Not the point. It's obviously introduced new problems, but does provide a highly valued capability. Sweeping dismissals of the space based on bitcoin's design are ignorant and lazy.

Hardly lazy. The entire space has existed for 10 years and the underlying tech for even more. So far all that has been produced is massive amounts of fraud. If you want to count pump and dump scams, Ponzi schemes, pyramid schemes, terrorist funding, organized crime money laundering schemes, crypto-locker scams, “underage kids buying hardcore drugs” schemes, child trafficking schemes, blatant tax fraud, “hiding money from the ex wife” schemes, and all the other underground frauds, scams and criminal behavior as “valuable”, be my guest.

... oh and all at the low low cost of the several small nations worth of electricity required to power the brutally slow, inefficient by design Rube Goldberg contraption that is the blockchain...

The whole space is a joke.

How do we know there isn't a selfish mining ring owning and subtly biasing Ethereum?

I want a good answer to this question before I put money back in. Because tbqf, it's very easy to raise capital on buzzwords. Especially if you're so we'll suited to money laundering.

It should be possible to check for autocorrelation of block arrival times, and correlation with forks. I don't know whether anyone's gone looking for that, but Eyal and Sirer have a strong incentive to monitor for it, and obviously have the chops to do so.

While there are bad actors in every system, how that system handles bad actors is still relevant and to the point when judging it.

Over 99% of it?

how much of the internet was dedicated to porn and funny pictures?