Gridcoin: Rewarding Scientific Distributed Computing • Hacker News Board

Re: Gridcoin: Rewarding Scientific Distributed Computing

#31

Post by KVFinn » Sat, Dec 30, 2017, 9:25 AM UTC

ktta wrote: post #16

Kattywumpus wrote: post #6

I've never understood why GridCoin hasn't caught on yet. One of the chief complaints about Bitcoin is the utter wastefulness of its hashing mechanisms, with hundreds of times more computing power than the top 256 supercomputers combined devoted to pointless busywork just to secure the blockchain. Imagine if you could have an equally secure cryptocurrency where all that computing power was diverted to curing cancer, d…

I can't say why it hasn't caught on yet, but in my opinion, it is fragile, at least when compared to other coins. Here the reward one gets purely depends on the score they get on specific BOINC projects, which can be seen as a single point of failure. So if someone is able to fudge their BOINC scores, they're able to create Gridcoins that they shouldn't get. While other coins aren't as resourceful as this, I feel the…

>Here the reward one gets purely depends on the score they get on specific BOINC projects, which can be seen as a single point of failure. So if someone is able to fudge their BOINC scores, they're able to create Gridcoins that they shouldn't get.

Yeah. I'm rooting for them to figure this out because it would be wonderful if all those GPUs could be doing science rather than arbitrary calculations, but if this coin ever went big, I can't see how it would deal with exploits like this.

Re: Gridcoin: Rewarding Scientific Distributed Computing

#32

Post by dmichulke » Sat, Dec 30, 2017, 9:44 AM UTC

beefield wrote: post #29

nerdponx wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing wrong with inflationary currency as long as the supply expands at a fixed/steady rate.

From macroeconomic perspective it does not matter if the monetary supply is fixed or just pre-defined, it is equally bad idea. If you want to have a currency that society runs on, that is.

May I ask what macroeconomic perspective that is?

Re: Gridcoin: Rewarding Scientific Distributed Computing

#33

Post by alexcnwy » Sat, Dec 30, 2017, 9:48 AM UTC

taberiand wrote: post #24

grubles wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Primecoin (sign: Ψ; code: XPM) is a peer-to-peer open source cryptocurrency that implements a unique scientific computing proof-of-work system. Primecoin's proof-of-work system searches for chains of prime numbers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primecoin

Is or was? My (admittedly brief) look into this suggests it's dead or dying

It's up 105% this week so someone thinks it's still alive.

Re: Gridcoin: Rewarding Scientific Distributed Computing

#34

Post by ben_w » Sat, Dec 30, 2017, 9:49 AM UTC

oh_sigh wrote: post #23

anigbrowl wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine and equivalent amount of computer power in an alternative future. I mean, you're right, and this limitation is a flaw in bitcoin, but you've also missed the point.

It's also hard to call it a flaw in Bitcoin, considering it was an intentional design decision.

Even intentional design decisions can be flawed.

Re: Gridcoin: Rewarding Scientific Distributed Computing

#35

Post by akvadrako » Sat, Dec 30, 2017, 10:15 AM UTC

grubles wrote: post #8

Kattywumpus wrote: post #6

I've never understood why GridCoin hasn't caught on yet. One of the chief complaints about Bitcoin is the utter wastefulness of its hashing mechanisms, with hundreds of times more computing power than the top 256 supercomputers combined devoted to pointless busywork just to secure the blockchain. Imagine if you could have an equally secure cryptocurrency where all that computing power was diverted to curing cancer, d…

Primecoin (sign: Ψ; code: XPM) is a peer-to-peer open source cryptocurrency that implements a unique scientific computing proof-of-work system. Primecoin's proof-of-work system searches for chains of prime numbers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primecoin

Primecoin is dead - go to their website and click on "Forums". Or find the network node explorer online.

