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> I think proof-of-work cryptocoins are far less wasteful in toto than the current global banking system. Maybe, maybe not, I don't think anyone's crunched eno

> I think proof-of-work cryptocoins are far less wasteful in toto than the current global banking system. Maybe, maybe not, I don't think anyone's crunched enough numbers to make a reasonable measure of that yet. > (What do you think it took in terms of energy and waste products to manufacture and distribute the dollars in your wallet?) I doubt either of us know. I'm a Bitcoin supporter, but one has to think there are useful hard problems to solve rather than just banging out SHA-256 hashes over and over. If that's true at all, then Bitcoin is wasteful.

lukifer 13y ago
> one has to think there are useful hard problems to solve rather than just banging out SHA-256 hashes over and over. I sincerely hope that a truly useful proof-of-work can be discovered. It would be a very big deal. The problem is, the work has to be reliably verifiable, and easier to verify than just doing the work over again, which is why hashes are a good fit.
- 3rd3 13y ago
  What about Primecoin?
  - lukifer 13y ago
    See the discussion above. :) Prime number sequences are unlikely to be "useful" in the same sense as protein folding.
    - gnaritas 13y ago
      Another possibility.
      - lukifer 13y ago
        Protein folding unfortunately isn't a good candidate, because verifying the work takes exactly as much effort as doing the work. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof-of-work_system http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof-of-work_system
- reginaldjcooper 13y ago
  Unless I am mistaken, you can verify arbitrary computations[0]. [0] http://arxiv.org/abs/1105.2003 http://arxiv.org/abs/1105.2003
  - lukifer 13y ago
    The abstract says that "a practical general-purpose protocol for verifiable computation may be significantly closer to reality than previously realized". This should be interesting though, thanks for sharing!
    - reginaldjcooper 13y ago
      You have a fair point, but I claim for a proof-of-work computation it might be good for it to be a bit unpractical. (Depending on the parameters, this paper is on my reading list but I haven't gone through it yet.) I think it's incredibly interesting also, in any case I hope you enjoy the paper :)
KVFinn 13y ago
>I'm a Bitcoin supporter, but one has to think there are useful hard problems to solve rather than just banging out SHA-256 hashes over and over. If that's true at all, then Bitcoin is wasteful. There are curecoin and gridcoin, which base a large portion of mining profits off Boinc credits. Kinda defeats the point of being decentralized though...

lukifer 13y ago

> one has to think there are useful hard problems to solve rather than just banging out SHA-256 hashes over and over. I sincerely hope that a truly useful proof-of-work can be discovered. It would be a very big deal. The problem is, the work has to be reliably verifiable, and easier to verify than just doing the work over again, which is why hashes are a good fit.

3rd3 13y ago
What about Primecoin?
- lukifer 13y ago
  See the discussion above. :) Prime number sequences are unlikely to be "useful" in the same sense as protein folding.
  - gnaritas 13y ago
    Another possibility.
    - lukifer 13y ago
      Protein folding unfortunately isn't a good candidate, because verifying the work takes exactly as much effort as doing the work. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof-of-work_system http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof-of-work_system
reginaldjcooper 13y ago
Unless I am mistaken, you can verify arbitrary computations[0]. [0] http://arxiv.org/abs/1105.2003 http://arxiv.org/abs/1105.2003
- lukifer 13y ago
  The abstract says that "a practical general-purpose protocol for verifiable computation may be significantly closer to reality than previously realized". This should be interesting though, thanks for sharing!
  - reginaldjcooper 13y ago
    You have a fair point, but I claim for a proof-of-work computation it might be good for it to be a bit unpractical. (Depending on the parameters, this paper is on my reading list but I haven't gone through it yet.) I think it's incredibly interesting also, in any case I hope you enjoy the paper :)

KVFinn 13y ago

>I'm a Bitcoin supporter, but one has to think there are useful hard problems to solve rather than just banging out SHA-256 hashes over and over. If that's true at all, then Bitcoin is wasteful. There are curecoin and gridcoin, which base a large portion of mining profits off Boinc credits. Kinda defeats the point of being decentralized though...