geekhack
geekhack Community => Other Geeky Stuff => Topic started by: TheHardkaare on Mon, 06 January 2014, 11:08:23
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Hello fellow geekhackers.
I've recently started being very enthusiastic about Cryptocurrency, and was wondering if I'm the only one in this big forum, which is very unlikely.
I've started with the currency called DogeCoin. It is a month old today, and already has insane amounts of publicity, all of this mainly coming from reddit. (reddit.com/r/dogecoin)
If you become interested in it in any ways, feel free to ask me anything, I'll probably be able to help :-)
//Kåre
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You made me giggle. We should have a tipbot inhere.
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I've read that satirical cryptocurrency such as DogeCoin and CoinYe West are created or evolve into being used as a pump and dump. How do you feel about this?
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I've read that satirical cryptocurrency such as DogeCoin and CoinYe West are created or evolve into being used as a pump and dump. How do you feel about this?
Feels pretty good while pump and dumping.
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I've read that satirical cryptocurrency such as DogeCoin and CoinYe West are created or evolve into being used as a pump and dump. How do you feel about this?
Yeah I feel that they don't know a whole lot what they're talking about.
DogeCoin is just a branch of Scrypt mining, a branch of the so-called "LiteCoin".
They just put a whole lot of reddit, a whole lot of community and a whole lot of fun into it.
Instead of getting them to make instant cash (which is, by the way possible with DogeCoin anyway), they make them to be kind of educational. To be fun. To be community-creating, while still being an actual form of currency.
The community is HUGE, and if you browse some of the posts of reddit, you will see people tipping it.
In my opinion, cryptocurrency such as DogeCoin are awesome for being a way of showing gratitude over the internet.
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yeah i actually wanna get some dogecoins just to tip people with, i really should look into it more
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One Bitcoin to rule them all.
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yeah i actually wanna get some dogecoins just to tip people with, i really should look into it more
Feel free to go right ahead, I'll be right here to help you if you need it :) It's awesome, even if it's just for the tipping.
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One Bitcoin to rule them all.
Bitcoin is wayyyy-dead in the mining industry, which is the part that interests me the most.
Else, yes, it's "the king" of cryptocurrency.
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All this stuff will implode, just watch.
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All this stuff will implode, just watch.
What do you mean by that?
Meaning the community will fail, and will result in 50 enthusiasts sitting in a forum all by them selves, crying over what they've invested their cash in? :P
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All this stuff will implode, just watch.
What do you mean by that?
Meaning the community will fail, and will result in 50 enthusiasts sitting in a forum all by them selves, crying over what they've invested their cash in? :P
Sounds about right, but hey those dogecoins have intrinsic value in their humor alone.
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All this stuff will implode, just watch.
What do you mean by that?
Meaning the community will fail, and will result in 50 enthusiasts sitting in a forum all by them selves, crying over what they've invested their cash in? :P
Sounds about right, but hey those dogecoins have intrinsic value in their humor alone.
Indeed, I feel the total same way :-D Also the fact that they're actually an in-real-life currency, makes it awesome aswell.
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Buckle in
(http://i0.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/013/564/q7VKiiK.gif)
WOW Doge, very fun, much ride
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All this stuff will implode, just watch.
I don't know much about these coins (just the very high level idea), but I am pretty sure there will be a crash, but then it will come back even stronger, but with a more official side to it to make it less volatile.
I also believe that countries should work hard to get rid of paper money (physical one) and put some way to control "irregular" cash flows. When you pay your tax, it should be like automatic, or at least you should have to only justify your "other" sources of incomes. It would probably be badly implemented, but at least it should give a harder time for black markets and people working "under the table". I don't know if all my terms can be translated in English from French, but I hope you get the meaning.
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All this stuff will implode, just watch.
What do you mean by that?
Meaning the community will fail, and will result in 50 enthusiasts sitting in a forum all by them selves, crying over what they've invested their cash in? :P
Sounds about right, but hey those dogecoins have intrinsic value in their humor alone.
Indeed, I feel the total same way :-D Also the fact that they're actually an in-real-life currency, makes it awesome aswell.
I want to be as optimistic as possible but I think its true that it will implode. BUT I think the government will end up making some stupid reason why they should be getting their grubby hands on it and basically kill it off. That will happen before it implodes (if it already hasn't).
I just think the concept behind it is cool. Private transactions behind the scenes between private parties. There is no reason any government should step in here.
Anyone care to discuss further? I would love to hear what everyone had to say.
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All this stuff will implode, just watch.
I don't know much about these coins (just the very high level idea), but I am pretty sure there will be a crash, but then it will come back even stronger, but with a more official side to it to make it less volatile.
I also believe that countries should work hard to get rid of paper money (physical one) and put some way to control "irregular" cash flows. When you pay your tax, it should be like automatic, or at least you should have to only justify your "other" sources of incomes. It would probably be badly implemented, but at least it should give a harder time for black markets and people working "under the table". I don't know if all my terms can be translated in English from French, but I hope you get the meaning.
If it is a private transaction, there should be no government oversight...
I trade you 30 chickens for 2 cows...does that need government oversight? No!
I trade bitcoins for a product or service, same concept.
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All this stuff will implode, just watch.
I don't know much about these coins (just the very high level idea), but I am pretty sure there will be a crash, but then it will come back even stronger, but with a more official side to it to make it less volatile.
I also believe that countries should work hard to get rid of paper money (physical one) and put some way to control "irregular" cash flows. When you pay your tax, it should be like automatic, or at least you should have to only justify your "other" sources of incomes. It would probably be badly implemented, but at least it should give a harder time for black markets and people working "under the table". I don't know if all my terms can be translated in English from French, but I hope you get the meaning.
If it is a private transaction, there should be no government oversight...
I trade you 30 chickens for 2 cows...does that need government oversight? No!
I trade bitcoins for a product or service, same concept.
Yea, I trade you 10g of coke (yea drug) for XXX$ Does government needs to know? Hell yea.
You make me a new bathroom and don't want to pay taxes. I pay you 10k$ for whatever you did. Does government needs to know? Hell yea. Why, so it's fair for everyone to pay his load of taxes. Now, for sure, there are other things to attack, but if there are taxes, better have them for all and not only those that needs to pay them.
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All this stuff will implode, just watch.
I don't know much about these coins (just the very high level idea), but I am pretty sure there will be a crash, but then it will come back even stronger, but with a more official side to it to make it less volatile.
I also believe that countries should work hard to get rid of paper money (physical one) and put some way to control "irregular" cash flows. When you pay your tax, it should be like automatic, or at least you should have to only justify your "other" sources of incomes. It would probably be badly implemented, but at least it should give a harder time for black markets and people working "under the table". I don't know if all my terms can be translated in English from French, but I hope you get the meaning.
