The petrodollar relied on burning significant resources, although its power is waning now. Gold relies on mining. As for Ethereum, it's proof-of-stake, implying it's not decentralized.
The only alternative currency that wouldn't burn energy would be shares in transferable energy itself. This would require a global energy grid which we don't have, and are not intelligent enough to seek to develop. Once such a grid exists, then shares in transferable energy would have a relatively stable value.
The problem with bitcoin is that past work is worth more than future work. More work/energy has to be expended now for 1 bitcoin than in the past. It's just as an unequal system as inflationary fiat.
You're not taking into account that the work was far riskier in the past - a much higher risk of it being wasted. It also required much scarcer knowledge in order to understand the value of bitcoin.
You buy bitcoin at the price you deserve.
Bitcoin is inheritly more equal than fiat because the cost of issuance is the same for everyone i.e. you don't have a select group of people who can legally counterfeit it and accrue enough power to effectively control the world.
Not really. Back then miners risked less work for less certain value. Nowadays miners risk more work, for more certain value. While it may seem like the past risked more, the risks/work hasn't really changed.
Yes, that's my point. Any extra gains in value that early adopters received was offset by the greater risk they took.
If anything risk/reward ratio is a better proposition than it was then - we have 15 years of solid operation, nation state adoption, ETFs and far less volatility yet the upside is still enormous.
You can buy "risky" bitcoin now at $50K, or you can wait until $50M when everyone and his dog is using it to store their wealth. The choice is yours.
If global finance ran on Bitcoin instead of on bank ledgers, all that energy would still need to be spent, but then an astronomical amount more energy would be spent on transaction processing on top.
Most likely they are not intentionally burning it for sake of burning it. And they do run almost all of the money in the world, so some energy expenditure is expected.
