I think you're missing /my/ point, which is that BitCoin is useful as a currency, and these ASICs are strengthening the system, so by extension they are useful

I think you're missing /my/ point, which is that BitCoin is useful as a currency, and these ASICs are strengthening the system, so by extension they are useful too. If you think the BitCoin project is entirely useless, even as a proof-of-concept, then yes, these ASICs are useless, but that's an entirely different discussion. > ... toy problem, instead of addressing a real scientific problem that needs compute. What, like generating Mersenne primes? A lot of these other so-called “real” “scientific” problems have virtually no scientific relevance. I think research into crypto-currencies is just as “real” as finding more optimal Golomb rulers or searching for alien lifesigns in radio noise.