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Cryptocurrency mining using integrated photonics

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Re: Cryptocurrency mining using integrated photonics

#71

Post by jlokier »

reginold wrote: post #56
jlokier wrote: post #24

Heh. I worked on a type of photonic PoW in 2019 (but it wasn't silicon photonics). - It's faster and lower power for the hash rate. It's worth it. But not as fast and low power as hoped. - It's a great advantage for the early adopter who can mine that bit faster than everyone else for a short time. That was the motivation for the project. - Contrary to the title of the article, making hashing faster for less energy d…

Appreciate your thoughtful explanation and context. The shortcut on "whenever you see a headline about low energy PoW" is useful, I had been wondering about that. One thought - has there been anything on something like "Proof of Capability of Work"? ie "Yes, I have all this compute power potential, but I'm not using it". Oh shit did I just back into what you mean by VDF? Basically Proof of Sitting Around? I'm gonna h…

> Oh shit did I just back into...

No, actually you didn't.

> has there been anything on something like "Proof of Capability of Work"? ie "Yes, I have all this compute power potential, but I'm not using it".

As far as I know, there has not. But I hope you are a physicist, because this idea is genius.

The key role played by counterfactuals in quantum mechanical systems might make it technically possible to prove potential to perform computation that is never performed.

Re: Cryptocurrency mining using integrated photonics

#72

Post by CryptoPunk »

tsimionescu wrote: post #48
CryptoPunk wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Not to mention, crypto currencies are worse than traditional currencies in every way You've never been denied financial services due to discriminatory policies, or you would not claim that. Everything needs to migrate to the public blockchain: banking, online markets, social media platforms, etc. Giving a handful of corporations and governments control over almost every aspect of every one's lives is dangerous and…

Yes, much better to give such control to an algorithm and protocol written and controlled by a handful of engineers and mining pool owners. And make no mistake: in a state that allows or encourages financial institutions to discriminate, you will eventually be discriminated against with Bitcoin as well. The state may not have caught up to the technology yet, but social problems can't be fixed with technology.

The protocol is publicly defined, and immutable. There is no need to trust any engineers, or give them any control, just as you don't need to trust the developers of open source software in order to trust the software.

And it is much harder for a state to ban a blockchain, than impose laws on centralized financial intermediaries that lead to rampant banking discrimination. The former will cost far more, in economic resources and political capital, to enforce.

Re: Cryptocurrency mining using integrated photonics

#73

Post by meowface »

ordinaryradical wrote: post #41
kybernetikos wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true, however it's also not an unusual feature - pretty much every capitalist society has the characteristic that those with capital can gain more capital with a minimum of additional work. Alternatives that don't have that feature to at least some extent would be regarded as very radical, and difficult to implement.

This has already been implemented in at least one other crypto successfully. See: Nano (formerly Raiblocks). The crypto community, however, seems to have a very narrow focus on reproducing these plutocratic systems and incentives because everyone wants that power for themselves and wants to be first in whatever the Next Big Thing is. Crypto development as a whole seems to be hampered by these incentives and by an exc…

No, I think most people (as in, core developers) just want whatever can actually be relied upon. If there were a silver bullet consensus algorithm that was decentralized and secure and also far less wasteful/plutocratic, everyone would probably switch to it.

The idea that there's an easy, superior solution on the other side's grass and bad motives are just keeping people locked into a bad system is a convenient narrative, but rarely true. I don't know the details about Nano, but my guess is the reason other cryptocurrencies haven't adopted their algorithm is because they don't think it's sufficient, for whatever reason.

Re: Cryptocurrency mining using integrated photonics

#74

Post by ordinaryradical »

meowface wrote: post #73
ordinaryradical wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has already been implemented in at least one other crypto successfully. See: Nano (formerly Raiblocks). The crypto community, however, seems to have a very narrow focus on reproducing these plutocratic systems and incentives because everyone wants that power for themselves and wants to be first in whatever the Next Big Thing is. Crypto development as a whole seems to be hampered by these incentives and by an exc…

No, I think most people (as in, core developers) just want whatever can actually be relied upon. If there were a silver bullet consensus algorithm that was decentralized and secure and also far less wasteful/plutocratic, everyone would probably switch to it. The idea that there's an easy, superior solution on the other side's grass and bad motives are just keeping people locked into a bad system is a convenient narra…

Nano/Raiblocks has been around for years, the original developer was also one of the first to work on Bitcoin, apparently, and the network has been live for some years and successfully transacting.

I don’t think it’s a matter of the technology being unproven or unreliable. There was recently a 22 million dollar transaction that was both feeless and recorded to the network in It seems obvious though that to adopt the protocol means sacrificing a plutocratic winner-take-all mining regime and everyone in the crypto space wants to be that winner.

Why go through the trouble of developing a photonic mining system if there’s already a viable alternative to PoW/PoS in the real world being used? Why all these outlandish schemes to “green” PoW networks (that never come to fruition) when there’s a viable technology transacting at a literal 6 millionth of the cost of a single btc transaction?

At a certain point, you begin to see that a large part of this space is not committed to the aims they espouse but to a kind of delirious financial brinksmanship that yields little in the way of progress but makes small numbers of people very wealthy.

