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There are some people that view these as a solution to Proof of Work energy use I’ve been researching OPUs for this purpose, as in, the concept of optical proc

There are some people that view these as a solution to Proof of Work energy use I’ve been researching OPUs for this purpose, as in, the concept of optical processors only came to my attention because of the people looking for an edge in mining and energy use. From what I can tell, it could only be a stopgap or decade long solution to PoW, as people would just hoard these over time till the energy use was the same But any slowdown is good Good for sellers of OPUs though

adgjlsfhk1 5y ago
Light based computers work best on linear operations. They are extremely unlikely to work well for computing hashes.
- vmception 5y ago
  Right well, thats why there is a new hashing algorithm. And they want other energy heavy cryptocurrencies to switch to it. Basically there is a whole row going on in the far far corners of crypto land, where some Cambridge and Columbia university alumni have made a new hashing algorithm (HeavyHash) that is heavy on linear operations specifically so that it would theoretically have an advantage on light based computers and be a sustainability solution [for now]. They stood up an example project back in May and forgot about it ("optical bitcoin", oBTC), but people kept mining it. Just on GPUs and FPGAs, as the low power better processors don't exist yet so there isn't really anything different at the moment. Because these are students with no funding, the management is very weak. There is at least one fork of that project that has better management ("photonic bitcoin", pBTC). But they are waiting for OPUs to exist at all, as there are a variety of vaporware companies out there with massive funding. HeavyHash itself is being used in more and more other newly launched cryptocurrencies. Hoping for OPUs to become available to actually make their networks different than others. They all so far only aspire to be examples for other major energy consuming cryptocurrencies we've heard of to switch to. The university students had submitted a proposal (BIP) to Bitcoin-core, and that slow moving network typically needs real world examples and fear of missing out for consensus to shift.
simias 5y ago
I don't see how that adds up, unless production of these light computers is extremely constrained they are just going to be produced en masse if they provide an edge for PoW mining, then you'll just have many more computers using the same amount of energy. And if the supply is constrained in such a way that only a tiny amount of people have access to the technology it just means that you have a centralized mining pool that can easily perform a 51% attack. It's always a zero-sum game in the end. The only way to "fix" PoW is to get rid of it.
- vmception 5y ago
  yeah my post covered that, with much more brevity. read it again, slowly, specifically the third line.
  - vlovich123 5y ago
    I think the contention is around that it could even be a 10 year stopgap. I too think it would be much shorter - a couple of years at most.
    - vmception 5y ago
      ah okay so some of us are are agreeing about the limited utility. I mostly think the production and distribution would be constrained for the level of demand out there.
    - simias 5y ago
      Indeed, I should have made that clearer. 10 years is what separates the iphone 1 and the iphone 8, or the PlayStation and the PlayStation 3. If there's a breakthrough in computing technology it'll be everywhere within a couple of years IMO, and miners will be among the first ones served because they're willing to pay above market price and in bulk (see the GPU situation at the moment).
- danlugo92 5y ago
  > it just means that you have a centralized mining pool that can easily perform a 51% attack. Miners do not ultimately decide what blocks get into the blockchain or not, full nodes[0] do. Here's a collection of 8 articles explaning who (if anyone) controls Bitcoin and why miners are not who are in control: https://endthefud.org/control https://endthefud.org/control [0] ~$200 of hardware, and there are about 12k of them right now.
blihp 5y ago
The whole point of PoW is that it requires a given amount of effort at a given level of difficulty to maintain a given level of production. (i.e. it's a function of the capital cost of the equipment and the operational cost of running it) All else being equal, if the amount of effort to produce a given result is reduced it will result in an increased level of difficulty netting out to a similar level of energy use. This is the reason that Bitcoin, for example, keeps ratcheting up the difficulty: to counteract the increased performance of CPUs, then GPUs, then FPGAs and finally ASICs over time. It's an arms race that you can't 'win' for any extended period of time since the difficulty is not a constant, but rather determined by the desired level of production.
- latchkey 5y ago
  This is something that I appreciate about ethash (Ethereum's current PoW algo)... it is tied to GPUs (and memory controllers). One side effect is that older GPUs tend to drive higher ROI numbers vs. an arms race of always having the latest smaller nm ASIC technology. Oh and CPUs don't work well because that drives people to create botnets. FPGAs kind of sit out there in an esoteric expensive and difficult to run island all by themselves.

