7 ms·

If only people were this determined to run things like Folding@Home....

by mikevm 13y ago

lightbritefight 13y ago
So, introduce a coin variant where 1/1000 or 1/10000 of cycles is donated to folding@home or seti@home or just a random Boinc project. That way, you still make money, but now you get to donate your cycles to charity as well.
- haakon 13y ago
  It's not easy to do something like that without sacrificing decentralization, which is a cryptocurrency holy cow. It would easily become a competitive advantage to remove the charity cycles from the mining client.
  - betterunix 13y ago
    "It's not easy to do something like that without sacrificing decentralization, which is a cryptocurrency holy cow." Only among the Bitcoin crowd. In the crypto research community people are fine with having a bank issue the money and have published a mountain of research on how to create secure digital cash.
    - gojomo 13y ago
      The people who are fine with centralized bank-issued cryptocurrencies haven't launched anything successful at the scale of Bitcoin. There may yet be hope for one, especially if it has government backing... but right now "the Bitcoin crowd" has a good existence-based case that decentralized-issue is important for adoption.
    - wmf 13y ago
      And all those systems were never deployed. Perception (f the banks, you can print money at home, and the money will grow in value over time) trumps research apparently.
      - betterunix 13y ago
        There was, in fact, an effort to deploy those systems, during a period of time when the government was fighting as hard as possible to stop cryptography from "going mainstream." The efforts failed because: 1. David Chaum did not understand when he had won and kept trying to get more money for his startup. 2. There were (and still are) patents on the math that prevented these systems from just being deployed without waiting around for Chaum. 3. The security guarantees of digital cash are not nearly as important as people thought. It turns out most Internet users are not terribly concerned about privacy and banks are good enough at dealing with fraud that the benefit of digital cash does not outweigh the cost of deploying it. You may argue that none of these apply to Bitcoin, and that is probably why Bitcoin has been so widely adopted. It remains to be seen if the economics of Bitcoin really work at scale or over long periods of time.
- astrodust 13y ago
  The ASICS for Bitcoin mining only do one thing very well: SHA256. They're not general purpose computers in any sense. The FPGA versions can be theoretically reprogrammed, but any good design will use the maximum number of gates, leaving nothing left over for Folding type applications.
cing 13y ago
Interestingly, custom-made ASICs[1] to perform Folding@Home calculations have also been developed that perform at unprecedented speeds. Of course, there isn't any reason someone outside of academia would be compelled to buy one. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_(computer) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_(computer)
oleganza 13y ago
"If only you were doing X instead of Y with your money and time." E.g. helping african children instead of reading HN. No one yet figured out which "useful" computation has configurable difficulty, uniform success probability and which is easy to verify without using central authority. Complaining about people for hashing blocks is like being disappointed at someone not doing the charity you like. For me, miners are doing great job providing security to the blockchain and making transactions confirmed faster than usual. And Bitcoin, in my opinion, will help poor people and protect more wealth and health than a potentially better cancer treatment.
- haakon 13y ago
  I think Primecoin is interesting; instead of mindlessly computing hashes, it computes Cunningham prime number chains, and has already set a few records doing this as I understand. This might not feed hungry children, but perhaps it has some utility in mathematics.
  - oleganza 13y ago
    The problem now is to find actual utility for these prime chains.
- betterunix 13y ago
  "Bitcoin, in my opinion, will help poor people and protect more wealth and health than a potentially better cancer treatment." That is almost certainly not the case: 1. Poor people have to pay taxes too, and they are less able to afford the risks or fees associated with currency exchange. 2. Poor people are more likely to use or depend on the welfare system, which is not likely to start using Bitcoin.
  - VMG 13y ago
    1. In less developed countries, unfair taxes and harassment and are one of the reasons for poverty. Bitcoin reduces the risks of outsiders interfering. 2. Irrelevant (edit: and slightly disturbing that you think the condition of poor people can only be improved by the welfare system. There is some evidence that the inverse is true.) 3. Poor people in Africa are already using M-Pesa and other electronic currencies. Bitcoin is a less costly alternative to those payment systems. 4. Many guest workers in rich countries are transferring a part of their income to their relatives in their home country, often for large fees. These fees are much smaller when using Bitcoin.

