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If you know of another way to solve the Byzantine generals problem, there's an entire community of researchers waiting to read your paper.

alexasmyths 9y ago
"If you know of another way to solve the Byzantine generals problem" 'Mining' is an arbitrary answer to handing out block-chains. They could give out Bitcoins to whoever solved specific math problems for which 'computing power' doesn't matter. They could give new Bitcoins to completely random people. The 'mining' paradigm is utterly wasteful because it wastes resources for no reason. The could have issued a 'big block' and than have been 'done with it' - no new Bitcoins. The level of religious support for this stuff is hilarious.
- ErikDub 9y ago
  The purpose of Mining is not to hand out new coins, this is only done to incentivise mining. The real reason behind mining is to secure the transactions. Mining prevents people from double spending their coins.
- harwoodleon 9y ago
  I'm glad you have outed this rather complex multi billion dollar industry with thousands of extremely competent programmers. > 'Mining' is an arbitrary answer to handing out block-chains. No it's not there are many ways to mine a coin and reach consensus, Proof of Work has been the most sensible one - as staking electricity is fundamental and universal. > They could give out Bitcoins to whoever solved specific math problems for which 'computing power' doesn't matter. They? > The 'mining' paradigm is utterly wasteful because it wastes resources for no reason. Ethereum uses a mining algo to process Smart Contracts. Other currencies like sia, use mining to process decentralised storage. Utterly wasteful is an overstatement. There are plans to move Ethereum to Proof of Stake where mining coins will become incredibly difficult and uneconomic and will reduce the power consumption problem. > The level of religious support for this stuff is hilarious. Your poor understanding of the topic made me chuckle
  - Nition 9y ago
    Alexasmyths isn't really making particularly crazy statements there. Ripple is a successful (third in market cap behind only Bitcoin and Ethereum) coin that already works by the "just randomly give them out to people" system without Proof Of Work. Yeah it's not great but neither is using huge amounts of processing power.
Asdfbla 9y ago
Another angle of criticism would be that solving the Byzantine generals problem with the threat model that cryptocurrencies target (i.e. anyone can join and leave the network somewhat anonymously at any time) is simply not necessary in the real world unless you are a die hard anarchist. Therefore, for any application that doesn't have those requirements it is a huge waste of resources.

alexasmyths 9y ago

"If you know of another way to solve the Byzantine generals problem" 'Mining' is an arbitrary answer to handing out block-chains. They could give out Bitcoins to whoever solved specific math problems for which 'computing power' doesn't matter. They could give new Bitcoins to completely random people. The 'mining' paradigm is utterly wasteful because it wastes resources for no reason. The could have issued a 'big block' and than have been 'done with it' - no new Bitcoins. The level of religious support for this stuff is hilarious.

ErikDub 9y ago
The purpose of Mining is not to hand out new coins, this is only done to incentivise mining. The real reason behind mining is to secure the transactions. Mining prevents people from double spending their coins.
harwoodleon 9y ago
I'm glad you have outed this rather complex multi billion dollar industry with thousands of extremely competent programmers. > 'Mining' is an arbitrary answer to handing out block-chains. No it's not there are many ways to mine a coin and reach consensus, Proof of Work has been the most sensible one - as staking electricity is fundamental and universal. > They could give out Bitcoins to whoever solved specific math problems for which 'computing power' doesn't matter. They? > The 'mining' paradigm is utterly wasteful because it wastes resources for no reason. Ethereum uses a mining algo to process Smart Contracts. Other currencies like sia, use mining to process decentralised storage. Utterly wasteful is an overstatement. There are plans to move Ethereum to Proof of Stake where mining coins will become incredibly difficult and uneconomic and will reduce the power consumption problem. > The level of religious support for this stuff is hilarious. Your poor understanding of the topic made me chuckle
- Nition 9y ago
  Alexasmyths isn't really making particularly crazy statements there. Ripple is a successful (third in market cap behind only Bitcoin and Ethereum) coin that already works by the "just randomly give them out to people" system without Proof Of Work. Yeah it's not great but neither is using huge amounts of processing power.

Asdfbla 9y ago

Another angle of criticism would be that solving the Byzantine generals problem with the threat model that cryptocurrencies target (i.e. anyone can join and leave the network somewhat anonymously at any time) is simply not necessary in the real world unless you are a die hard anarchist. Therefore, for any application that doesn't have those requirements it is a huge waste of resources.