Is proof of work mining wasteful?

[autoria]

It seems like the cost of hardware and energy required for proof of work mining outweighs the benefits. Is proof of stake better despite it's incentivization of centralization? What if there were a third method to distribute coins?

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[favila]

Each system has its advantages and disadvantages. People complain that PoS leads to whales having too much power while others say ASICs have led to the same result with PoW. There is no doubt however that PoW does waste significant resources.

There are some alternative methods to validate transactions such as how ripple does it but this isn't really a decentralised option.

At the end of the day its going to come down to preference, I prefer PoS.