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We need digital currencies that can only ever be mined efficiently with a CPU, and there need to be many more blocks with lower rewards so that people don't nee

by salient 13y ago

We need digital currencies that can only ever be mined efficiently with a CPU, and there need to be many more blocks with lower rewards so that people don't need to join pools if they don't want to. They need to be able to earn "something" (not zero) even with a low-end CPU or when the difficulty gets too great, and close to the point of reaching the maximum number of coins. I think there weren't even 10 percent Bitcoins on the market, and CPU's already became obsolete. Yes, I know about the scrypt-based ones, but unfortunately they can still be mined 10x faster with a GPU, and I don't think that's much more preferable either. It needs to be CPU-only, because most people get as fast CPU's as they can, usually, but they don't really care about the GPU performance, other than needing it to support HD playback, which is a very low standard for a GPU these days. I'm not sure how it can be done, but some of the ones that claim to be CPU-only are using multiple hashing algorithms and ciphers at once, presumably to ensure that the task is too complex for anything less "general purpose" than a CPU (at least until they start making chips with accelerators for each and every one of those hashing algorithms?! Maybe something to prevent that could be built-in). The point is to make mining as decentralized as possible. I realize the danger of botnets, too, but I think the trade-off is worth it. I'd rather have that, than a few groups of people or governments owning a ton of ASIC's, or perhaps a few very expensive quantum computers in the future, that they can use to manipulate the currencies. At least if it's CPU only, everyone can have a say in it, in aggregate, which is really the whole point of decentralization, and empowering the individual in the Internet world.

nwh 13y ago
A cryptocurrency based on CPUs is just fodder for Botnet herders, like Bitcoin was for quite a period. Amusingly, that was Litecoins original call to action, "GPUs are too centralised, we can only be CPU mined!", except that they implemented scrypt very badly. > I'd rather have that, than a few groups of people or governments owning a ton of ASIC's, or perhaps a few very expensive quantum computers in the future, that they can use to manipulate the currencies. Any government worth it's salt has server farms with more CPUs and a bigger budget than you can imagine. It's not really a defence at all. Back when it was profitable, the operators at CERN used to mine to keep the cost of their servers down to a minimum, filling the spare cycles between computations. I imagine their systems are nothing compared with that of someone like the NSA. > I'm not sure how it can be done, but some of the ones that claim to be CPU-only are using multiple hashing algorithms and ciphers at one, presumably to ensure that the task is too complex for anything less "general purpose" than a CPU (at least until they start making chips with accelerators for each and every one of those hashing algorithms?!). Won't stop them being GPU or FPGA accelerated. I doubt anybody will ever care enough to do a custom silicon chip for any of the "altcoins".
- salient 13y ago
  Yes, I realize everyone with huge datacenters are a huge threat, too, but I still don't think it's as big of a threat as the alternative. Can the NSA own more than half of the world's CPU performance? I don't think so. Could they own 10-100 quantum computers that can mine at say 1 PH/s each? Definitely. It would be much more cost-effective for them, while prohibitively expensive for everyone else (a D-WAVE goes for $10 million a pop right now) Granted, that's not actually viable yet, but if the world is going to move to a digital currency like Bitcoin, that implies it will be here for decades or centuries, and I think such a threat needs to be considered before it replaces most of the world's financial systems. Even with ASIC's they could easily buy 1-10 million of them. It would only be a fraction of their annual budget, which will no doubt increase in the future, if nothing is done to rein in on their power. Normal people aren't going to buy ASIC's just to keep NSA in check. Also, botnets would be there with or without Bitcoins. If they mine, at least they aren't doing something even more dangerous with the botnets, and keep them busy mining. Plus, it should be relatively easy to figure out you have a virus in your computer if your CPU is 100 percent 24/7 and the fans are spinning like crazy.
  - 3pt14159 13y ago
    Dude the NSA have their own fucking fabs. You can't outrun them on ops.
grey-area 13y ago
Why is mining necessary in a digital currency? There are plenty of other solutions to creation/distribution of tokens.
- nwh 13y ago
  A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution. Digital signatures provide part of the solution, but the main benefits are lost if a trusted third party is still required to prevent double-spending. We propose a solution to the double-spending problem using a peer-to-peer network. The network timestamps transactions by hashing them into an ongoing chain of hash-based proof-of-work, forming a record that cannot be changed without redoing the proof-of-work. The longest chain not only serves as proof of the sequence of events witnessed, but proof that it came from the largest pool of CPU power. As long as a majority of CPU power is controlled by nodes that are not cooperating to attack the network, they'll generate the longest chain and outpace attackers. http://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf http://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf
  - grey-area 13y ago
    I don't need a description of how the one true digital currency works thanks, bitcoin is not the only way to produce a currency.
    - nwh 13y ago
      You asked why mining was necessary. I provided an explanation.
      - grey-area 13y ago
        A digital currency requires arbitrary tokens as a medium of exchange. It does not require peer-to-peer creation and verification of tokens. It does not require mining, it does not require pseudo-anonymous transactions and a distributed public ledger of all past transactions. Those are all properties of Bitcoin but not of currencies in general. Bitcoin has some interesting ideas, but it's hardly the only type of digital currency which can exist and mining is a concept particular to Bitcoin (and spin-offs) - it has the effect of enriching the devs and early adopters and transforming it into an appreciating asset rather than a currency.
hershel 13y ago
The scrypt hardness parameters are related to both processor and cache. Once hardness gets big enough,GPU mining won't make sense, because each GPU core has relatively little cache vs cpu.

