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Verifying the ledger through hard maths problems is very useful. It's enabling the world's first completely decentralised network of monetary exchange to stand up as a valid store of value. If you don't think we need that, then read this: https://fee.org/articles/reuters-cash-disappearing-in-venezuela-despite-hyperinflation/
georgert
Doesn't that miss the point too though?
There's a purpose to mining gold. It's useful for making things.
Banks leaving the lights on is definitely a waste, but there was a reason to have the lights in the first place.
Bitcoin is solving hard maths problems for no purpose other than to create the coin. If the work being done was protein folding, or weather prediction (ignoring the irony), and you got a token to show you'd done the work and that entitled you to a % of a bitcoin then you could argue that the the mining itself was more than an exercise in vanity.
I definitely don't know what I'm talking about compared to the Stonehenges on the thread, but I've yet to be convinced that Bitcoin isn't a shitshow on a number of levels.