The closest I've seen to benefiting mankind is the Ripple coin project:
https://www.computingforgood.org
Topic: All this mining is ultimately meaningless - page 4. (Read 7280 times)
My prediction for the next year or so will be this: Coins that have some more tangible and more noble benefits such as assisting with protein folding or donating part of proceeds to carbon emission offsets or similar benefits will become more dominant and more pointless clones with no innovative features will die off, particularly as more people become wise to them and avoid them like the plague, no matter the marketing and hype that the developers will use to try and rope people in.
Ok, so forgive my ignorance here, but am I right in thinking that as a result of Bitcoin and the literally hundreds of alternate currencies springing up daily, we, the human race are using BILLIONS UPON BILLIONS of processing cycles to calculate worthless sums? I say worthless because the hashing is mostly wasted effort, am I right in understanding that?
Drilling holes deep in the ground to dig up gold, would you consider that a useless waste of resources as well?
There are coins that are trying to do that. Primecoin for example is looking for prime numbers.
In any case mining is essential for bitcoin to work so you can't really call it a waste.
In any case mining is essential for bitcoin to work so you can't really call it a waste.
That's how ppcoin comes in
They aren't useless the secure the network.
If you decide to open a bank so you pay a contractor a lot of money to build a secure vault, and then you install lots of cameras, pay for an alarm system, and hire security guards .... and then the bank never gets robbed (maybe because the security is too tight) was it a waste of resources?
If you decide to open a bank so you pay a contractor a lot of money to build a secure vault, and then you install lots of cameras, pay for an alarm system, and hire security guards .... and then the bank never gets robbed (maybe because the security is too tight) was it a waste of resources?
So are you saying that the process of mining is purely validating transactions? I apologise for my question if that is the case, I had the impression most mining calculations were akin to brute force calculations looking for special numbers that match the formula - similar to hunting for prime numbers. Have I got this all wrong then?
Yes, the mining secures the blockchain. The 25 bitcoins that the miner receives is totally worth the security provided. You aren't the first person to misunderstand this process. It is partly a language thing, but using terms like "Securing" & "Securers" just doesn't flow easily off the tongue.
The Bitcoin protocol fits all together as a very elegant operation. When the media complains about one aspect or another about how Bitcoin works, it is a bit like complaining about how math, logic, or computers work.
They aren't useless the secure the network.
If you decide to open a bank so you pay a contractor a lot of money to build a secure vault, and then you install lots of cameras, pay for an alarm system, and hire security guards .... and then the bank never gets robbed (maybe because the security is too tight) was it a waste of resources?
If you decide to open a bank so you pay a contractor a lot of money to build a secure vault, and then you install lots of cameras, pay for an alarm system, and hire security guards .... and then the bank never gets robbed (maybe because the security is too tight) was it a waste of resources?
So are you saying that the process of mining is purely validating transactions? I apologise for my question if that is the case, I had the impression most mining calculations were akin to brute force calculations looking for special numbers that match the formula - similar to hunting for prime numbers. Have I got this all wrong then?
Mining isn't to validate transactions, every node tries to validate a transaction when it receives it. Mining is to wrap a set of transactions in a tamper-proof layer, called a block. The point of the calculations is that if someone wants to alter the transaction-history, he has to redo the calculations in order for it to be accepted by the network. And he has to redo these calculations while trying to beat the network of honest users that is trying to extend the block chain with honest blocks.
The precise algorithm used for these calculations is not important as long as it satisfies the following conditions:
- The puzzle/solution has to depend on the transactions in the block. Change the transactions and the puzzle should change.
- The puzzle/solution can be tweaked automatically to be more difficult if the network increases in computational power. And vice versa.
- It is hard to find a solution, but very easy and fast to verify that a given solution is correct. Other nodes in the network should be able to check the validity of a block efficiently.
Ok, so forgive my ignorance here, but am I right in thinking that as a result of Bitcoin and the literally hundreds of alternate currencies springing up daily, we, the human race are using BILLIONS UPON BILLIONS of processing cycles to calculate worthless sums? I say worthless because the hashing is mostly wasted effort, am I right in understanding that?
The processing power is not wasted because the process that is called "mining" is the way by which creates the credibility of the whole Bitcoin payment system. Without that processing taking place, there would be no Bitcoin system. What is called mining is actually the process of creating a confirmed chain of blocks of transaction. By "confirmed" I mean that most part of the Bitcoin network agree to the validity of the blocks. The Bitcoins that are given to the miners are rather an incentive for the miners to keep going with this process.
They aren't useless the secure the network.
If you decide to open a bank so you pay a contractor a lot of money to build a secure vault, and then you install lots of cameras, pay for an alarm system, and hire security guards .... and then the bank never gets robbed (maybe because the security is too tight) was it a waste of resources?
If you decide to open a bank so you pay a contractor a lot of money to build a secure vault, and then you install lots of cameras, pay for an alarm system, and hire security guards .... and then the bank never gets robbed (maybe because the security is too tight) was it a waste of resources?
So are you saying that the process of mining is purely validating transactions? I apologise for my question if that is the case, I had the impression most mining calculations were akin to brute force calculations looking for special numbers that match the formula - similar to hunting for prime numbers. Have I got this all wrong then?
Do any of the alt currencies attempt to tackle this, or are we still a way off actually utilising these CPU/GPU cycles for the good of our species and/the planet.
Gridcoin does this. They have done a ton of updates since it launched recently to make the system with BOINC solid and secure.
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.3472286
Humanity is greedy and hopeless, don't bother saving it.
They aren't useless the secure the network.
If you decide to open a bank so you pay a contractor a lot of money to build a secure vault, and then you install lots of cameras, pay for an alarm system, and hire security guards .... and then the bank never gets robbed (maybe because the security is too tight) was it a waste of resources?
If you decide to open a bank so you pay a contractor a lot of money to build a secure vault, and then you install lots of cameras, pay for an alarm system, and hire security guards .... and then the bank never gets robbed (maybe because the security is too tight) was it a waste of resources?
Ok, so forgive my ignorance here, but am I right in thinking that as a result of Bitcoin and the literally hundreds of alternate currencies springing up daily, we, the human race are using BILLIONS UPON BILLIONS of processing cycles to calculate worthless sums? I say worthless because the hashing is mostly wasted effort, am I right in understanding that?
Surely the logical next step here is to make this ENORMOUS BOTNET calculate something useful? I'm thinking of solving science questions, SETI, fighting cancer, or any other distributed software projects, that kind of thing?
Do any of the alt currencies attempt to tackle this, or are we still a way off actually utilising these CPU/GPU cycles for the good of our species and/the planet.
Surely the logical next step here is to make this ENORMOUS BOTNET calculate something useful? I'm thinking of solving science questions, SETI, fighting cancer, or any other distributed software projects, that kind of thing?
Do any of the alt currencies attempt to tackle this, or are we still a way off actually utilising these CPU/GPU cycles for the good of our species and/the planet.
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