Memes

I mean, if one party pushes for use of blockchain, you'd just need to trust that specific system (algorithm, network..) and not explicitly the party pushing for it.

I also wouldn't call it power 'waste' since it does useful work - confirmation. It may be more inefficient compared to a centralized authority though. There are other ways of doing confirmations than proof-of-work as well, though each have their own drawbacks - just like a centralized system does,

Hmm I don't think that's necessarily what OP is proposing. There are cryptos where transactions are anonymous.

Y'all?

You seem to have conflated blockchain technology with cryptocurrency. Most cryptocurrencies use blockchain technology, but that's not it's only use case. Literally every problem you have listed relates to crypto and not blockchain itself. Blockchain is just a ledger of transactions. A private company using it to say, keep track of their inventory, or track their payments, or use it for document control, can implement it however they want.

Relative point to point

• which Blockchain are we talking here? How does it compare to the current banking infrastructure?
• again, which one? How does it compare to the current pricing?
• escrow is a thing, someone can build up a PayPal equivalent on top of a Blockchain, the list goes on
• the current system doesn't do great here, some Blockchains makes it way more traceable, in fact
• skill issue, but also solvable with a PayPal equivalent
• not a fact, what does this even mean?
• does it?

You could say the Linux kernel is an astronomically terrible idea because it doesn't do anything...but it is just the platform, the good comes from what people build on top of it that add all these quality of life features you miss

Buy ydy

Bitcoin only consumes the energy people put in it. It literaly would adjust to only consume 20W if that's what was available. But that also means it can absord an infinite amount of excess energy if necessary

Just to elaborate here. You are describing one implementation of a blockchain that provides a cryptocurrency. Blockchain is literally just another form of a database. It’s just that it can contain traits that would allow the database to be shared and distributed unlike typical databases. Currently there are some companies that are utilizing blockchain for their inventory systems. They aren’t using any more energy than they would with a typical system. They are just doing it to keep an unchanging record of past transactions which helps with fraud and loss prevention.

P.S. Money laundering using a system that is publicly distributed and has every transaction involving usd paired with an ID, social security number and enough pictures of your face to make a 3D model is genuinely idiotic.

payments/transfers would be both much slower AND much more expensive than via a bank

Not necessarily. You could have a federated system, where only big players like banks participate in larger blockchain, like banks already do with forex and wire transfers and pay ridiculous fees to clearing agencies, and clear out local transfers locally, possibly inside their own smaller and much faster blockchain.

All your points are about an obsolete idea of Bitcoin, a PoW public blockchain. A PoS private blockchain with private keys not handled by the users would invalidate your entire list.