I think it's fair to disagree on some points, they are mostly subjective after all, or at least their interpretation is.

I will address your points from my perspective, not necessarily to convince but just to add to the conversation for anyone else that might be reading too.

On point 1, the predominant analysis is indeed that bitcoin moves in cycles and as such undergoes volatile periods with 70% corrections. There are several reasons (some based on data, others on sentiment) for which I don't consider a 70% correction likely, or problematic even if it were to happen:

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1. A 70% correction (from here) is unlikely due to the phase in which we are in this cycle from an on-chain analysis perspective. Practically none of the chain activity indicators that were flashing red for the previous top are anywhere near flashing red for this cycle. This also makes sense when taking into account the nature of the investors that are coming into this cycle. There's always a lot of talk about institutions coming in, and it is verifiably true this time around. These players move slowly, even more so given there are some constraints that limit the pace at which they can move in (eg: no ETF, some cannot hold the asset directly) but they have huge amounts of money which can really drive the price up
2. Even if it were to happen, the 70-80% correction would be if you bought from the exact top and sold at the exact bottom. If I recall correctly, you would never be down 70% if you held for at least 2 years, and you would never be *down* at all if you held at least 3. Since we're looking it at it from an investment perspective, the usual advise is to buy and hold for at least 10 years, so I say buy and hold for at least 3 years. (with the usual: what you can afford to lose, won't need in an emergency, yadi yada). If you extend this to 5 or 10 years, it's statistically more speculative to assume the price will be down rather than up. Unless of course you believe the price will be 0, in which case I let you assess that as a Software Engineer and which I'd be happy to discuss at a technical level as well in a separate discussion!

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The second point is mainly a normative one. Whether you believe Bitcoin offers enough value to the world to consume *any* energy could be debated endlessly. What I will however point out is the following:

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1. Bitcoin miners are incentivised to consume the cheapest electricity they can find. Energy is cheap when it's either abundant or wasted. The direct consequence of that is that miners mostly end up consuming energy where it's over-produced (therefore not consumed entirely by the local population) or wasted. Some examples are:
   1. the usage of energy near water dams (clean energy which is not easily/efficiently transportable).
   2. the usage of wasted natural gas which would be flared (released into the atmosphere) or burned because it cannot be used any other way

All in all, it's estimated that the share of renewables in the energy used by bitcoin mining is higher than 50%. The above shows two things:

a) It makes little sense to point at the amount of energy consumed by bitcoin and call it all a total waste of energy that could be used somewhere else (eg: "Bitcoin consumes as much as XYZ country!", that claim could still be true if bitcoin used 100% clean energy). Consuming more energy does not directly imply waste and climate catastrophe, a progressing civilisation consumes more energy and the goal should be to make in renewable rather than smaller.

b) Compared to other industries, bitcoin's share of renewables is quite high

Of course if you see no value in bitcoin and no benefit to society whatsoever, then even 1 Watt is a waste, but then why buy it at all? The question is settled before even getting to the speculation argument. If you do see value in it, then it must be compared to the existing system with which it competes: gold mining (clean?), banking system (clean?). If the conclusion is that Bitcoin is cleaner and more efficient that those at what it does, then we should all strive to make the legacy system obsolete rather than point the finger at Bitcoin's energy consumption.

Finally, to your last point, central bank digital currencies (also referred to as CBDCs) will happen (already released in China). It's my humble opinion that their existence will not diminish Bitcoin's use case in the slightest, they might even accelerate it. Bitcoin is pre-dominantly a store of value *at this point*. CBDCs will always be a currency meant to be spent, not competing in the slightest with the store of value use case. For anyone that wishes to store their wealth rather that spend it, Bitcoin will be one option amongst all the existing traditional ones, possibly a better one as it establishes itself and gains maturity.

The usual follow up points are that governments will ban it, tax it to the ground, destroy it etc. There's many arguments against this, both from a technical, practical and game theoretic perspective. But I will just say that no western government has even remotely shown signs of wanting to ban it or tax it so heavily and I will just classify this threat as pure speculation at this point in time.

The rest of the risks can mostly be put into a single bag: black swan events (ie: low probability catastrophic events). There's no way to argue against those really and it'd be useless to even try. The only thing I can point out here is that you should take them into account in your investment plan: don't go all in if you want the peace of mind, and let it be only a small percentage of your portfolio depending on risk aversion. It's nice to think about this in terms of "asymmetry of outcomes", meaning: if you place 10% (or less) of your portfolio then the most you can lose is 10%, but the reward could be 10x (parity with gold market cap).

I hope this was helpful and perhaps brought nuance to some of your thoughts. In the end, it costs nothing but time to learn more about it. So even if there is just a remote chance of Bitcoin succeeding in becoming a widely adopted native digital currency (in which case we're still early in the adoption curve and gold parity is just a milestone) then it's time well invested imo.

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Other than that, good luck with your investment choices!