I think it’s very unlikely that all that energy would have been “wasted” otherwise. I think it’s also increasing the price of electricity at peak production hours which makes it less appealing to invest in hydrogen production facilities. The problem of attributing money has largely been solved already, Bitcoin isn’t necessary. Even if it was needed Ethereum can fill that role too, either as an independent monetary unit or more likely a method of unregulated gambling.

Bitcoin was an interesting proof of concept that showed that blockchain technology could work, but today it’s obsolete, slow and wasting energy and only used because people haven’t realized that yet.