it's called "we the people" or democracy if you will. We as a society decide that cryptocurrency aren't worth destroying the world over, and that's about it.
If bitcoin mining uses co2 producing power (because the economics supports it), is that the fault of bitcoin or the government for not sufficiently taxing the negative externalities of that means of production?
Unless we believe that Bitcoin has some use, its power consumption would be problematic even if it weren't so monstrously large. And vanishingly few people believe Bitcoin has any value beyond a get rich quick scheme.
There is no market in the world where you are going to decrease consumption by increasing the demand. That's just not how economics works.
It's curious how much agitation there is concerning the energy consumption of PoW. I don't see nearly as many articles calling for restricting AWS & co. Coincidentally Bitcoin is the base layer of a decentralized finance world completely out of the control of traditional elites and banks.
It's also a new finance world completely under the control of an even smaller elite of devs and mining pool owners (see the hard fork of Ethereum that happened a long time ago, and the upcoming fork of Ethereum that will move it to PoS; sure, Ethereum isn't Bitcoin, but there is nothing fundamentally different to prevent Bitcoin taking a similar step whenever the devs and miners decide).
What Bitcoin definitely is not is a new currency where the people have any kind of control. It is actively opposed to that goal, and takes away even the slight chance of a benevolent leader that exists with central bank controlled currencies.
You forgot a (perhaps even more) crucial part: the exchanges/stablecoins!
They're the whole reason this clown show is considered "finance" rather than funbux.
And they're all extremely suspicious. And by suspicious I mean obviously fraudulent. The value of Bitcoin (!) is propped up by Tether printing fake dollars backed by nothing.
