4 ms·
Point-of-sale is pretty trivial computation and costs very little energy. Its value was also obvious. >now many are finding value in blockchain over banks Deb
by Sol- 8y ago
Point-of-sale is pretty trivial computation and costs very little energy. Its value was also obvious.
>now many are finding value in blockchain over banks
Debatable, people are using it for speculation, yes. But 90% of the people hyping blockchain probably don't even know what specific problem it solves and when this trustless model is even useful. It usually doesn't hold up to closer inspection.
- mikec3010 8y agoEach unit is roughly the equivalent of an i960 risc system with cpu ram and a display running 24/7 powered by a heat-generating wall wart. Not even counting the network equipment, before broadband many gas stations had satellite uplinks. Multiply that millions of times and the power consumption adds up. Bitcoin speculators have profited from bitcoin, just like ACH industry investors and executives profited from $0.50 per transaction ACH fees. The only difference I see is bitcoin hasn't driven up the cost of goods for everyone.
- paulmd 8y agoBitcoin doesn't avoid the need for point-of-sale systems any more than Apple Pay does. We still need something to ring up your order, even if you can pay from your phone. So to be clear, we still need the POS systems plus we would also need the computers doing a meaningless busy-work math problem to generate the blockchain.