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What is Chia cryptocurrency and why is it bad news for hard drives?

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Re: What is Chia cryptocurrency and why is it bad news for hard drives?

#111

Post by matkoniecz »

RealityVoid wrote: post #78
dang wrote: post #48

Recent related threads: Thoughts on a “HDD shortage” from an industry insider - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27008295 - May 2021 (106 comments) SSD makers start warning that mining products like ChiaCoin will void warranty - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27001848 - May 2021 (381 comments) Chia surpasses 1 exabyte of hard drive space - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26975734 - April 2021 (151 comm…

I am... Suspicious of all the chia articles popping up on HN. I have not seen the same kind of buzz happening in other crypto spaces about it. And I am also suspicious about the claims that chia is the one that is such a threat to data storage supply, considering there are other crypto currencies with a similar approach. Overall, I am inclined to say that this is a submarine and HN is falling for it. Regardless, more…

> Chia just incentives other people to store data for people who want to store data.

This is untrue, Chia requires wasting storage space to store pointless garbage.

Re: What is Chia cryptocurrency and why is it bad news for hard drives?

#113

Post by saurik »

loxias wrote: post #96
conradev wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Orchid is a decentralized crypto market for bandwidth: https://www.orchid.com/ You can run a node and sell bandwidth to people who want to proxy traffic through your node

"We believe that by harnessing the power of blockchain, we can offer users a better VPN experience" So, is deleting articles the new deleting vowels? facepalm

Assuming Orchid even harnesses blockchains at all--I built it and notably don't have any clue what the marketing people meant when they wrote that sentence (I hate that website)--I agree that "blockchain" should be plural.

Re: What is Chia cryptocurrency and why is it bad news for hard drives?

#114

Post by dageshi »

cwyers wrote: post #94

I just... do not understand how smart, even _brilliant_ people, the sort of people who know enough to make something like this, can look at Bitcoin... the waste, the way it has utterly failed to achieve what it set out to do[1], everything, and thinks, I know, I want to do that, but instead of blowing up the market for GPUs it'll be SSDs. Why? To get rich? It even seems doubtful to me that the people who developed Ch…

These people likely believe they are getting in on a trend that's comparable to the internet/web pre 2000. They're getting in on the ground floor of something that has the potential to drastically change a lot of things. The number of opportunities someone gets to do that in their lifetime is very low.

Re: What is Chia cryptocurrency and why is it bad news for hard drives?

#116

Post by 0x264 »

wmf wrote: post #14
surround wrote: post #12

It took me a while to actually understand how proof-of-work mining works because seemingly every article one the subject gives too abstract of an explanation. Turns out it's not that complex if you understand what a cryptographic hash is. Just take a block (a list of recent transactions) and take a SHA-256 hash if it over and over with slight variations until you get a hash that starts with enough consecutive zeroes.…

There are multiple flavors of proof of space and they seem to be based on quite complex math to the extent that a simple explanation may not be possible.

There always is a simple explanation:

Resulting from (1) removing irrelevant details (details crucial for an implementation, but irrelevant for an initial mental model) and (2) making use of analogies built around already known concepts.

"Complex maths" is never an excuse to not find that explanation.

Disclaimer: I am a pure mathematician.

Re: What is Chia cryptocurrency and why is it bad news for hard drives?

#117

Post by Tepix »

First we had proof of work, now we have proof of space. Both are rather wasteful.

The challenge appears to be to create a proof of something beneficial for society, like "proof of clean energy generated", "proof of not flying", "proof of vegan lifestyle" or "proof of CO2 sequestered".

Re: What is Chia cryptocurrency and why is it bad news for hard drives?

#118

Post by Tepix »

causality0 wrote: post #64
xhrpost wrote: post #58

To be honest I kind of wish someone would build a proof-of-bandwidth crypto. Miners would overtake data centers with cheap transit, driving the build out of more long-haul network. Some would then move to different neighborhoods just to get FTTH access, enabling more incentive for last-mile build out.

Except what happened to GPUs would happen to bandwidth. We'd all be fucked.

Exactly. The proof of bandwidth would probably require you to waste that bandwidth for mining.

Re: What is Chia cryptocurrency and why is it bad news for hard drives?

#119

Post by Tepix »

christiansakai wrote: post #51
deckplecksetter wrote: post #44

If only someone could invent a cryptocurrency that incentivises something good instead of something harmful.

Proof of Social Good. Increase your neighbor's credit score and you will earn a coin.

It will be gamed.

Re: What is Chia cryptocurrency and why is it bad news for hard drives?

#120

Post by Tepix »

stonewareslord wrote: post #77
deckplecksetter wrote: post #44

If only someone could invent a cryptocurrency that incentivises something good instead of something harmful.

Gridcoin is designed for this. It is based on scientific research and instead of sha256 hashes of random data, coins are earned by proof of your computer doing scientific research. From their homepage: > Examples include protein structure prediction (Rosetta@home), mapping the Milky Way galaxy (Milkyway@home), and tackling problems in public health and clean energy (World Community Grid).

How do you prevent malicious research projects in a decentralized system?
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