If it is a private transaction, there should be no government oversight...
I trade you 30 chickens for 2 cows...does that need government oversight? No!
I trade bitcoins for a product or service, same concept.
Yea, I trade you 10g of coke (yea drug) for XXX$ Does government needs to know? Hell yea.
You make me a new bathroom and don't want to pay taxes. I pay you 10k$ for whatever you did. Does government needs to know? Hell yea. Why, so it's fair for everyone to pay his load of taxes. Now, for sure, there are other things to attack, but if there are taxes, better have them for all and not only those that needs to pay them.
Since when is there a bathroom remodel tax?
And even if there was, why?
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All this stuff will implode, just watch.
I don't know much about these coins (just the very high level idea), but I am pretty sure there will be a crash, but then it will come back even stronger, but with a more official side to it to make it less volatile.
I also believe that countries should work hard to get rid of paper money (physical one) and put some way to control "irregular" cash flows. When you pay your tax, it should be like automatic, or at least you should have to only justify your "other" sources of incomes. It would probably be badly implemented, but at least it should give a harder time for black markets and people working "under the table". I don't know if all my terms can be translated in English from French, but I hope you get the meaning.
If it is a private transaction, there should be no government oversight...
I trade you 30 chickens for 2 cows...does that need government oversight? No!
I trade bitcoins for a product or service, same concept.
Yea, I trade you 10g of coke (yea drug) for XXX$ Does government needs to know? Hell yea.
You make me a new bathroom and don't want to pay taxes. I pay you 10k$ for whatever you did. Does government needs to know? Hell yea. Why, so it's fair for everyone to pay his load of taxes. Now, for sure, there are other things to attack, but if there are taxes, better have them for all and not only those that needs to pay them.
Since when is there a bathroom remodel tax?
And even if there was, why?
Where I live, when you work, you pay a part of you salary as a sort of tax. It gets high very fast. Let's say that I pay probably more than 40% of my salary as a direct income tax. Then I also need to pay sales tax, city tax, school tax (school is free, but we pay tax if you have a house), then special tax for some goods, etc.
But some people (a lot in the construction industry), get paid without declaring anything. Well, they declare some of it not to look too bad, but let say they make 60k a year and declare half of it, then they pay very very few tax because the tax % on 30k/year is very low to give a chance to the poor. The other 30k that he makes but does not declare goes directly in his pocket while he should have paid a lot of tax from this part. It would be much much harder to do this if he could not be paid cash.
And why do we pay so much taxes? We have a free healthcare (it sucks hard, if your not dying, expect to wait 8h at the emergency). We have public schools (not so bad), we have sucky overpaid roads, we have so many people working for the government that produce very few in the end, etc.
me = tired of paying for nothing in return.
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Normally I don't go all "revolutionary", but I do think that a flat tax on the sale of goods/services is the way to go. I mean, money's no good if it's not spent on something, right? That's arguably it's sole purpose. So you tax the spending of money, not the making of it. Sure, there will be some people that save a **** ton of money, but that money will eventually be spent, otherwise it's pointless. That's where you put the tax. Simplifies the whole process and puts the power of choice back into the hands of the public. Don't wanna pay taxes? Go live in the woods and don't buy ****. Hell even then if you purchased land out in the wilderness you'd pay taxes then.
Probably a utopian dream though...
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All this stuff will implode, just watch.
I don't know much about these coins (just the very high level idea), but I am pretty sure there will be a crash, but then it will come back even stronger, but with a more official side to it to make it less volatile.
I also believe that countries should work hard to get rid of paper money (physical one) and put some way to control "irregular" cash flows. When you pay your tax, it should be like automatic, or at least you should have to only justify your "other" sources of incomes. It would probably be badly implemented, but at least it should give a harder time for black markets and people working "under the table". I don't know if all my terms can be translated in English from French, but I hope you get the meaning.
If it is a private transaction, there should be no government oversight...
I trade you 30 chickens for 2 cows...does that need government oversight? No!
I trade bitcoins for a product or service, same concept.
Yea, I trade you 10g of coke (yea drug) for XXX$ Does government needs to know? Hell yea.
You make me a new bathroom and don't want to pay taxes. I pay you 10k$ for whatever you did. Does government needs to know? Hell yea. Why, so it's fair for everyone to pay his load of taxes. Now, for sure, there are other things to attack, but if there are taxes, better have them for all and not only those that needs to pay them.
Since when is there a bathroom remodel tax?
And even if there was, why?
Where I live, when you work, you pay a part of you salary as a sort of tax. It gets high very fast. Let's say that I pay probably more than 40% of my salary as a direct income tax. Then I also need to pay sales tax, city tax, school tax (school is free, but we pay tax if you have a house), then special tax for some goods, etc.
But some people (a lot in the construction industry), get paid without declaring anything. Well, they declare some of it not to look too bad, but let say they make 60k a year and declare half of it, then they pay very very few tax because the tax % on 30k/year is very low to give a chance to the poor. The other 30k that he makes but does not declare goes directly in his pocket while he should have paid a lot of tax from this part. It would be much much harder to do this if he could not be paid cash.
And why do we pay so much taxes? We have a free healthcare (it sucks hard, if your not dying, expect to wait 8h at the emergency). We have public schools (not so bad), we have sucky overpaid roads, we have so many people working for the government that produce very few in the end, etc.
me = tired of paying for nothing in return.
I think that construction worker is entitled to keep what he earned while he worked his ass off. Everyone should pay some sort of tax to the government, but when taxes get into every nook and cranny of our lives, the people begin to lose sight of what a government is actually for, serving the people.
Serving the people, not ruling them.
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We're slowly going away from the topic, lol :P
But yeah. OFC if this is to go into main source of money, the government should and will know, else it will all fall apart.
As daerid stated, we're all living in an utopian dream in this thread, lol.
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We're slowly going away from the topic, lol :P
But yeah. OFC if this is to go into main source of money, the government should and will know, else it will all fall apart.
As daerid stated, we're all living in an utopian dream in this thread, lol.
I like to think that this is a very important part of CryptoCurrency. But yes, a tad off topic :)
Also, I don't live in a utopian world because there is no such thing.
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We're slowly going away from the topic, lol :P
But yeah. OFC if this is to go into main source of money, the government should and will know, else it will all fall apart.
As daerid stated, we're all living in an utopian dream in this thread, lol.
I like to think that this is a very important part of CryptoCurrency. But yes, a tad off topic :)
Also, I don't live in a utopian world because there is no such thing.
It perhaps is in the future, I had not thought about that.
In your mind you sometimes do. Everyone does.
