> Now at some point there is a market incentive to develop mining techniques that optimize for less energy consumption above all else.
There is already a market incentive for that (electricity is not free), and there is already a solution to this (proof of stake). Please stop advocating and using proof of work shitcoins.
This particular paper shows that every proof-of-stake variant is fallible into the "rich get richer". That means these PoS schemes do look like shitcoins, not the other way around.
Given that and given that I do not like Biticoin in any of its capacities (PoW is not even the most wrong thing with btc), I would like to advise everyone to hate all cryptocurrencies equally strong.
There is already a market incentive for that (electricity is not free), and there is already a solution to this (proof of stake). Please stop advocating and using proof of work shitcoins.