adgjlsfhk1 5y ago

Light based computers work best on linear operations. They are extremely unlikely to work well for computing hashes.

vmception 5y ago
Right well, thats why there is a new hashing algorithm. And they want other energy heavy cryptocurrencies to switch to it. Basically there is a whole row going on in the far far corners of crypto land, where some Cambridge and Columbia university alumni have made a new hashing algorithm (HeavyHash) that is heavy on linear operations specifically so that it would theoretically have an advantage on light based computers and be a sustainability solution [for now]. They stood up an example project back in May and forgot about it ("optical bitcoin", oBTC), but people kept mining it. Just on GPUs and FPGAs, as the low power better processors don't exist yet so there isn't really anything different at the moment. Because these are students with no funding, the management is very weak. There is at least one fork of that project that has better management ("photonic bitcoin", pBTC). But they are waiting for OPUs to exist at all, as there are a variety of vaporware companies out there with massive funding. HeavyHash itself is being used in more and more other newly launched cryptocurrencies. Hoping for OPUs to become available to actually make their networks different than others. They all so far only aspire to be examples for other major energy consuming cryptocurrencies we've heard of to switch to. The university students had submitted a proposal (BIP) to Bitcoin-core, and that slow moving network typically needs real world examples and fear of missing out for consensus to shift.

simias 5y ago

I don't see how that adds up, unless production of these light computers is extremely constrained they are just going to be produced en masse if they provide an edge for PoW mining, then you'll just have many more computers using the same amount of energy. And if the supply is constrained in such a way that only a tiny amount of people have access to the technology it just means that you have a centralized mining pool that can easily perform a 51% attack. It's always a zero-sum game in the end. The only way to "fix" PoW is to get rid of it.

vmception 5y ago
yeah my post covered that, with much more brevity. read it again, slowly, specifically the third line.
- vlovich123 5y ago
  I think the contention is around that it could even be a 10 year stopgap. I too think it would be much shorter - a couple of years at most.
  - vmception 5y ago
    ah okay so some of us are are agreeing about the limited utility. I mostly think the production and distribution would be constrained for the level of demand out there.
  - simias 5y ago
    Indeed, I should have made that clearer. 10 years is what separates the iphone 1 and the iphone 8, or the PlayStation and the PlayStation 3. If there's a breakthrough in computing technology it'll be everywhere within a couple of years IMO, and miners will be among the first ones served because they're willing to pay above market price and in bulk (see the GPU situation at the moment).
danlugo92 5y ago
> it just means that you have a centralized mining pool that can easily perform a 51% attack. Miners do not ultimately decide what blocks get into the blockchain or not, full nodes[0] do. Here's a collection of 8 articles explaning who (if anyone) controls Bitcoin and why miners are not who are in control: https://endthefud.org/control https://endthefud.org/control [0] ~$200 of hardware, and there are about 12k of them right now.

blihp 5y ago

The whole point of PoW is that it requires a given amount of effort at a given level of difficulty to maintain a given level of production. (i.e. it's a function of the capital cost of the equipment and the operational cost of running it) All else being equal, if the amount of effort to produce a given result is reduced it will result in an increased level of difficulty netting out to a similar level of energy use. This is the reason that Bitcoin, for example, keeps ratcheting up the difficulty: to counteract the increased performance of CPUs, then GPUs, then FPGAs and finally ASICs over time. It's an arms race that you can't 'win' for any extended period of time since the difficulty is not a constant, but rather determined by the desired level of production.

latchkey 5y ago
This is something that I appreciate about ethash (Ethereum's current PoW algo)... it is tied to GPUs (and memory controllers). One side effect is that older GPUs tend to drive higher ROI numbers vs. an arms race of always having the latest smaller nm ASIC technology. Oh and CPUs don't work well because that drives people to create botnets. FPGAs kind of sit out there in an esoteric expensive and difficult to run island all by themselves.