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Why Can't Computing at the Heart of Bitcoin Be More Useful?

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Re: Why Can't Computing at the Heart of Bitcoin Be More Useful?

#91

Post by pelasaco »

jcranmer wrote: post #75
pelasaco wrote: post #63

I worked 10 years for a Bank. A lot of the mainframe batch processing were unnecessary. A lot of the mainframes running Cobol could be replaced by some smaller hardware and code written in java and C. There are a lot of people working around bad written system or bad written laws/rules, to make the things work. My point is: Wouldn't be fair to compare the amount energy to run bitcoin vs the amount of energy to run th…

Yes, it would be fair. However, it is not a comparison that Bitcoin even comes close to winning (Bitcoin uses orders of magnitude more energy), so you instead see takes like "you forgot to account for the energy cost of aircraft carriers!" to try to make the comparison more favorable to Bitcoin.

no, but for sure you have to take in account the amount of buildings, air-conditioning, commuters, datacenters, branches, ATMs, bad written code, exchanges. Beside that, Bitcoin probably after the 21 million were mined, should drop the energy consumption (ok, ok, it will take almost 100 years to happen), but it means that in long term, bitcoin will be consuming much less energy than now. Probably impossible to compare apples x apples in that case, but we should at least try it.

Re: Why Can't Computing at the Heart of Bitcoin Be More Useful?

#92

Post by koheripbal »

Hbruz0 wrote: post #16

This very question has been asked on stackexchange : https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/331

Summary:

1. The input need to be unpredictable. Block N is the seed for block N+1.

2. It needs to be difficult to calculate, yet trivially easy to verify.

3. Difficulty needs to be adjustable.

The only idea I've ever seen that met all three of these criteria was PrimeCoin's usage of calculating certain Cunningham twin primes (which is still of unclear/tiny value).

Re: Why Can't Computing at the Heart of Bitcoin Be More Useful?

#93

Post by thegrim33 »

doggosphere wrote: post #59
trutannus wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that blockchain will change the world.

Every week, every month, every year, crypto is alleged to be dead and dying. And still the adoption, usage, and price goes up. It gets hyped, it falters, people stop talking for a while, and the cycle repeats itself.

Yes, you can say the same thing about any ponzi scheme, until it finally crashes.

Re: Why Can't Computing at the Heart of Bitcoin Be More Useful?

#94

Post by imtringued »

thesausageking wrote: post #33
mkl95 wrote: post #21

Bitcoin is an extremely inefficient computing platform. There's no silver lining to BTC, it's simply a moderately big, potentially huge mistake in the history of modern technology.

Inefficient compared with what? Gold requires a ton more energy. As does the existing banking system. Bitcoin uses less electricity than Christmas lights and provides a completely electric, transparent, uncensorable currency.

>Bitcoin uses less electricity than Christmas lights and provides a completely electric, transparent, uncensorable currency.

But there are literally thousands of those!

Re: Why Can't Computing at the Heart of Bitcoin Be More Useful?

#95

Post by beiller »

minitoar wrote: post #56
beiller wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Heat pumps can't be used in cold climates due to ice forming on heat fins which breaks the efficiency. It's why we use a lot of baseboard heaters in Canada. Bitcoin mining would be perfect for electric heating of homes here. Plus the added bonus of eliminating green house gas emissions from burning natural gas in a furnace (how my house is heated). The problem with baseboard is that gas heating is far che…

In cold climates you bury the heat exchanger under the frost line.

That sounds really interesting but isn't that useless because at that point you may as well use geothermal. Doesn't the exchanger need air to flow over it hence the fins for it to work? I think geothermal is the biggest win environmentally however so there is that.

Re: Why Can't Computing at the Heart of Bitcoin Be More Useful?

#96

Post by GuB-42 »

thesausageking wrote: post #33
mkl95 wrote: post #21

Bitcoin is an extremely inefficient computing platform. There's no silver lining to BTC, it's simply a moderately big, potentially huge mistake in the history of modern technology.

