Hey, yes it's not a clearly drawn black/white issue, I do agree that the massive energy consumption isn't a GOOD thing, especially considering that those machines are running 24/7 and using energy even when not finding blocks... It must indeed be staggering, but I just wanted to bring a little bit of balance/perspective as Andreas has pointed out. I mean, there's always two sides to every story, and somewhere in the middle is the truth. Indeed though, wasting energy isn't a great thing, and I wonder because I hear a lot of China is coal-fired electricity, and lots of mining happens there(in fact, I hear the government is even giving free power to mining operations, whether or not that's true, would have to be looked in to)

One last thing, 10 minutes(if not hours) for a Bitcoin transaction? Come on... Move over BTC, come on Graphene! 😁 Definitely happy for the chat as well. I enjoy the random talks here on Steemit. 🙂