily energy like bitcoin)