Inefficient compared with what? Gold requires a ton more energy. As does the existing banking system. Bitcoin uses less electricity than Christmas lights and provides a completely electric, transparent, uncensorable currency.

Gold is an chemical element very useful properties.

As for the banking system, Bitcoin is part of it now. Banks offer cryptocurrency-backed accounts, and if it becomes big, you will probably get all the stuff that banking does like loans, escrow services and fast, reversible transactions. There will be regulations and I guess a fractional reserve system will follow.

And how is it uncensorable? All it takes for a state to censor it is to declare it illegal with harsh sentences for those who get caught and embargoes on countries that don't play along.

As for Christmas lights, I think you are way off. Care to share the numbers.

Re: Why Can't Computing at the Heart of Bitcoin Be More Useful?

#97

Post by Tarsul »

danlugo92 wrote: post #54
renewedrebecca wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t confuse being rich with being ethical or wise. (This is a kind of appeal to authority, too)

Are all of these institutional investors: https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeldelcastillo/2020/08/06/v... (of which the top 3 already account for more BTC than Elon) also unwise?

the argument went from

BTC is inefficient (OP) to

why did Elon buy (you) to

understanding the difference between rich and ethical (last comment) to

rich investors being wise or not (you again)

To make it short: Just because Elon or rich investors buy doesn't mean they are unwise (for themselves) just that it's bad for the world (ecologically), so basically both can be true. Just the difference between thinking about themselves and thinking about other people as well...

Re: Why Can't Computing at the Heart of Bitcoin Be More Useful?

#98

Post by nameless912 »

danlugo92 wrote: post #54
renewedrebecca wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t confuse being rich with being ethical or wise. (This is a kind of appeal to authority, too)

Are all of these institutional investors: https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeldelcastillo/2020/08/06/v... (of which the top 3 already account for more BTC than Elon) also unwise?

Considering the 2008 housing crisis....yes?

Re: Why Can't Computing at the Heart of Bitcoin Be More Useful?

#99

Post by schoen »

johnnyapol wrote: post #12

I was disappointed to not see any mentions of Gridcoin in the Proof of Stake section. It rewards people for their contributions to certain BOINC projects. There definitely is a range of "usefulness" to the projects supported. There are computations like distributed protein folding (Rosetta@Home) all the way to analysis of Minecraft phenomenon (Minecraft@Home). While the Minecraft makes for some very entertaining YouT…

Gridcoin's apparent decentralization is much less than a system that uses mining rewards because it uses a committee to maintain a list of projects that can simply assert that people have done relevant work in order to receive rewards.

https://gridcoin.us/guides/whitelist.htm

I haven't totally gamed it out but I think the committee could break Gridcoin by means such as refusing to approve any projects, or approving only "captive" BOINC projects that agree to distribute rewards the way the committee wants. Alternatively, BOINC itself could get shut down, or all of the currently-approved projects could have their credentials taken over by someone else and start issuing rewards in a sketchy way.

As I understand it, Gridcoin basically has an identified group of oracles who together appoint and unappoint other oracles who are empowered to issue rewards. While this is clever, it's not very decentralized or permissionless.

(Maybe I should pick on BOINC itself even more than the committee as the "authority" here, since I think BOINC's infrastructure is directly used by the whitelisted projects to assign tasks and announce rewards for completing them. So BOINC is really in a position to tamper with every part of the reward process.)

Re: Why Can't Computing at the Heart of Bitcoin Be More Useful?

#100

Post by f00zz »

pelasaco wrote: post #80
35fbe7d3d5b9 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wouldn't be fair to compare the amount energy to run bitcoin vs the amount of energy to run the banking system? Hasn't this comparison been made over and over, and every time it comes out in favor of traditional banking by a mile ?

could you provide any link or resource for further reading? I never saw anything like that and I would like to know what they are taking into account in this comparison.

"One Bitcoin transaction would generate the CO2 equivalent to 706,765 swipes of a Visa credit card, according to Digiconomist’s closely-followed index, albeit with none of the convenience of plastic."

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-01-26/is-bit...

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