As reported in the Evening Standard, the Bank of International Settlements published an annual report with four criteria to continue economic growth. However, it was rather overshadowed by a statement in the appendix (reported here, here, here, here, here and elsewhere) where cryptographic currency was described as a "combination of a bubble, a Ponzi scheme and an environmental disaster".
I agree and so does a Canadian electricity company.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday June 28 2018, @04:23AM
What does justify it is that energy is incredibly cheap and plentiful and we have better things to do with that energy than conserve it. I really don't care that Bitcoin consumes as much as a few small countries. If energy were truly a thing of great expense and/or value, bitcoin miners would consume less of it.
Second, the secondary markets are not magic. They're just facets of the bitcoin system that have been around almost as long as Bitcoin has.