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I heat my home by mining crypto currencies

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Re: I heat my home by mining crypto currencies

#161

Post by betterunix2 »

inter_netuser wrote: post #126
guerrilla wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The linked paper says the opposite. > This results in PoWs whose completion does not waste energy but instead is useful for the solution of computational problems of practical interest.

do you believe every paper that comes across without critical review? This 31 page paper most definitely has not been fully evaluated by anyone commenting on it in this thread.

In fact, nobody seems to have read the first page, which has a note that the definition of "proof of useful work" in that paper is trivial. An updated version is available here:

https://eprint.iacr.org/2018/559

Re: I heat my home by mining crypto currencies

#164

Post by oever »

pjfin123 wrote: post #148

How efficiently do GPUs heat? I'm assuming most of the input energy is lost to heat?

GPUs are 100% efficient at turning low entropy energy into high entropy energy i.e. heat.

If you take into account transport loss and efficiency of creating the electric current, then it's probably below 50%.

Heat pumps typically have an efficiency of 300% (COP 3) because they pump heat from outside to the inside. (inverse of how a refrigerator works).

Re: I heat my home by mining crypto currencies

#165

Post by BenoitEssiambre »

bayindirh wrote: post #13
lmilcin wrote: post #10

I wonder if we could make it even better and make smart heaters that instead of wasting calculations actually do something useful, something like folding proteins or some other computing load that doesn't require huge network load and can be easily distributed (something like SETI@home but actually useful). In densely populated cities we could bury huge datacenters underground and use that energy for heating directly…

Welcome to Qarnot. https://qarnot.com/en/the-radiator-computer/

I don't know much about this company but I love the name Qarnot which is suggestive of thermodynamically optimal computing. Carnot (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_L%C3%A9onard_Sadi_Carn...) was the father of thermodynamic efficiency. He came up with thermodynamics to optimize steam engines, maybe making him the most steampunk of scientists. Thermodynamically optimizing bits is an echo of that for the age of computing.

Re: I heat my home by mining crypto currencies

#166

Post by hokkos »

arnaudsm wrote: post #88
dreen wrote: post #3

Years ago when mining with a single gaming card was more common and viable, I lived in a rented room in a house owned by a live-in landlord who controlled the heating, and wouldn't turn it on for very long in the winter. Since electricity was included in my (fixed) rent, I was able to keep my room a few degrees higher than the rest of the house. However I must point out that you shouldn't do this in most circumstance…

In countries like France [1], electricity heating is the most environmentally friendly, at 40 g Co2/kWh, while gas (the cheapest and most common) is >250. [1] https://www.electricitymap.org/map

If the average carbon intensity of french grid is in the 40g, if you take into account when heating is used it is more in the 80gCO2/kWh, anyway a heat pump is always better.

http://www.carbone4.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Publicati...

Re: I heat my home by mining crypto currencies

#167

Post by FridgeSeal »

keyme wrote: post #127
lmilcin wrote: post #116

I wonder if a country could produce bitcoin miners that convert electricity to heat and use that heat for their industry while also getting to control trillions in bitcoin once they cross 50% of mining capacity. Most likely bitcoin would loose all value then as the value is basically product of trust in the bitcoin network, but still an interesting idea for a state-sponsored attack.

>50% bitcoin mining capacity is already in China since like 2014 (unless something drastically changed). The beauty of the PoW blockchain is that if a nation attains this kind of power, then still, the most profitable thing to do would be to keep playing by the rules. This is why bitcoin works.

That assertion doesn’t necessarily hold. There’s political advantage to be gained by taking and holding that advantage so that it can be tactically trashed when it needs to be. Your comment implies that China would increasingly lean further in to supporting cryptocurrencies, when we know that they’re not a fan of tolerating things that even look they might try to challenge their authority any longer than it is advantageous for them.

Re: I heat my home by mining crypto currencies

#168

Post by mustyoshi »

lmilcin wrote: post #10

I wonder if we could make it even better and make smart heaters that instead of wasting calculations actually do something useful, something like folding proteins or some other computing load that doesn't require huge network load and can be easily distributed (something like SETI@home but actually useful). In densely populated cities we could bury huge datacenters underground and use that energy for heating directly…

The key here is that mining pays enough to offset electricity used for mining.

SETI@home doesn't pay.

Re: I heat my home by mining crypto currencies

#169

Post by bouncycastle »

inter_netuser wrote: post #149
bouncycastle wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a fallacy that high hashrate means high security. What matters is the % of miners that are honest. (See bitcoin.pdf) High hashrate just means higher difficulty. (The difficulty controls the average time between blocks, so it's always targeting to be 10 min on average). Also, for heating your home, mining bitcoin could end you up with a loss. For example, your heater needs an internet connection, and your heater…

A) 100% honest miners, 1 hash per century. B) 55% honest miners, 1 googol hashes per second. What is more secure in your view? hashrate is absolutely necessary for high security.

Read bitcoin.pdf

Re: I heat my home by mining crypto currencies

#170

Post by amelius »

mustyoshi wrote: post #168
lmilcin wrote: post #10

I wonder if we could make it even better and make smart heaters that instead of wasting calculations actually do something useful, something like folding proteins or some other computing load that doesn't require huge network load and can be easily distributed (something like SETI@home but actually useful). In densely populated cities we could bury huge datacenters underground and use that energy for heating directly…

The key here is that mining pays enough to offset electricity used for mining. SETI@home doesn't pay.

So we need a cryptocurrency based on useful calculations instead of useless hashing.
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