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Normally I don't go all "revolutionary", but I do think that a flat tax on the sale of goods/services is the way to go. I mean, money's no good if it's not spent on something, right? That's arguably it's sole purpose. So you tax the spending of money, not the making of it. Sure, there will be some people that save a **** ton of money, but that money will eventually be spent, otherwise it's pointless. That's where you put the tax. Simplifies the whole process and puts the power of choice back into the hands of the public. Don't wanna pay taxes? Go live in the woods and don't buy ****. Hell even then if you purchased land out in the wilderness you'd pay taxes then.
Probably a utopian dream though...
Not at all is this a utopian dream. It is common sense.
A utopian dream is a pure communist state actually working out in a long term and scalable manner.
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my buddy bought almost $500 in dogecoin and is mining whenever he's away from his computer
he has like 3 million doge
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my buddy bought almost $500 in dogecoin and is mining whenever he's away from his computer
he has like 3 million doge
many doge
so coin
very mining
wow
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yeah essentially
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The problem with all these crypto currency is I am afraid that they DON'T receive the "real-cash" infusion later down the line...
Which means they'll never really be recognized.
Most of these new currencies start as a large ponzi scheme...
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I was lucky enough to get in on DogeCoin around the first week it came up and mined a little over 200K. It's already worth more than I expected, I hope it will last but I don't think there's anyway to know.
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I think the best strategy on these coins is to just Buy them... TODAY....
Mining is so dumb..
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The problem with all these crypto currency is I am afraid that they DON'T receive the "real-cash" infusion later down the line...
I was lucky enough to get in on DogeCoin around the first week it came up and mined a little over 200K. It's already worth more than I expected, I hope it will last but I don't think there's anyway to know.
I recently got lost all my Litecoin because I held onto them for too long in hopes that they would keep increasing. Don't fall for great, cash out often.
I wish I had begun back when Bitcoin was new. I even installed the required programs and everything back then, but I didn't actually start mining because I did not see a future for it. I would have been rich if I had mined ever so slightly back then.
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*noisy checks his watch*
According to my internetz limelight timer, this meme should be dying any day now (thank god.)
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All this stuff will implode, just watch.
So Bitcoin is just about the value that speculators are giving to it? What about the technical aspect of it: say decentralization and the first workable solution to the Byzantine General's Problem? What about people putting messages in the cryptos blockchain as the real first decentralized trusted timestamping solution ever? These are no small technical feats.
IMO there's more to Bitcoin than "one day it's gonna be worth zero" or "it's only for drugdealers" or "people who are into bitcoin don't understand economics" or "you can't use it to send money across continents in minutes because it is so volatile" etc.
For my part mad respect to the cryptographers & programmers who created and popularized Bitcoin. Should it fall to zero in value tomorrow it would still be an amazing feat and it would be long remembered.
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Maybe the problem is that we're asking the wrong questions. Tere's a mindset of "what can Bitcoin replace?" and the answer, for many many things is "Not really, and not in its present form." But it's the standard format of the question-- "How can I replace my merchant gateway account with Bitcoin? How can I replace Western Union with Bitcoin? How can I replace the crumpled old thousand-won note in my wallet with Bitcoin?".
Anything which involves using it as "money" is sort of undermined by a level of instability you usually only see in third-world economies with kamikaze economic policies. This can sort itself out-- if you start seeing goods and services priced "natively" in BTC, or Doge, or whatever.
But maybe the currency aspect of it will end up secondary to the "we've built a decentralized, self-synchronizing, self-fixing network platform here" aspect. For example, I could imagine a communication protocol running atop a *coin network-- using tiny transactions as the mechanism to distribute the messages.
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Maybe the problem is that we're asking the wrong questions. Tere's a mindset of "what can Bitcoin replace?" and the answer, for many many things is "Not really, and not in its present form." But it's the standard format of the question-- "How can I replace my merchant gateway account with Bitcoin? How can I replace Western Union with Bitcoin? How can I replace the crumpled old thousand-won note in my wallet with Bitcoin?".
Anything which involves using it as "money" is sort of undermined by a level of instability you usually only see in third-world economies with kamikaze economic policies. This can sort itself out-- if you start seeing goods and services priced "natively" in BTC, or Doge, or whatever.
But maybe the currency aspect of it will end up secondary to the "we've built a decentralized, self-synchronizing, self-fixing network platform here" aspect. For example, I could imagine a communication protocol running atop a *coin network-- using tiny transactions as the mechanism to distribute the messages.
The main drive of bitcoin was silk road, essentially laundering of drug money// illegal arms dealing..
We need south america to pick up doge coins... where's demik...(http://www.freesmileys.org/emoticons/tuzki-bunnys/tuzki-bunny-emoticon-007.gif)
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May I also direct you all to this quote from my mother
"Porn is always first, nobody wanted a VCR until porn became available. People were scared of the internet until people put porn on it, nobody will use bitcoin until you can use it for porn."
just sayin
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The problem is that most people don't pay for porn...
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I cannot support a currency which is based on wasting resources.
ALL digital currencies that require mining are incredibly wasteful. The calculations are made purposefully computationally intensive to provide an adjustable "amount of work done". By far, the majority of the calculations are simply discarded. This just wastes power, throwing away processing cycles and electrical power for no good reason.
If the cycles were used for something useful (such as using folding@home for proof of work) I could consider having something to do with it, but as it stands, I have an ethical reason not to.
The power consumed daily for mining Bitcoins is staggering. It's amazing how most people are happy to ignore this fact and focus on their own gains, balancing it with how much the electricity is costing THEM only.
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All this stuff will implode, just watch.
So Bitcoin is just about the value that speculators are giving to it? What about the technical aspect of it: say decentralization and the first workable solution to the Byzantine General's Problem? What about people putting messages in the cryptos blockchain as the real first decentralized trusted timestamping solution ever? These are no small technical feats.
IMO there's more to Bitcoin than "one day it's gonna be worth zero" or "it's only for drugdealers" or "people who are into bitcoin don't understand economics" or "you can't use it to send money across continents in minutes because it is so volatile" etc.
For my part mad respect to the cryptographers & programmers who created and popularized Bitcoin. Should it fall to zero in value tomorrow it would still be an amazing feat and it would be long remembered.
I don't think I can emphasize enough, how much I agree with you on this. People are not thinking it through, IMO.
May I also direct you all to this quote from my mother
"Porn is always first, nobody wanted a VCR until porn became available. People were scared of the internet until people put porn on it, nobody will use bitcoin until you can use it for porn."
just sayin
^This is loololololololoolollol :P
I cannot support a currency which is based on wasting resources.