Re: Gridcoin: Rewarding Scientific Distributed Computing

#36

Post by dnautics » Sat, Dec 30, 2017, 10:34 AM UTC

Kattywumpus wrote: post #6

I've never understood why GridCoin hasn't caught on yet. One of the chief complaints about Bitcoin is the utter wastefulness of its hashing mechanisms, with hundreds of times more computing power than the top 256 supercomputers combined devoted to pointless busywork just to secure the blockchain. Imagine if you could have an equally secure cryptocurrency where all that computing power was diverted to curing cancer, d…

Because it's a silly concept. The whole point of hashing as a proof of work is that verification is faster than generation... It's a one way function. If you intend to use scientific computation as proof of work, then in most cases, verification is just as difficult as generation, so now all you've done is wasted computation by repeating your calculation each time you're verifying. In other cases (protein folding e.g.) which might be a one way function if formulated correctly the difficulty of work is not meaningfully measurable which creates uncertainty in the underlying value of the coin or the cost of mining. Another problem is that it breaks distributed trust since how can you be really sure that the problem is legitimately solved if it's scientific unknown.

Re: Gridcoin: Rewarding Scientific Distributed Computing

#37

Post by dnautics » Sat, Dec 30, 2017, 10:37 AM UTC

dmichulke wrote: post #32

beefield wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From macroeconomic perspective it does not matter if the monetary supply is fixed or just pre-defined, it is equally bad idea. If you want to have a currency that society runs on, that is.

May I ask what macroeconomic perspective that is?

It's terrible because you can't steal from the poor to fund the investment adventures of the wealthy.

Re: Gridcoin: Rewarding Scientific Distributed Computing

#38

Post by fishsander » Sat, Dec 30, 2017, 11:27 AM UTC

shanev wrote: post #30

cprayingmantis wrote: post #4

In all honesty this is what I've been waiting for in terms of a useful cryptocurrency. Now if we could only decentralize the control of what projects the processing goes towards with smart contracts then we could have a coin with more actual utility. Imagine the hash rate of the BTC network going towards some useful calculations.

Their GitHub repo hasn't had any commits in 3 months.

Their staging and development branches are both 375 commits ahead of master.

Re: Gridcoin: Rewarding Scientific Distributed Computing

#39

Post by wellboy » Sat, Dec 30, 2017, 11:44 AM UTC

dnautics wrote: post #36

Kattywumpus wrote: post #6

I've never understood why GridCoin hasn't caught on yet. One of the chief complaints about Bitcoin is the utter wastefulness of its hashing mechanisms, with hundreds of times more computing power than the top 256 supercomputers combined devoted to pointless busywork just to secure the blockchain. Imagine if you could have an equally secure cryptocurrency where all that computing power was diverted to curing cancer, d…

Because it's a silly concept. The whole point of hashing as a proof of work is that verification is faster than generation... It's a one way function. If you intend to use scientific computation as proof of work, then in most cases, verification is just as difficult as generation, so now all you've done is wasted computation by repeating your calculation each time you're verifying. In other cases (protein folding e.g…

Why not reward computation power by the amount of kwh they have spent, regardless of if their computation was worth it or worthless.

Re: Gridcoin: Rewarding Scientific Distributed Computing

#40

Post by boulos » Sat, Dec 30, 2017, 12:07 PM UTC

wellboy wrote: post #39

dnautics wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's a silly concept. The whole point of hashing as a proof of work is that verification is faster than generation... It's a one way function. If you intend to use scientific computation as proof of work, then in most cases, verification is just as difficult as generation, so now all you've done is wasted computation by repeating your calculation each time you're verifying. In other cases (protein folding e.g…

Why not reward computation power by the amount of kwh they have spent, regardless of if their computation was worth it or worthless.

kWh isn’t a good metric of computational output though. You want to encourage people to do more useful work for you; if that means they should tune their code for a fancy GPU, then kWh probably won’t correlate (a single package server CPU is about 145W, a server class GPU about 300W, but the GPU usually performs way more compute).