For me there are multiple practical reasons why Bitcoin is a dead-end. First is the obvious power consumption problem; second is the fact its volatility means no one can use it for real-world transactions; third is the fact that blockchain doesn’t offer anything that far less power-intensive alternatives can’t do equally well; fourth comes the fact that all bubbles pop eventually. Blockchain feels to me (as a really old guy who’s seen so very many tech hype trends come and go) no different from CORBA ORBs (the must-have idea of the pre-Internet age) and how Internet 1.0 had “changed the fundamental nature of economics.”

But I also have been around long enough to know there’s no way to defeat enthusiasm for some new Holy Grail, so things just have to play themselves out, as every bubble has done since we invented writing and started recording these irrational enthusiasms.