ALL digital currencies that require mining are incredibly wasteful. The calculations are made purposefully computationally intensive to provide an adjustable "amount of work done". By far, the majority of the calculations are simply discarded. This just wastes power, throwing away processing cycles and electrical power for no good reason.
If the cycles were used for something useful (such as using folding@home for proof of work) I could consider having something to do with it, but as it stands, I have an ethical reason not to.
The power consumed daily for mining Bitcoins is staggering. It's amazing how most people are happy to ignore this fact and focus on their own gains, balancing it with how much the electricity is costing THEM only.
I'll speak my mind here.
I do not mine DogeCoin for the profit. I mine it for the shear purpose of the community, while having the thought in the back of my head: "hey, I'm actually not wasting my time on this. It's possible that it'll be worth something some day, and while I'm doing it now, I'm not losing any cash".
Of course "nothing" useful is used for this, except acting as an easy way of tipping, and acting as a form of currency aswell.
Oh and by the way, people do far from ignore the fact that powerconsumption is greatly increased by mining. I believe the BitCoins trouble your mind with this. The "difficulty" as it is called, is simply too high, so there's no way you'll earn more than you spend.
As for newer cryptocurrencies, it's a whole other deal. You see, DogeCoin is actually the most "profitable" cryptocurrency right now. And yes, I actually tried it myself while measuring my kWh, and calculating the overall cost. It does make me a profit.
Remember: Don't get into mining the cryptocurrency only for profit, also do it of interest and curiosity.
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I'll speak my mind here.
I do not mine DogeCoin for the profit. I mine it for the shear purpose of the community, while having the thought in the back of my head: "hey, I'm actually not wasting my time on this. It's possible that it'll be worth something some day, and while I'm doing it now, I'm not losing any cash".
Of course "nothing" useful is used for this, except acting as an easy way of tipping, and acting as a form of currency aswell.
Oh and by the way, people do far from ignore the fact that powerconsumption is greatly increased by mining. I believe the BitCoins trouble your mind with this. The "difficulty" as it is called, is simply too high, so there's no way you'll earn more than you spend.
As for newer cryptocurrencies, it's a whole other deal. You see, DogeCoin is actually the most "profitable" cryptocurrency right now. And yes, I actually tried it myself while measuring my kWh, and calculating the overall cost. It does make me a profit.
Remember: Don't get into mining the cryptocurrency only for profit, also do it of interest and curiosity.
I think you may be missing my point, which is that all that power is being used to do essentially nothing. The "difficulty" is decided by the current ability of miners to generate hashes which match the criteria. A valid encryption hash can be generated in milliseconds. There is no actually useful work done during mining, just a bunch of calculations whose results are discarded. It's a total waste of resources. Why can't the "proof of work" rather be something of real value instead?
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I'll speak my mind here.
I do not mine DogeCoin for the profit. I mine it for the shear purpose of the community, while having the thought in the back of my head: "hey, I'm actually not wasting my time on this. It's possible that it'll be worth something some day, and while I'm doing it now, I'm not losing any cash".
Of course "nothing" useful is used for this, except acting as an easy way of tipping, and acting as a form of currency aswell.
Oh and by the way, people do far from ignore the fact that powerconsumption is greatly increased by mining. I believe the BitCoins trouble your mind with this. The "difficulty" as it is called, is simply too high, so there's no way you'll earn more than you spend.
As for newer cryptocurrencies, it's a whole other deal. You see, DogeCoin is actually the most "profitable" cryptocurrency right now. And yes, I actually tried it myself while measuring my kWh, and calculating the overall cost. It does make me a profit.
Remember: Don't get into mining the cryptocurrency only for profit, also do it of interest and curiosity.
I think you may be missing my point, which is that all that power is being used to do essentially nothing. The "difficulty" is decided by the current ability of miners to generate hashes which match the criteria. A valid encryption hash can be generated in milliseconds. There is no actually useful work done during mining, just a bunch of calculations whose results are discarded. It's a total waste of resources. Why can't the "proof of work" rather be something of real value instead?
It would be too difficult for them to combine it with folding@home I believe. They have to easily be able to adjust difficulty to adjust inflation, and folding@home is based around several entities computing the same calculations and compared against eachother to ensure validity. This would mean several people get the same coins etc. I am sure that such a currency would take of once someone is able to make it work.
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IS EVERYONE READY TO MINE COME COINYE
http://coinyeco.in/
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I cannot support a currency which is based on wasting resources.
ALL digital currencies that require mining are incredibly wasteful. The calculations are made purposefully computationally intensive to provide an adjustable "amount of work done". By far, the majority of the calculations are simply discarded. This just wastes power, throwing away processing cycles and electrical power for no good reason.
If the cycles were used for something useful (such as using folding@home for proof of work) I could consider having something to do with it, but as it stands, I have an ethical reason not to.
The power consumed daily for mining Bitcoins is staggering. It's amazing how most people are happy to ignore this fact and focus on their own gains, balancing it with how much the electricity is costing THEM only.
This is interesting... never thought about it in this regard.
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IS EVERYONE READY TO MINE COME COINYE
http://coinyeco.in/
yeah didn't they just get a cease and desist.....
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I'll speak my mind here.
I do not mine DogeCoin for the profit. I mine it for the shear purpose of the community, while having the thought in the back of my head: "hey, I'm actually not wasting my time on this. It's possible that it'll be worth something some day, and while I'm doing it now, I'm not losing any cash".
Of course "nothing" useful is used for this, except acting as an easy way of tipping, and acting as a form of currency aswell.
Oh and by the way, people do far from ignore the fact that powerconsumption is greatly increased by mining. I believe the BitCoins trouble your mind with this. The "difficulty" as it is called, is simply too high, so there's no way you'll earn more than you spend.
As for newer cryptocurrencies, it's a whole other deal. You see, DogeCoin is actually the most "profitable" cryptocurrency right now. And yes, I actually tried it myself while measuring my kWh, and calculating the overall cost. It does make me a profit.
Remember: Don't get into mining the cryptocurrency only for profit, also do it of interest and curiosity.
I think you may be missing my point, which is that all that power is being used to do essentially nothing. The "difficulty" is decided by the current ability of miners to generate hashes which match the criteria. A valid encryption hash can be generated in milliseconds. There is no actually useful work done during mining, just a bunch of calculations whose results are discarded. It's a total waste of resources. Why can't the "proof of work" rather be something of real value instead?
that's why this has been called a ponzi scheme... similar to multilevel marketing as well... where there is a "non-pivotal" product being sold. where the currency is only the Process itself in funneling money.
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Just to clarify... so people don't miss opportunities..
Ponzi schemes, and ALL financial schemes ARE valid investments.. as long as you go into it with the right strategy and belief...
