Excuse me sir RTB
But... we didn't see it coming??? Are you mental? 'When I started mining the impact wasn't quite clear'... well you lack some serious insight in anything outside of your own attic then. There's a whole world out there you know? I'm sorry to be so harsh, but that sentence right there disqualified any faith I still have in anything else you wrote. It contains so much naive, I can't even get to grips with it. And you came to terms with yourself and became 'level headed' after a few Bitcoin value ups and downs. Wow... just wow.
The only good thing about Bitcoin is the blockchain tech and that is something we will keep seeing in the future and is a great tool to have especially in a world where digital security matters.
The cryptocurrency by definition and by the way it is mined, should die off really quickly, but validation through blockchain is something that will essentially save us loads of effort and in turn, energy compared to the current way we handle transactions.
Bitcoin was never about power to the people or removing the fat banks and decentralizing control. If you believe this, go eat your tin foil hat. Already the blockchain is being monetized and analyzed by banks worldwide. They will make it theirs, and that's all she wrote.
Oh and this bullshit about proof of work... you're not working, you're just using shitloads of energy to let a machine do processing. The work you do, is paying your energy bill and pressing the on button. Its one of those things that people who sit behind a computer love to think of as work, and it has become some weird form of self fulfilling prophecy for them. Get a life... before that bubble bursts and you'll be back to zero. And about BOINC and putting it towards science - sure, that's all fine, as long as you don't monetize it. Its just like so many other things people just 'like to do' because of emotional reasons - they work as such, and die off once you monetize it.