There's some good data here - that being said, even if the carbon footprint were literally zero, I couldn't personally support cryptocurrency.
Fundamentally it's the antithesis to democracy. Say whatever you will about all forms of government, but ultimately no matter the form, there's some level of accountability. Some governments use elections to facilitate this, others use the threat of rulers being killed. One way or another, there's accountability.
The fundamental political issue with cryptocurrency is now you've created some amorphous group of oligarchs whose power cannot be really removed by traditional means. It's just a regression.
Even if what I'm saying doesn't come to be, at a minimum you've introduced yet another layer to our financial systems for no benefit - our current system isn't here by accident. It's here due to learnings - learnings about human nature, markets, and so forth. Because cryptocurrency doesn't exist in a vacuum, no matter what you're either enriching early adopters, leading to what I described earlier; or you are subject to the same flaws as fiat that it's trying to replace.
Fundamentally it's the antithesis to democracy. Say whatever you will about all forms of government, but ultimately no matter the form, there's some level of accountability. Some governments use elections to facilitate this, others use the threat of rulers being killed. One way or another, there's accountability.
The fundamental political issue with cryptocurrency is now you've created some amorphous group of oligarchs whose power cannot be really removed by traditional means. It's just a regression.
Even if what I'm saying doesn't come to be, at a minimum you've introduced yet another layer to our financial systems for no benefit - our current system isn't here by accident. It's here due to learnings - learnings about human nature, markets, and so forth. Because cryptocurrency doesn't exist in a vacuum, no matter what you're either enriching early adopters, leading to what I described earlier; or you are subject to the same flaws as fiat that it's trying to replace.