Generally, ponzi schemes that are very large will be bailed out, banks for example...
that is how it's handled, so as long as you get in "early" on the ponzi scheme, and you're AWARE of the major future roadblocks to public awareness of it, you can form a plan for a modest and safe profit...
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I'll speak my mind here.
I do not mine DogeCoin for the profit. I mine it for the shear purpose of the community, while having the thought in the back of my head: "hey, I'm actually not wasting my time on this. It's possible that it'll be worth something some day, and while I'm doing it now, I'm not losing any cash".
Of course "nothing" useful is used for this, except acting as an easy way of tipping, and acting as a form of currency aswell.
Oh and by the way, people do far from ignore the fact that powerconsumption is greatly increased by mining. I believe the BitCoins trouble your mind with this. The "difficulty" as it is called, is simply too high, so there's no way you'll earn more than you spend.
As for newer cryptocurrencies, it's a whole other deal. You see, DogeCoin is actually the most "profitable" cryptocurrency right now. And yes, I actually tried it myself while measuring my kWh, and calculating the overall cost. It does make me a profit.
Remember: Don't get into mining the cryptocurrency only for profit, also do it of interest and curiosity.
I think you may be missing my point, which is that all that power is being used to do essentially nothing. The "difficulty" is decided by the current ability of miners to generate hashes which match the criteria. A valid encryption hash can be generated in milliseconds. There is no actually useful work done during mining, just a bunch of calculations whose results are discarded. It's a total waste of resources. Why can't the "proof of work" rather be something of real value instead?
It would be too difficult for them to combine it with folding@home I believe. They have to easily be able to adjust difficulty to adjust inflation, and folding@home is based around several entities computing the same calculations and compared against eachother to ensure validity. This would mean several people get the same coins etc. I am sure that such a currency would take of once someone is able to make it work.
"Curecoin" is attempting to get this off the ground in dialogue with folding@home developers. Not sure how it will go, but the idea is indeed already being explored.
I'd be wary of the normative "waste of resources" argument. For one, that's a critique that could be applied to the market system in general, or of privatized power utilities.
Is heating a multimillionaire's hottub 24/7 "useful" work if he paid for the electricity?
However, I would say there are ethically positive implications of the work being done. I did a quick programming job for someone today and they were able to pay me instantaneously (in this case in LTC). I bought my parents' Christmas present from Tealet using BTC, which is money that goes directly to fair trade tea producers without payment providers taking an extra cut. I've invested in startups who view low power costs in economically-depressed areas as a business advantage, and are thus bringing new jobs to those places.
This value is directly derived from the computational work being done, but it's allowing people to connect and transact for services and resources they want in a more efficient manner than has yet been possible.
I could talk for hours about this stuff, but I'll leave it at that.
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I'll speak my mind here.
I do not mine DogeCoin for the profit. I mine it for the shear purpose of the community, while having the thought in the back of my head: "hey, I'm actually not wasting my time on this. It's possible that it'll be worth something some day, and while I'm doing it now, I'm not losing any cash".
Of course "nothing" useful is used for this, except acting as an easy way of tipping, and acting as a form of currency aswell.
Oh and by the way, people do far from ignore the fact that powerconsumption is greatly increased by mining. I believe the BitCoins trouble your mind with this. The "difficulty" as it is called, is simply too high, so there's no way you'll earn more than you spend.
As for newer cryptocurrencies, it's a whole other deal. You see, DogeCoin is actually the most "profitable" cryptocurrency right now. And yes, I actually tried it myself while measuring my kWh, and calculating the overall cost. It does make me a profit.
Remember: Don't get into mining the cryptocurrency only for profit, also do it of interest and curiosity.
I think you may be missing my point, which is that all that power is being used to do essentially nothing. The "difficulty" is decided by the current ability of miners to generate hashes which match the criteria. A valid encryption hash can be generated in milliseconds. There is no actually useful work done during mining, just a bunch of calculations whose results are discarded. It's a total waste of resources. Why can't the "proof of work" rather be something of real value instead?
It would be too difficult for them to combine it with folding@home I believe. They have to easily be able to adjust difficulty to adjust inflation, and folding@home is based around several entities computing the same calculations and compared against eachother to ensure validity. This would mean several people get the same coins etc. I am sure that such a currency would take of once someone is able to make it work.
"Curecoin" is attempting to get this off the ground in dialogue with folding@home developers. Not sure how it will go, but the idea is indeed already being explored.
I'd be wary of the normative "waste of resources" argument. For one, that's a critique that could be applied to the market system in general, or of privatized power utilities.
Is heating a multimillionaire's hottub 24/7 "useful" work if he paid for the electricity?
However, I would say there are ethically positive implications of the work being done. I did a quick programming job for someone today and they were able to pay me instantaneously (in this case in LTC). I bought my parents' Christmas present from Tealet using BTC, which is money that goes directly to fair trade tea producers without payment providers taking an extra cut. I've invested in startups who view low power costs in economically-depressed areas as a business advantage, and are thus bringing new jobs to those places.
This value is directly derived from the computational work being done, but it's allowing people to connect and transact for services and resources they want in a more efficient manner than has yet been possible.
I could talk for hours about this stuff, but I'll leave it at that.
well the story is far from ending..
What you're describing is an attempt to get rid of expensive middle men.... this is not feasible until humans evolve to be far less selfish..
The technology is already there to replace banks, middlemen, and debt based economies..
However, HUMANS are not capable of handling such a life...
WE are the problems... not the coins, not the machines, not the software.
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"Curecoin" is attempting to get this off the ground in dialogue with folding@home developers. Not sure how it will go, but the idea is indeed already being explored.
I'd be wary of the normative "waste of resources" argument. For one, that's a critique that could be applied to the market system in general, or of privatized power utilities.
Is heating a multimillionaire's hottub 24/7 "useful" work if he paid for the electricity?
...
This value is directly derived from the computational work being done, but it's allowing people to connect and transact for services and resources they want in a more efficient manner than has yet been possible.
I could talk for hours about this stuff, but I'll leave it at that.
Curecoin looks interesting. If I see an announcement from Stanford supporting it, it will be the one I pour some computing resources into.
You've simply proved my point that you think the computational work is creating something valuable. It isn't.
It creates a bunch of hashes. Any one of the created hashes are valid and could be used to secure the transactions being added to the chain. But they are discarded (by the billions) unless they match some arbitrarily derived "difficulty" criteria, in order to make it take a certain amount of processing as "proof of work". This just throws away billions of usable hashes for no good reason. It's using electricity and processing to do nothing in order to justify getting something from it. I don't deny the financial logic, but no matter how you view it, it is wasting real resources in order to create a virtual one that has no intrinsic value, only a speculated one.
