> But again, those benefits are self-referential: Fairness rules for Bitcoin serve Bitcoin and fairness rules for stock exchanges serve stock exchanges. Would t

> But again, those benefits are self-referential: Fairness rules for Bitcoin serve Bitcoin and fairness rules for stock exchanges serve stock exchanges. Would the wider world be very much worse off if we had no Bitcoin or stock exchanges? For Bitcoin? Not much. Probably we'd be better off, especially with regard to our climate. I can't see enough benefit across our entire society to offset the significant damages produced by burning all this energy into heat. For stock exchanges? Oh yes, definitely. There's a huge bunch of research into the role of stock exchanges (and goods and futures exchanges as well, they work in a very similar way) in facilitating efficient trading of everything, from ownerships in corporations to goods and services. And there's definitely some undeniable truth to the argument that it is a good thing to have efficient trading of goods and services which is necessary for efficient production of stuff which in turn is necessary to fill our plates with food to eat, fill our medicine cabinets with antidotes to various ailments and so on and so on.