Topic: A blockchain with a hashing function doing useful work - page 2. (Read 2191 times)
I was actually considering doing this when I read Bitcoin had 25 times the processing power of folding@home, making folding@home the second largest distributed computing project.
Here are some things I thought about:
Here is a list of those projects: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_distributed_computing_projects
Edit: If you are interested in this, you should look for *@home projects' algorithms that return "answers" quickly.
Another note:
You would probably want the "answers" to the "problems" to be public so they are actually useful. The only way I can see this being done is if you were awarded coins every time a solution is found in an amount inverse to the difficulty (and possibly make block finding separate and give block finders transaction fees)
Here are some things I thought about:
- You would need to either have a
- A) a project that has very many proof of works generated per arbitrary time unit. This would mean you could take the hash of the "answer" or whatever your computer discovered for the project, the merkle root, the previous hash, etc. and it would have to be a small range of hashes based on the difficulty.
- B) a project that doesn't have very many proof of works per arbitrary time unit and you would have a slow confirmation time. For this option, you might actually want to either select a few of these "answers" based on how small the hash is, or if you want faster transactions, you could make it accept all "answers"
- This is optional, but I would assume the community would want the coin to be decentralized, so *@home would NOT be allowed to determine ANYTHING
- The project would have to be able to get help from "miners" without changing the "problem", if they could change the problem then it would once again, not be centralized.
Here is a list of those projects: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_distributed_computing_projects
Edit: If you are interested in this, you should look for *@home projects' algorithms that return "answers" quickly.
Another note:
You would probably want the "answers" to the "problems" to be public so they are actually useful. The only way I can see this being done is if you were awarded coins every time a solution is found in an amount inverse to the difficulty (and possibly make block finding separate and give block finders transaction fees)
As I understand it, the hashing function for Bitcoin only does random work for a while and when it actually finds a matching hash it appends the block to the blockchain.
Is it possible to create a blockchain that does the following:
1. All clients do folding@home or SETI or a similar task that requires computing power. Possibly mixed with another hashing function. A client can't hash without doing meaningful work and submitting it.
2. After submitting work each client gets a share.
3. When a block is found it contains transactions to finders of the previous block's shares. Since all blocks are mined in a distributed manner the rewards can be proporitional since there is no way to game this system.
If this is possible to be done in a secure way, then a lot of the hashing power will actually be used to benefit distributed computing projects. Furthermore, when folding@home or whatever becomes a paid activity, anyone who wishes to invest into the future of said project can contribute by buying those coins and causing their price to go up, encouraging people to go into mining.
Is this technically feasible?
Is it possible to create a blockchain that does the following:
1. All clients do folding@home or SETI or a similar task that requires computing power. Possibly mixed with another hashing function. A client can't hash without doing meaningful work and submitting it.
2. After submitting work each client gets a share.
3. When a block is found it contains transactions to finders of the previous block's shares. Since all blocks are mined in a distributed manner the rewards can be proporitional since there is no way to game this system.
If this is possible to be done in a secure way, then a lot of the hashing power will actually be used to benefit distributed computing projects. Furthermore, when folding@home or whatever becomes a paid activity, anyone who wishes to invest into the future of said project can contribute by buying those coins and causing their price to go up, encouraging people to go into mining.
Is this technically feasible?
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