by salient 13y ago

nwh 13y ago

A cryptocurrency based on CPUs is just fodder for Botnet herders, like Bitcoin was for quite a period. Amusingly, that was Litecoins original call to action, "GPUs are too centralised, we can only be CPU mined!", except that they implemented scrypt very badly. > I'd rather have that, than a few groups of people or governments owning a ton of ASIC's, or perhaps a few very expensive quantum computers in the future, that they can use to manipulate the currencies. Any government worth it's salt has server farms with more CPUs and a bigger budget than you can imagine. It's not really a defence at all. Back when it was profitable, the operators at CERN used to mine to keep the cost of their servers down to a minimum, filling the spare cycles between computations. I imagine their systems are nothing compared with that of someone like the NSA. > I'm not sure how it can be done, but some of the ones that claim to be CPU-only are using multiple hashing algorithms and ciphers at one, presumably to ensure that the task is too complex for anything less "general purpose" than a CPU (at least until they start making chips with accelerators for each and every one of those hashing algorithms?!). Won't stop them being GPU or FPGA accelerated. I doubt anybody will ever care enough to do a custom silicon chip for any of the "altcoins".

salient 13y ago
Yes, I realize everyone with huge datacenters are a huge threat, too, but I still don't think it's as big of a threat as the alternative. Can the NSA own more than half of the world's CPU performance? I don't think so. Could they own 10-100 quantum computers that can mine at say 1 PH/s each? Definitely. It would be much more cost-effective for them, while prohibitively expensive for everyone else (a D-WAVE goes for $10 million a pop right now) Granted, that's not actually viable yet, but if the world is going to move to a digital currency like Bitcoin, that implies it will be here for decades or centuries, and I think such a threat needs to be considered before it replaces most of the world's financial systems. Even with ASIC's they could easily buy 1-10 million of them. It would only be a fraction of their annual budget, which will no doubt increase in the future, if nothing is done to rein in on their power. Normal people aren't going to buy ASIC's just to keep NSA in check. Also, botnets would be there with or without Bitcoins. If they mine, at least they aren't doing something even more dangerous with the botnets, and keep them busy mining. Plus, it should be relatively easy to figure out you have a virus in your computer if your CPU is 100 percent 24/7 and the fans are spinning like crazy.
- 3pt14159 13y ago
  Dude the NSA have their own fucking fabs. You can't outrun them on ops.

grey-area 13y ago

Why is mining necessary in a digital currency? There are plenty of other solutions to creation/distribution of tokens.

nwh 13y ago
A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution. Digital signatures provide part of the solution, but the main benefits are lost if a trusted third party is still required to prevent double-spending. We propose a solution to the double-spending problem using a peer-to-peer network. The network timestamps transactions by hashing them into an ongoing chain of hash-based proof-of-work, forming a record that cannot be changed without redoing the proof-of-work. The longest chain not only serves as proof of the sequence of events witnessed, but proof that it came from the largest pool of CPU power. As long as a majority of CPU power is controlled by nodes that are not cooperating to attack the network, they'll generate the longest chain and outpace attackers. http://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf http://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf
- grey-area 13y ago
  I don't need a description of how the one true digital currency works thanks, bitcoin is not the only way to produce a currency.
  - nwh 13y ago
    You asked why mining was necessary. I provided an explanation.
    - grey-area 13y ago
      A digital currency requires arbitrary tokens as a medium of exchange. It does not require peer-to-peer creation and verification of tokens. It does not require mining, it does not require pseudo-anonymous transactions and a distributed public ledger of all past transactions. Those are all properties of Bitcoin but not of currencies in general. Bitcoin has some interesting ideas, but it's hardly the only type of digital currency which can exist and mining is a concept particular to Bitcoin (and spin-offs) - it has the effect of enriching the devs and early adopters and transforming it into an appreciating asset rather than a currency.

hershel 13y ago

The scrypt hardness parameters are related to both processor and cache. Once hardness gets big enough,GPU mining won't make sense, because each GPU core has relatively little cache vs cpu.