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The fact that the work is useless is essential to the security of the system. It's a proof of sacrificed opportunity. If the proof of work was actually useful a
by maaku 13y ago
The fact that the work is useless is essential to the security of the system. It's a proof of sacrificed opportunity. If the proof of work was actually useful and monetizable, you might be able to pay for your mining via its utility, and that would completely destroy the security assumptions underlying bitcoin.
- umanwizard 13y agoHow so?
- maaku 13y agoIt would cost "nothing" to mount an attack because the attack mining is profitable for other reasons.
- Guvante 13y agoSay instead of hashes it was computation cycles, so long as your computer is doing something then it counted. (I am ignoring the bookkeeping problems) I could take a supercomputer that I am using otherwise for economic benefit, and perform a whole bunch of mining with it, at no cost to me. Even better, I can go to several supercomputers and do this, all without costing any actual computation power. This would allow me to create a ton of power on the network, which could be used to overtake it and break the usual security guarantees. However with Bitcoin I have to stop doing anything else with all of this computing power, which is a problem.