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Random question (which I am sure has been asked before): is there any way to harness the power of the block-chain to, say, fold proteins? Or something "useful"

by skizm 9y ago

Random question (which I am sure has been asked before): is there any way to harness the power of the block-chain to, say, fold proteins? Or something "useful" like that. I'm not saying that securing the block-chain isn't useful in and of itself, I'm just wondering if we could sort of set up the block-chain to swap in/out problems that are "hard to solve easy to verify and also provide other benefits to humanity". Example: say we swap the current proof of work with a protein folding problem instead, and then when we've "folded all the proteins" (or just decide it isn't a useful problem or whatever) in the future, we just revert it back to the current proof of work. Then maybe we find other similar problems and we could swap them in and out as needed. I'm guessing the current miners are hyper optimized for whatever the current proof of work is, which would be the main road block (outrage at a "wasted" investment into sha-256 specific machines). I'm not really up to date on all the tech / politics that would go into a change like that, but curious if it were technically possible.

hackinthebochs 9y ago
Foldingcoin and gridcoin do just that. They don't get much attention though.
kevinnk 9y ago
Foldcoin is very similar to what you're describing. The problem is that it's not actually clear we can do what you're describing in a cryptographically secure way - foldcoin for example essentially relies on the security of the Folding@Home network, something I find extremely sketchy. Regardless, it's not actually clear that Folding@Home itself is a net positive for society anyway (see https://www.gwern.net/Charity%20is%20not%20about%20helping https://www.gwern.net/Charity%20is%20not%20about%20helping)
AlexCoventry 9y ago
It's not clear how to build a proof of work function which is both flexible enough to be of practical value and rigid enough to be secure against tasks designed with hostile intent. Primecoin is the closest I've seen. Gridcoin and foldcoin aren't serious from a security perspective.

by skizm 9y ago

hackinthebochs 9y ago

Foldingcoin and gridcoin do just that. They don't get much attention though.

kevinnk 9y ago

Foldcoin is very similar to what you're describing. The problem is that it's not actually clear we can do what you're describing in a cryptographically secure way - foldcoin for example essentially relies on the security of the Folding@Home network, something I find extremely sketchy. Regardless, it's not actually clear that Folding@Home itself is a net positive for society anyway (see https://www.gwern.net/Charity%20is%20not%20about%20helping https://www.gwern.net/Charity%20is%20not%20about%20helping)

AlexCoventry 9y ago

It's not clear how to build a proof of work function which is both flexible enough to be of practical value and rigid enough to be secure against tasks designed with hostile intent. Primecoin is the closest I've seen. Gridcoin and foldcoin aren't serious from a security perspective.