1: The environmental cost of crypto is not in the contracts themselves, but in the mining for currency. This does have a very large and unnecessary carbon footprint
2: Blockchain is great for decentralization, but 90s of ventures using it for financial gains are in essence centralizing them. An NFT is literally just a token that everyone agrees you own, and any image or item some random person or authority says is connected to said token is still owned by whoever made it. Take for example crypti kitties, if they ever shut down their servers then you're essentially left with nothing.
Smart contracts require mining, but could eliminate banks
Smart contracts could be indirectly lead to lower energy consumption overall
Also, many chains don't use proof-of-work, Ethereum is moving away from proof-of-work, and Layer 2 solutions for Ethereum, that are already available today, don't use proof-of-work.
Though eventually cryptocurrency might be better, using them at the current point of time where the biggest ones use proof of work is irresponsible.
Ethereum has been moving away from proof-of-work for years, but should not he used until it actually has finished said move.
Though cryptocurrencies originally were meant to work as a decentralized normal currency, people keep trading them like stocks, making them too volatile for normal people.
Banks would still be needed for tax-reasons, unless governments started accepting cryptocurrencies as their main coin. But this is highly unlikely in its current state.
I think you have a few misconceptions:
1: The environmental cost of crypto is not in the contracts themselves, but in the mining for currency. This does have a very large and unnecessary carbon footprint
2: Blockchain is great for decentralization, but 90s of ventures using it for financial gains are in essence centralizing them. An NFT is literally just a token that everyone agrees you own, and any image or item some random person or authority says is connected to said token is still owned by whoever made it. Take for example crypti kitties, if they ever shut down their servers then you're essentially left with nothing.
Also, many chains don't use proof-of-work, Ethereum is moving away from proof-of-work, and Layer 2 solutions for Ethereum, that are already available today, don't use proof-of-work.
Though eventually cryptocurrency might be better, using them at the current point of time where the biggest ones use proof of work is irresponsible.
Ethereum has been moving away from proof-of-work for years, but should not he used until it actually has finished said move.
Though cryptocurrencies originally were meant to work as a decentralized normal currency, people keep trading them like stocks, making them too volatile for normal people.
Banks would still be needed for tax-reasons, unless governments started accepting cryptocurrencies as their main coin. But this is highly unlikely in its current state.
Yes, crypto is volatile right now, that might be an issue.
But, as I said, L2 PoS solutions are available right now, big companies like Reddit are building featues with them.
And there's a literal government that started accepting a cryptocurrency as legal tender.