Re: Cryptocurrency mining using integrated photonics

#75

Post by nwiswell »

jlokier wrote: post #24

Heh. I worked on a type of photonic PoW in 2019 (but it wasn't silicon photonics). - It's faster and lower power for the hash rate. It's worth it. But not as fast and low power as hoped. - It's a great advantage for the early adopter who can mine that bit faster than everyone else for a short time. That was the motivation for the project. - Contrary to the title of the article, making hashing faster for less energy d…

> It's because of how the mining-price system works, proof-of-work energy consumption is independent of the technology widely used. In other words, you can't solve the proof-of-work energy consumption problem with a new proof-of-work hashing technology.

This is not strictly true. The cost to mine will converge with the proceeds of that mining -- that is economic law. But the total cost of mining is actually the cost of ownership + the cost of operation of the hardware. As we know, electricity presently dominates the cost of operation and the total cost. But you can imagine a very low power chip that is expensive to make -- like this photonic PoW, maybe -- and then the cost of the chips themselves dominate the total cost and drive down energy usage as a portion of the whole pie.

Re: Cryptocurrency mining using integrated photonics

#76

Post by meowface »

ordinaryradical wrote: post #74
meowface wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I think most people (as in, core developers) just want whatever can actually be relied upon. If there were a silver bullet consensus algorithm that was decentralized and secure and also far less wasteful/plutocratic, everyone would probably switch to it. The idea that there's an easy, superior solution on the other side's grass and bad motives are just keeping people locked into a bad system is a convenient narra…

Nano/Raiblocks has been around for years, the original developer was also one of the first to work on Bitcoin, apparently, and the network has been live for some years and successfully transacting. I don’t think it’s a matter of the technology being unproven or unreliable. There was recently a 22 million dollar transaction that was both feeless and recorded to the network in It seems obvious though that to adopt the…

I'm sure there are many people who share the mentality you describe, but I don't think it applies to most core developers of cryptocurrency protocols, and such developers also don't make more money the more expensive mining is.

Re: Cryptocurrency mining using integrated photonics

#77

Post by kybernetikos »

ordinaryradical wrote: post #41
kybernetikos wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true, however it's also not an unusual feature - pretty much every capitalist society has the characteristic that those with capital can gain more capital with a minimum of additional work. Alternatives that don't have that feature to at least some extent would be regarded as very radical, and difficult to implement.

This has already been implemented in at least one other crypto successfully. See: Nano (formerly Raiblocks). The crypto community, however, seems to have a very narrow focus on reproducing these plutocratic systems and incentives because everyone wants that power for themselves and wants to be first in whatever the Next Big Thing is. Crypto development as a whole seems to be hampered by these incentives and by an exc…

From what I know of Nano, I don't believe it would work correctly under situations where it was being attacked.

Re: Cryptocurrency mining using integrated photonics

#78

Post by tsimionescu »

CryptoPunk wrote: post #72
tsimionescu wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, much better to give such control to an algorithm and protocol written and controlled by a handful of engineers and mining pool owners. And make no mistake: in a state that allows or encourages financial institutions to discriminate, you will eventually be discriminated against with Bitcoin as well. The state may not have caught up to the technology yet, but social problems can't be fixed with technology.

The protocol is publicly defined, and immutable. There is no need to trust any engineers, or give them any control, just as you don't need to trust the developers of open source software in order to trust the software. And it is much harder for a state to ban a blockchain, than impose laws on centralized financial intermediaries that lead to rampant banking discrimination. The former will cost far more, in economic r…

The protocol is not immutable, and there have been several changes to it in the early days, and several proposed changes that keep being discussed (such as the famous block size limit change). If the people developing the software and the major mining groups agree on a change, who will stop them?

Re: Cryptocurrency mining using integrated photonics

#79

Post by CryptoPunk »

tsimionescu wrote: post #78
CryptoPunk wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The protocol is publicly defined, and immutable. There is no need to trust any engineers, or give them any control, just as you don't need to trust the developers of open source software in order to trust the software. And it is much harder for a state to ban a blockchain, than impose laws on centralized financial intermediaries that lead to rampant banking discrimination. The former will cost far more, in economic r…

The protocol is not immutable, and there have been several changes to it in the early days, and several proposed changes that keep being discussed (such as the famous block size limit change). If the people developing the software and the major mining groups agree on a change, who will stop them?

It is extremely hard to organize a protocol change that succeeds in tampering with existing smart contacts, let alone eliminates the permissionless/neutrality guarantees of a public blockchain with significant adoption.

For a public blockchain with as large a userbase as Ethereum, a protocol change that nullifies its neutrality and permissionless-ness would be nearly impossible for any group to push through.

It's absolutely incomparable to traditional banks, with respect to the degree of resistance to interference from governments.

Re: Cryptocurrency mining using integrated photonics

#80

Post by mistrial9 »

tromp wrote: post #65
mistrial9 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> expected 2^32 double SHA256 hashes yes, expected by.. some approximation of the current hardware to find the solution.. We are not at the answer yet

Nothing to do with hardware. Quoting again from that bitcoin wiki page: The highest possible target (difficulty 1) is defined as 0x1d00ffff, which gives us a hex target of 0x00ffff * 2**(8*(0x1d - 3)) = 0x00000000FFFF0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 As you can see a random hash has a chance of close to 2^-32 to satisfy that target.

> Nothing to do with hardware

use a pencil?

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