Not to worry, the unintended consequence of the increasing need for large computational power will lead to faster and cheaper computers. The fact that someone can directly justify spending large amounts of money means that they will. We all win in the end.
No. This was (insignificant but) true in the CPU and GPU mining days, but ASICs dedicated to double hash collisions do not have any non-Bitcoin use, nor do these appear to push the state of the art in any way.
So, you're saying that none the of innovation or money funneled into finding Bitcoins will lead to zero reusable innovation? It will not create more profitable companies that produce ASICs? It won't possibly lead to even lower power ASICs? Better manufacturing techniques?
Doesn't the fact that money is being redistributed to technology companies good for technology, by definition?
Also, you're asking how Bitcoin mining, the use of technology, and SV start-ups will directly impact the future. I can't do that.
Of course, I couldn't tell you in the late 90's how a search engine company would lead to better self-driving cars (among other things), or how a company that made paying online popular would lead to electric sports cars and rockets.
I bet convincing most people that Likes and building a better social graph in 2005 would lead to any sort of innovation would have been a stretch too.
All of those startups combined are a small fraction of the chip market. And I don't see a Google/Amazon-like culture of innovation in these companies where the profits from a monopoly are invested to create new things. What I see are cutthroat, beyond-lean companies that are trying to extract as much value as they can in the short term, cash out, and move on.
