3 ms·
I'm very skeptical that some task can be found that's really useful in itself and is predictable and cheat-proof enough to be usable for something like Bitcoin.
by iainmerrick 9y ago
I'm very skeptical that some task can be found that's really useful in itself and is predictable and cheat-proof enough to be usable for something like Bitcoin.
I mean, are you thinking of something like SETI or Folding@home? Those are arguably useful, but there's a ton of scope for playing around with the problem scope and developing new variants that might require far fewer resources but remain useful -- and that's a good thing! But it surely makes them less usable as PoW systems.
- TYPE_FASTER 9y agoYes, exactly. I don't think requiring fewer computing resources is a bad thing, having multiple nodes in the blockchain come to the same conclusion could provide a level of trust similar to the existing mining algorithm. That's wasteful as well, but not as wasteful.
- iainmerrick 9y agoBut how do you address the fundamental problem of an arms race between miners? They could end up burning 90% of the world's energy production madly calculating protein folds. Is that a good return on investment?
- TYPE_FASTER 9y agoIn my opinion, it's a better return than calculating SHA hashes with no aim other than to do work. We could prioritize computing problems by increasing the reward for working "more important" problems (find asteroids that are going to hit us?).
- iainmerrick 9y agoIt's better but not much better. How do you avoid an arms race? Who gets to decide what problems are important?