2 ms·

Can you make me a list of real vs pretend work so I can base my ethical decisions on it?

• tsimionescu 5y ago
  It's not a comprehensive list, but a good rule of thumb is that any computer spinning around computing a number that no one cares about the value of is pretend work.
  • nathias 5y ago
    so BTC would be real work because a lot of people care about those numbers, right?
    • tsimionescu 5y ago
      No, no one cares about the final numbers - they are just, as the Bitcoin paper explains, Proof of Work. The only point of doing those calculations is to prove that you have spent X processor cycles in service of Bitcoin. You could entirely replace the calculation (and checkers) with a different calculation and nothing whatsoever would change about bitcoin, because no one cares about the values. Conversely, if you found an algorithm that could compute those same values in microseconds on a calculator, bitcoin would plummet in an instant, because suddenly anyone with a calculator could run 99% attacks on the bitcoin network. The numbers aren't improtant, the busywork is.
      • nathias 5y ago
        Well yes, the values existing are important, the values semantics aren't, that's why its a proof of work.