[jeffshek]

Disclaimer: I own some (not enough, I wish more).

I think your points were valid when cryptocurrency first started, but now it's now a bit too entrenched to be easily squashed.

1) Many miners use renewable energy. China uses a bit of coal for mining, but recent news (or FUD) has most miners scrambling for "greener" energy. Bitcoin's energy usage is talked about quite a bit, but doesn't seem to really dissuade.

2) If Bitcoin had been started by a large organization versus grassroots - this likely would have been squashed. Instead, considering now how widespread it is, and how many politicians own crypto, along with Coinbase being affluent enough to lobby against this - this scenario now seems unlikely. However, I do agree, there will be a fight for monetary control and it may be ugly, but ultimately cryptocurrency will survive in some way or another.

3) Yes - in the beginning, the vast majority of crypto in was used for illegal reasons. Monero is probably a better use case as it's untraceable. Bitcoin has a public ledger making it much easier to track. However, the percentage of overall transactions (crypto) for illegal activities has decreased over time.

USDC is probably the best bet of what you're imagining of a crypto pegged to the US Dollar. It also allows for a blacklist of addresses known in illegal activities.

With all that being said, DeFi may prove to be a larger use case, as it's now possible to create "virtual" banks that run on code and no humans, etc.

[soonnow]

For the first point, I don't think it matters if the energy is green or not. It's still energy that is being wasted and could be used to in other ways. Just because the source is not directly burning coal, doesn't mean it doesn't have a net positive impact on emissions.

And for example Bitcoin can very much be squashed in my opinion. Enforce all transactions to be declared above a certain limit. Already the norm for banking that will likely become a necessity for cryptocurrency transfers. I just literally can see no way that this wouldn't happen. Exchanges will need to report it. I feel this would remove a lot of speculation from the market and illegal usage and leave the mature coins. Like some of those that you mentioned.

So when I was saying cryptocurrency I meant the large amount of unregulated coins, chief among them Bitcoin. I agree that there will be coins in the future especially government backed coins or coins that are linked to those coins. But I wouldn't expect Bitcoin to be relevant in a few years.

[meowface]

It's estimated ~39% of total Bitcoin mining uses renewable energy, as of September 2020. It might be higher now due to all the electricity usage attention in recent months, but as long as it's under 90 - 95%, there'll be a lot of criticism.

IMO it's inevitable Bitcoin will face increasing pressure to plan a transition to PoS. Especially if Ethereum's PoS transition goes well and the network is running successfully for at least a year afterwards. (And at that time, Bitcoin's total electricity usage might be much higher than it is now, also.)

But I also predict the community and devs won't even consider the idea, and that this'll manifest as mutually escalating tension and hostility between the different cryptocurrency communities, news media, social media, etc. It's already pretty polarized, but I think it could get much worse. Especially if Bitcoin's price starts to rise more slowly or drop and Ethereum's starts to grow more quickly or surpass it.