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>[Proof of work] is nearly 100% efficient I'm curious how you're defining efficiency here. If it's "nearly 100% efficient", does that mean it's 99% efficient?

• wyager 10y ago
  > If 100 people compete on a block and 1 person is awarded the block, then isn't it 1% efficient and 99% wasteful? From the network's perspective, everyone collaborated to make that block more secure. The more hashing power you have, the harder it is to subvert the network. "Wastefulness" in this case can only be expressed by comparing energy spent per hash to the most efficient extant computer which could hypothetically be used by an attacker. In this case, Bitcoin is already mined using specialized ultra-efficient ASICs, so by this standard it is not wasteful.
  • bduerst 10y ago
    > everyone collaborated to make that block more secure. The rational actors aren't collaborating to make the network more secure, they're competing to get the reward. In fact, the asics you mention is why the network isn't that secure. They create an economies of scale that allows the network to be controlled by a handful of Chinese miners, who in turn won't fork useful updates. That means the redundant work being done by the miners is wasted.