The energy cost of mining bitcoin equates to exactly what people are willing to pay for it.
If the cost of mining increases, profits decrease, and the system re-equalizes.
It is simply another market, BTC/kj.
But, the TexRoman font, the lack of lockstep scrolling, and the non-compartmental MathJax rendering causing the entire document to flick-around when making any edits makes this non-feasible for documents > 1 page.
I'm also a sucker that needs inline sequence diagrams for my documents.
For now, for me, hackmd.io is king... but, maybe that will change.
You're basically specifiying PKI, not anything to do with Blockchain.
If you truly want the timestamps to "lock in" the time of a transaction without trusting either party, a hash-commitment could be used, akin to https://opentimestamps.org/.
As a crypto-developer working in the blockchain space, my primary company has opted to do an ICO as part of its operations.
The company has existing VC backing of between 4-10 million, and the project would benefit from blockchain - for one aspect.
By no means is a new token necessary, but that fact seems to have been side-stepped.
The product exists, and perceivably the token could be usable upon issuance...
I enjoy working on the crypto for the project, but I concern myself with the eventual legalities of the ICO and how it might change the companies incentives internally.
I have bills to pay, leaving on principle alone isn't viable for me, but, if it could impact on my family, I will.
I am not a lawyer, and the answers don't appear to be black and white.