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> Mining trashes the environment and, for the majority of crypto assets/volumes, does not provide genuinely valuable economic activity besides speculation I've
by chaosharmonic 6y ago
> Mining trashes the environment and, for the majority of crypto assets/volumes, does not provide genuinely valuable economic activity besides speculation
I've actually been wondering about this -- are there any major ones that meaningfully provide other kinds of value for all of the computational resources they're using?
My understanding of blockchain as a concept is pretty surface-level, so maybe I'm just missing something obvious here. But at least at first glance, it kind of baffles me that so many of them are using seemingly arbitrary hash algorithms to calculate proof of work, when they could instead be tied to distributed projects -- folding@home, for instance -- and measuring actual work.
- Qworg 6y agoActual work can be monetized. The waste demonstrates commitment to the truth. Any non-waste reduces the security of the commitment, as you're getting paid no matter what.
- qqii 6y agoGPU mining is mostly ethereum. Ethereum mining isn't just arbitrary hash functions, its network settled $1T last year[0]. [0]: https://www.newsbtc.com/news/ethereum/ethereum-on-pace-to-settle-over-1-trillion-in-transactions-in-2020-analyst/ https://www.newsbtc.com/news/ethereum/ethereum-on-pace-to-se...
- Forbo 6y agoIt exists, it's called GridCoin. It's a proof of stake chain that disburses coins based on work units completed on the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC). There's a few others that take different approaches like Golem Network Token, Nym, Oxen, etc.