I find the most frustrating issue & the most compelling part of this argument to be the last: there are decent crypto alternatives that don't have this problem.

I find the most frustrating issue & the most compelling part of this argument to be the last: there are decent crypto alternatives that don't have this problem. You can find all sorts of people who will justify bitcoin for all its thrilling advantages over traditional finance, and explain why this ecological garbage fire is a good idea. I'm yet to find a single person who even tries to argue that bitcoin's advantages over other cryptos are worth the huge comparative cost. At the beginning of crypto, bitcoin was the only option. Today, bitcoin is successful purely because it has the highest price, and so the most opportunity to make random investors rich, rather than any technological advantage. When that price eventually crashes so that there's serious competition between crypto alternatives for usage & investment, I don't see how bitcoin can possibly survive without a huge reinvention.