With Curecoin, the resources are at least not wasted since the calculations are not thrown away, but used for some purpose that can ultimately help humanity.
It almost makes me physically ill to see how much power is being thrown away on this, when all around the world there is a push for low CO2 emissions, energy efficiency and power saving. A large percentage of the power used (in the US) is created from coal burning plants. This not only pours out a bunch of CO2, but also directly contributes to the amount of heat generated inside the atmosphere. At least let the power be used for something useful.
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"Curecoin" is attempting to get this off the ground in dialogue with folding@home developers. Not sure how it will go, but the idea is indeed already being explored.
I'd be wary of the normative "waste of resources" argument. For one, that's a critique that could be applied to the market system in general, or of privatized power utilities.
Is heating a multimillionaire's hottub 24/7 "useful" work if he paid for the electricity?
...
This value is directly derived from the computational work being done, but it's allowing people to connect and transact for services and resources they want in a more efficient manner than has yet been possible.
I could talk for hours about this stuff, but I'll leave it at that.
Curecoin looks interesting. If I see an announcement from Stanford supporting it, it will be the one I pour some computing resources into.
You've simply proved my point that you think the computational work is creating something valuable. It isn't.
It creates a bunch of hashes. Any one of the created hashes are valid and could be used to secure the transactions being added to the chain. But they are discarded (by the billions) unless they match some arbitrarily derived "difficulty" criteria, in order to make it take a certain amount of processing as "proof of work". This just throws away billions of usable hashes for no good reason. It's using electricity and processing to do nothing in order to justify getting something from it. I don't deny the financial logic, but no matter how you view it, it is wasting real resources in order to create a virtual one that has no intrinsic value, only a speculated one.
With Curecoin, the resources are at least not wasted since the calculations are not thrown away, but used for some purpose that can ultimately help humanity.
It almost makes me physically ill to see how much power is being thrown away on this, when all around the world there is a push for low CO2 emissions, energy efficiency and power saving. A large percentage of the power used (in the US) is created from coal burning plants. This not only pours out a bunch of CO2, but also directly contributes to the amount of heat generated inside the atmosphere. At least let the power be used for something useful.
Your ill-perception is unwarranted..
Look at it this way... Without the pioneering "bit-coin"... where would crypto-currency be..
NOTHING is ever wasted... It is the cost of transition, the cost of new ideas...
I agree with you that, going forward... we can also improve upon the system by making the power do "other work"
BUT that does not change the inherent value of bit-coins bringing crypto currency into the limelight...
My point is... The part of you that's against BC is just you being a h8er..
The rational part of you is still rational, in that, yes we can always do things 1 step better...
Separate your emotions.. and look at it objectively.. and you should cease to be so emotional..
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Thanks for that analysis, RoboTP.
Lots of stuff is wasted. Any system that has less than 100% efficiency is "wasting" something. This system just happens to have close to 0% efficiency.
At a rough calculation for BitCoin, the current hash rate is around 10,000 Thash/s. There are 25 BitCoins issued per day.
Hashes per BitCoin:
= (network hash rate) / (25 BTC per 10 minutes)
= (10,000 * Th / s) / (25 * BTC / (600 * s) )
= 10,000 * 600 / 25 * Th / s / BTC * s
= 240,000 Th / BTC
= 240,000,000,000,000,000 h/BTC
So 239,999,999,999,999,999 valid hashes (which meet the cryptographic requirements and can be used to secure a transaction) are calculated and discarded for every one used. That's an efficiency of 4.1666' x10-18. Statistically and practically 0.
My point is simply that all that calculation, all those CPU and GPU cycles and all that power should be used for SOMETHING.
I'm just saying that the difficulty associated with creating the currency is artificial and could be any arbitrary "work" as long as there is some valid way of proving that the "work" was done.
It doesn't have to have anything to do with the currency itself. It could even be, heaven forbid, REAL work that people do to create some product or service, but that's a bit hard to find proof for. It's the thing that should give currency it's real value (as in, "this is what I would give you for that thing").
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but no matter how you view it, it is wasting real resources in order to create a virtual one that has no intrinsic value, only a speculated one.
There's some truth in what you write but I'll try to change your mind :)
You're right that it is "using electricity". You're also right that there's lot of speculation around. But it is not for something that would have no intrinsic value.
Bitcoin allows to do several things that do each have intrisic value. I'll give a few examples.
Decentralized trusted timestamp have intrisic value. There are people putting cryptographic hashes in the blockchain, typically by using the SHA-256 of the file they want to prove existed a time t as the 256 bit integer defining the elliptic curve of their wallet (they then simply do a tiny transaction to one of the public address of that wallet). As long as we consider SHA-256 to be safe (but any other cryptographic has could be used instead), no government can ever contest that decentralized trusted timestamp: you can't seize server, you can't destroy the evidence. There are millions of copies of the blockchain in the world and should Bitcoin die tomorrow, those past timestamp would still be safe. That's the beauty of that decentralized "append-only" blockchain which has millions and millions of copies around the world.
For example:
http://www.proofofexistence.com/
Being able to send bitcoins from, say, Europe to Asia in a matter of minutes has intrisic values. Sure, it's ultra-volatile as of now due to speculation. But it doesn't change the fact that being able to send bitcoins across the whole world in a matter of minutes has intrinsic value.
Being unable to revert a transaction can pose several problems but it also has intrisic value. There are now startups out there like Bitpay and Coinbase ($25 m in VC funding) which allows merchants to accept payments in Bitcoin with much lower fees than other means of payments. Chargebacks on small transactions can kill a business. Transactions in Bitcoins are, by default, non-reversible (but of course you can still build, upon this, any scheme you want, like trusted 3rd parties holding bitcoins etc.) and I admit that this is a two-edged sword. But you can't deny that in many cases non-reversible transactions offer many benefits. Even "bank transfer", like SEPA transfers in Europe, can in some circumstances be reverted up until a few days after you got the money. This is a major problem.
By the way CoinBase / Bitpay do allow instant payments in Bitcoin but without being exposed to the risk inherent to price volatility: the merchants are paid in USD, at the USD price they want. Simply the bitcoins are immediately bought/sold at the current market rate.
You cannot say that being able to accept near-instant non-reversible payments from the entire world, directly converted in USD with much lower fees than traditional method, doesn't have lots of value. Just try the simulator here, under pricing (scrolling down a bit):
https://bitpay.com/pricing
The decentralized "append-only" blockchain may also permit other things which we haven't discovered yet.
Now regarding the ethical aspect and electricity consumption... Apparently this corresponds to powering 30 000 houses worldwide. I'd say this is not much on a planet which has, what, 8 billions people?
