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It would also make bitcoin completely unusable, as the block time would be tied to the time it takes to find a new prime. So transactions would only go through
by throwaway7767 11y ago
It would also make bitcoin completely unusable, as the block time would be tied to the time it takes to find a new prime. So transactions would only go through every few years. So that would not work.
- webaholic 11y agoThat was just an example of useful work. I am sure we could find something both useful and that is not time consuming.
- throwaway7767 11y agoI agree that this would be great, but this is not a new idea, people have been talking about these things since 2008-ish. Unless you have a firm proposal, I think we're at exactly the same place as we've always been: everyone agrees that it'd be nice, but noone has any idea how to make it happen[0]. The useful work also has to happen as a byproduct of the blockchain securing calculations, because if it's seperate, the blockchain will offer worse security properties than a competing blockchain with similar hashing power, so there's a disincentive to use it. [0] There was PrimeCoin, which computed some series purported to be mathematically interesting. Math people I've talked to mostly shrugged their shoulders when I asked them whether that work had any real applications.