If only people were this determined to run things like Folding@Home....

by mikevm 13y ago

If only people were this determined to run things like Folding@Home....

So, introduce a coin variant where 1/1000 or 1/10000 of cycles is donated to folding@home or seti@home or just a random Boinc project. That way, you still make money, but now you get to donate your cycles to charity as well.

haakon 13y ago
It's not easy to do something like that without sacrificing decentralization, which is a cryptocurrency holy cow. It would easily become a competitive advantage to remove the charity cycles from the mining client.
- betterunix 13y ago
  "It's not easy to do something like that without sacrificing decentralization, which is a cryptocurrency holy cow." Only among the Bitcoin crowd. In the crypto research community people are fine with having a bank issue the money and have published a mountain of research on how to create secure digital cash.
  - gojomo 13y ago
    The people who are fine with centralized bank-issued cryptocurrencies haven't launched anything successful at the scale of Bitcoin. There may yet be hope for one, especially if it has government backing... but right now "the Bitcoin crowd" has a good existence-based case that decentralized-issue is important for adoption.
  - wmf 13y ago
    And all those systems were never deployed. Perception (f the banks, you can print money at home, and the money will grow in value over time) trumps research apparently.
    - betterunix 13y ago
      There was, in fact, an effort to deploy those systems, during a period of time when the government was fighting as hard as possible to stop cryptography from "going mainstream." The efforts failed because: 1. David Chaum did not understand when he had won and kept trying to get more money for his startup. 2. There were (and still are) patents on the math that prevented these systems from just being deployed without waiting around for Chaum. 3. The security guarantees of digital cash are not nearly as important as people thought. It turns out most Internet users are not terribly concerned about privacy and banks are good enough at dealing with fraud that the benefit of digital cash does not outweigh the cost of deploying it. You may argue that none of these apply to Bitcoin, and that is probably why Bitcoin has been so widely adopted. It remains to be seen if the economics of Bitcoin really work at scale or over long periods of time.
astrodust 13y ago
The ASICS for Bitcoin mining only do one thing very well: SHA256. They're not general purpose computers in any sense. The FPGA versions can be theoretically reprogrammed, but any good design will use the maximum number of gates, leaving nothing left over for Folding type applications.

cing 13y ago

Interestingly, custom-made ASICs[1] to perform Folding@Home calculations have also been developed that perform at unprecedented speeds. Of course, there isn't any reason someone outside of academia would be compelled to buy one. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_(computer) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_(computer)

oleganza 13y ago

"If only you were doing X instead of Y with your money and time." E.g. helping african children instead of reading HN. No one yet figured out which "useful" computation has configurable difficulty, uniform success probability and which is easy to verify without using central authority. Complaining about people for hashing blocks is like being disappointed at someone not doing the charity you like. For me, miners are doing great job providing security to the blockchain and making transactions confirmed faster than usual. And Bitcoin, in my opinion, will help poor people and protect more wealth and health than a potentially better cancer treatment.

haakon 13y ago
I think Primecoin is interesting; instead of mindlessly computing hashes, it computes Cunningham prime number chains, and has already set a few records doing this as I understand. This might not feed hungry children, but perhaps it has some utility in mathematics.
- oleganza 13y ago
  The problem now is to find actual utility for these prime chains.
betterunix 13y ago
"Bitcoin, in my opinion, will help poor people and protect more wealth and health than a potentially better cancer treatment." That is almost certainly not the case: 1. Poor people have to pay taxes too, and they are less able to afford the risks or fees associated with currency exchange. 2. Poor people are more likely to use or depend on the welfare system, which is not likely to start using Bitcoin.
- VMG 13y ago
  1. In less developed countries, unfair taxes and harassment and are one of the reasons for poverty. Bitcoin reduces the risks of outsiders interfering. 2. Irrelevant (edit: and slightly disturbing that you think the condition of poor people can only be improved by the welfare system. There is some evidence that the inverse is true.) 3. Poor people in Africa are already using M-Pesa and other electronic currencies. Bitcoin is a less costly alternative to those payment systems. 4. Many guest workers in rich countries are transferring a part of their income to their relatives in their home country, often for large fees. These fees are much smaller when using Bitcoin.