The future of Bitcoin mining appears to be in the hands of a small minority of users who can afford ASIC equipment, making the “distributed” nature of Bitcoin something of a joke. In addition, the Bitcoin network now must use vast amounts of power just to maintain itself, power typically generated by fossil fuel plants and in amounts far out of proportion to its actual usefulness. It is a tremendous waste of actual real-world resources that could be better used on something important (like, for example, watching cat videos).