How do you feel about people collecting keyboards and keycaps which required oil to be produced? What about companies which are producing keycaps "just for fun" (like skulls / retro sets / etc.) and people driving to these factories? And the shipping costs and pollution associated with all the FedEx and USPS shipping of our stuff? What's the "intrinsic value" of collecting retro keycaps sets? And the time when you're computer is on, spent on a forum about input devices when you could have your computer turned off instead and be meditating instead?
Should we begin to judge any behavior which is not strictly mandatory simply because it requires energy?
And what about the real environmental issues like the tens --if not hundreds of millions of homes-- having the air conditioning set on too low a temperature in too many rooms? Shouldn't we focus on these issues first?
I don't know how the Bitcoin experiment will end up but I see it as much more than something simply "wasting electricity".
And even if something even "more useful" comes up later, like, say, a protein folding cryptocurrency or primecoin or whatever, bitcoin will still be remembered as the one who showed the way.
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Thanks for that analysis, RoboTP.
Lots of stuff is wasted. Any system that has less than 100% efficiency is "wasting" something. This system just happens to have close to 0% efficiency.
At a rough calculation for BitCoin, the current hash rate is around 10,000 Thash/s. There are 25 BitCoins issued per day.
Hashes per BitCoin:
= (network hash rate) / (25 BTC per 10 minutes)
= (10,000 * Th / s) / (25 * BTC / (600 * s) )
= 10,000 * 600 / 25 * Th / s / BTC * s
= 240,000 Th / BTC
= 240,000,000,000,000,000 h/BTC
So 239,999,999,999,999,999 valid hashes (which meet the cryptographic requirements and can be used to secure a transaction) are calculated and discarded for every one used. That's an efficiency of 4.1666' x10-18. Statistically and practically 0.
My point is simply that all that calculation, all those CPU and GPU cycles and all that power should be used for SOMETHING.
I'm just saying that the difficulty associated with creating the currency is artificial and could be any arbitrary "work" as long as there is some valid way of proving that the "work" was done.
It doesn't have to have anything to do with the currency itself. It could even be, heaven forbid, REAL work that people do to create some product or service, but that's a bit hard to find proof for. It's the thing that should give currency it's real value (as in, "this is what I would give you for that thing").
You're stuck on making the world a better place and an equal place. that is not how the debt based economy works..
We tried it your way in the past... it created severe stagflation..
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I was curious about cryptocurrencies (mainly because the lack of AMD cards that I wanted to buy) but once I found out about Dogecoin, I knew I had to get in on it.
Was lucky enough to get a hold of a R9 290 last week and been mining like crazy now! The most annoying part about mining is finding a pool which doesn't blow (I use dogehouse).
I'm not going to spend actual dollars buying Doge, but it is fun to come home from work and see more coins in my wallet. ^_^
Mainly I just wanna hold onto my coins and see if they explode in value like the Bitcoin did.... TO THE MOON!
My BF wants to use the coins to buy more GPUs to mine more coins though... lol.
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So 239,999,999,999,999,999 valid hashes (which meet the cryptographic requirements and can be used to secure a transaction) are calculated and discarded for every one used. That's an efficiency of 4.1666' x10-18. Statistically and practically 0.
I wonder if it would be worthwhile to cache the hashes.... the problem is then, you're using mountains of space for hashes that will likely never be used.
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So 239,999,999,999,999,999 valid hashes (which meet the cryptographic requirements and can be used to secure a transaction) are calculated and discarded for every one used. That's an efficiency of 4.1666' x10-18. Statistically and practically 0.
I wonder if it would be worthwhile to cache the hashes.... the problem is then, you're using mountains of space for hashes that will likely never be used.
That'd take a lot of space:
32 Bytes per hash = 7.6 x 1018 bytes per BitCoin generated.
Thats around 7 million terabytes.... That's how much data your PC generates in order to find one 32 byte hash that will actually be used. All of those are valid hashes, though. Any one of them could be used to secure the block and add transactions. They are rejected simply because the system needs to adjust the amount of work done per BitCoin so it only gives out 25 BitCoins per day.
There is no point in keeping rejected hashes anyway, unless the network hash rate goes down enough to lower the difficulty one unit. In that case, hashes with one less leading zero than the current difficulty may be worth keeping, since they would then become acceptable.
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They are rejected simply because the system needs to adjust the amount of work done per BitCoin so it only gives out 25 BitCoins per day.
It's not per day. It's per block. On average a block should take about 10 minutes to be mined. And it's 25 BTC per block only for blocks numbers between 210 000 and 420 000.
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They are rejected simply because the system needs to adjust the amount of work done per BitCoin so it only gives out 25 BitCoins per day.
It's not per day. It's per block. On average a block should take about 10 minutes to be mined. And it's 25 BTC per block only for blocks numbers between 210 000 and 420 000.
Ah, yes. Sorry, got my numbers a bit wrong there. It's currently 25BTC per 10 minutes. I had it correct in my original calculation. Anyhow, the point remains the same. The hashes are rejected based on the difficulty and the difficulty is adjusted based on the current hash generation rate. The more popular mining becomes, the more wasted cycles and power are used to generate throwaway data, since the difficulty is pushed upwards.
A good, efficient system will generate 500GH/s, at about 500W usage. It would take roughly 500,000s for this system to generate a successful hash. That's about 140 hours of continuous use at 500W, around 69kWh. And it's only going to up as it becomes more popular.
At roughly 1kg carbon produced per kWh burning coal that's 69kg per block.
The carbon footprint is crazy and UNNECESSARY.
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The carbon footprint is crazy and UNNECESSARY.
It's consuming about 0.05% of the U.S. household electricity supply. So worldwide it's consuming about 0.05% of what homes in the U.S. are consuming. That's not very much. If you keep only the miners in the U.S., you're at, what, 0.01% of the U.S. household electricity consumption!?
How "crazy" is that compared to the 99.99% making the rest of household electricity consumption? (and then there are cars, industries, etc.)
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They are rejected simply because the system needs to adjust the amount of work done per BitCoin so it only gives out 25 BitCoins per day.
It's not per day. It's per block. On average a block should take about 10 minutes to be mined. And it's 25 BTC per block only for blocks numbers between 210 000 and 420 000.
Ah, yes. Sorry, got my numbers a bit wrong there. It's currently 25BTC per 10 minutes. I had it correct in my original calculation. Anyhow, the point remains the same. The hashes are rejected based on the difficulty and the difficulty is adjusted based on the current hash generation rate. The more popular mining becomes, the more wasted cycles and power are used to generate throwaway data, since the difficulty is pushed upwards.
A good, efficient system will generate 500GH/s, at about 500W usage. It would take roughly 500,000s for this system to generate a successful hash. That's about 140 hours of continuous use at 500W, around 69kWh. And it's only going to up as it becomes more popular.
At roughly 1kg carbon produced per kWh burning coal that's 69kg per block.
The carbon footprint is crazy and UNNECESSARY.
Do note that in colder countries, it has ZERO footprint for half of the year since every Wh the computer converts to heat is one less Wh the elements have to use to heat the house. The net extra use of electricity is none during these months. I sometimes set my computer to render dummy scenes just to heat my apartment a bit in the past.
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Okay guys, I didn't mean to start an argument. Just wanted to make people more aware of an aspect that most either aren't aware of or ignore.
You can't deny that all that processing could (and should) be used for something better than generating mountains of useless data.
Curecoin gets it, hopefully more will. I was hoping at least GHers would notice the inefficiency and be far-sighted enough to see that it should be implented in a way that has less negative impact.
It's like working hard all day making something and then throwing it away. Every day. But who cares if you get paid anyway, right? Imagine if you could ALSO use or sell the things you make....
@damorgue, there are more efficient ways of generating heat.
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@damorgue, there are more efficient ways of generating heat.
Lol, nope, you are wrong about that one. You need to read up on your thermodynamics. It is 100% efficient, the same as other sources of heat. An extremely small fraction is turned into light and vibrations, which in turn is converted into heat. The rest is turned directly into heat. Every Wh into the PC is converted into heat.
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@damorgue, there are more efficient ways of generating heat.
Lol, nope, you are wrong about that one. You need to read up on your thermodynamics. It is 100% efficient, the same as other sources of heat. An extremely small fraction is turned into light and vibrations, which in turn is converted into heat. The rest is turned directly into heat. Every Wh into the PC is converted into heat.
Oops, my bad. Can't believe I missed that. You are absolutely correct, sir.
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This is a fascinating discussion - the kind of discussion that first impelled me to geekhack membership. I love this place.
I do not however, really understand the whole concept of cryptocurrency. I don't get how it works at all. However I do understand the debate here about whether the computations are being used towards a productive goal rather than just as a requisite for complexity. I think the first part of answering that issue would be to list applications which require such elaborate computational power that could be merged with this task of mining. Other than FaH, what are some other things that even NEED such resources to accomplish something? And how could such computational chores be delegated and tracked efficiently as evidence of this "work done". Might it be as simple as sort of a way of direct exchange for computational power rather than volunteered computational power such as with FaH?
(That is all If I understand the whole process correctly, which I am not sure I do... I rather feel a little bit on the cusp of this whole epiphany, something that I almost understand but not quite - kinda like when you speak a little Spanish and hear some Portuguese and ALMOST can grasp what is being said as some words sound very much the same, but are just different enough to make things unclear. Like you get the emotion of the statement but not what it is about. I get that same experience when I look at the physics theories my Grandfather used to have laminated on huge posterboards that had something to do with modeling quarks or quantum particles or something.., Lots of formulas that look like equations, but are actually some kind of physics shorthand that uses symbols I recognize but don't quite understand.)
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I do not however, really understand the whole concept of cryptocurrency. I don't get how it works at all. However I do understand the debate here about whether the computations are being used towards a productive goal rather than just as a requisite for complexity. I think the first part of answering that issue would be to list applications which require such elaborate computational power that could be merged with this task of mining. Other than FaH, what are some other things that even NEED such resources to accomplish something? And how could such computational chores be delegated and tracked efficiently as evidence of this "work done". Might it be as simple as sort of a way of direct exchange for computational power rather than volunteered computational power such as with FaH?
Although I would wholeheartedly support any attempts at using the computational power for anything useful, I don't think it is feasible. An entity has something which they can generate a hash from, and then everyone else attempt to generate that same hash but without having the original source of the hash, the nounce. Cryptocurrency is based on being able to verify the answer easily and someone has to be able to have the answers. If you intend to use the computations for something, you likely don't already know the answer. You'd have to know it for it to be useful for cryptocurrency, and then the computational power wouldn't useful any longer. In the case of F@H, they send the same calculation to several people and if a majority reaches a particular answer, then that is accepted as correct. I just don't see how the two systems could be made compatible with one another.
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So as it would turn out, a buddy of mine traded all his dogecoin for hobo nickels. Why? Because if he's not gonna use it, he wants it to collect interest.
He traded 2.5 million doge for hobo nickels.
I'd like to see where this goes.
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I do not however, really understand the whole concept of cryptocurrency. I don't get how it works at all. However I do understand the debate here about whether the computations are being used towards a productive goal rather than just as a requisite for complexity. I think the first part of answering that issue would be to list applications which require such elaborate computational power that could be merged with this task of mining. Other than FaH, what are some other things that even NEED such resources to accomplish something? And how could such computational chores be delegated and tracked efficiently as evidence of this "work done". Might it be as simple as sort of a way of direct exchange for computational power rather than volunteered computational power such as with FaH?
Although I would wholeheartedly support any attempts at using the computational power for anything useful, I don't think it is feasible. An entity has something which they can generate a hash from, and then everyone else attempt to generate that same hash but without having the original source of the hash, the nounce. Cryptocurrency is based on being able to verify the answer easily and someone has to be able to have the answers. If you intend to use the computations for something, you likely don't already know the answer. You'd have to know it for it to be useful for cryptocurrency, and then the computational power wouldn't useful any longer. In the case of F@H, they send the same calculation to several people and if a majority reaches a particular answer, then that is accepted as correct. I just don't see how the two systems could be made compatible with one another.
At least with Bitcoin, that's not how it works.
You calculate a hash which meets the complexity criteria and then it gets verified as a valid hash. Validating a hash is far simpler than generating it (and generating valid hashes are very fast already). The complexity is adjusted to balance the number of valid hashes generated and accepted per day. In Bitcoin's case the complexity is governed by the required number of leading zeros in a calculated hash. The more leading zeros, the more difficult it is to calculate. All the hashes generated (irrespective of how many leading zeros they have) are valid from a cryptography point of view. The complexity is simply a way to control the coin generation rate.
Using F@H simply offloads the complexity from "having to generate a sufficiently complex hash with proof of work done" to a certain number of F@H blocks calculated. F@H has proof of work built in. All you need to do is add a single hash to the end of the calculations for encrypting the transaction block (which is trivial).
The "work" itself can be anything verifiable.
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I don't get this, regular money has worked just fine since like forever. After it was invented, that is.
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I don't get this, regular money has worked just fine since like forever. After it was invented, that is.
Trading livestock for tools worked just fine before then as well...
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I don't get this, regular money has worked just fine since like forever. After it was invented, that is.
Trading livestock for tools worked just fine before then as well...
It did. And when the world became more connected and **** they got what we consider normal money, which works just fine and probably will for ages.