[wesammikhail]

This is something that has boggled my mind since 2010 when I first looked at crypto. Why the hell would anyone waste CPU cycles computing some arbitrary hash value that is then ejected as "waste" rather than having the computational workload itself run scientifically important problem and the result of that computation is rewarded with a token? why the hell is everyone using all of this computational power for... nothing of value really?

The main currency in crypto is NOT the tokens/coins you get. It is the CPU cycles. So why the hell are we not putting those to good use? it´s freaking beyond me. Imagine if F@H (or something like it) had the bitcoin network´s power, we could potentially help solve cancer.

Maybe someone can help shed some light on this topic if there is something I´ve missed!

[kajumix]

How do you imagine this could be done? Is there an inexhaustible repository of "scientifically important problems" that can be solved every 10 minutes by some computing entity, and whose difficulty is adjustable -- a function of available compute power in the network, and are verifiable by others without human judgement involved?

> So why the hell are we not putting those to good use?

Some would argue that securing transactions that transfer value without trust is a good use

[arcticbull]

> Some would argue that securing transactions that transfer value without trust is a good use

Those folks haven't identified a good reason why being able to skirt sanctions, allow rogue states to accumulate value and to pay terrorists is worth "transferring value without trust." It's a pretty high bar, IMO.

[afriendofjungs]

> Is there an inexhaustible repository of "scientifically important problems" that can be solved every 10 minutes by some computing entity

Well, is the pool of mineable BitCoin hashes not limited? I'd say there are enough computational problems to be solved, certainly far more than there are BitCoins to be mined, for one.

As to trust and transactions, as far as I understand, every update of the BitCoin blockchain has to be agreed upon, meaning that it is verified by the network. To that end, you might as well verify useful computation, with the same mechanism.

[bdcravens]

When you encounter your typical Bitcoiner, they'll do logical gymnastics and typically go the playbook, which is to deflect and talk about how much energy banks or treasuries use.

However, the true answer is always greed.

[wesammikhail]

Who gives a shit about energy usage if it is used for a cause that could potentially help humanity overcome adversity? Granted, energy usage is important but it is a question about trade-offs.

If bitcoin helped solve cancer or some genetic diseases, I doubt anyone would say: "yea but it uses too much electricity!". The world is based on trade-offs, so why not have that electricity that the bitcoin network generate be used to solve actual real world problems?

[bdcravens]

We could also make an argument that Mark Zuckerberg could solve income inequality by tracking everyone and providing true transparency to a utopian world.

I'm pretty certain that if you evaluate mining and exchange activity, very little of it is impacting areas where it can effect real change (like Hong Kong or Venezuela).

For example, here's a report from the trenches on Venezuela:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/dht1qw/venezuela_u...

For the disaster that is that economy, only 0.004% of global BTC volume is taking place there (yes, that's the correct number of zeroes) Put another way, it represents about 0.08% of Venezuela's GDP.

[arcticbull]

It's just unbelievably, mind-bogglingly inefficient, and no credible plans have been put forward to change that. Scaling up the current power consumption and waste generation to Visa-levels of transaction, a Bitcoin powered economy would consume 38X the entire worlds' generation capacity of electricity and yield 132 million metric tons of e-waste per year. All to replace what Visa does today. Just Visa. Not MC, Amex, UnionPay, Discover, etc.

[behringer]

That's because a method of solving useful work has not been discovered yet. Are you also incredulous that we don't have flying cars yet and how come Ford hasn't fixed that problem? If you're so concerned, perhaps you should start working on the problem and become the inventor of the next big p2p currency?

[arcticbull]

I'd be incredulous if someone had designed a flying car made by taping about ten thousand fans together, pointed them down precariously, and powered them with a little nuclear reactor. Also, it didn't make it more than 3 feet off the ground. Then, had many people talking about how the future of transit had arrived. It clearly hasn't and nobody can point to a single reason their contraption is actually better or does anything novel. But they're all pretttttty sure.

> If you're so concerned, perhaps you should start working on the problem and become the inventor of the next big p2p currency?

I'm not concerned because the problems identified had already been solved with money. You know, the thing already in your bank account.

[behringer]

Ah I see. Perhaps you should check out https://bitcoin.org/en/faq#what-is-bitcoin some of your points are addressed there.

[nicky0]

That's what a typical anti-Bitcoiner would say.

[bdcravens]

Except I'm not an anti-Bitcoiner. I was mining in 2011, and I'm very active in online communities (obviously under a different persona). I just am a very extreme pragmatist.

[TheNorthman]

"extreme pragmatism" is still an ideology, whether you admit it or not. The claim that anything can even be "pragmatist" is so meaningless to be almost absurd.

Who is not a pragmatist? Who could possibly insist on the impractical? This is ideological par excellence and the rejection of the impractical becomes, in a sense, ideology in itself. This ideology necessarily starts to reject criticism as "dogmatic" and this insistence and opposition to opposition becomes in itself a dogmatic principle.

[behringer]

The fact that you think greed is the reason bitcoin hasn't designed a useful work load means you don't understand the system at all. What useful workload should bitcoin calculate, and how would it work? I'll wait for your PhD thesis on the matter.

[koolba]

Can you give an example of a scientifically important problem that can be massively distributed in its calculation yet quick to verify?

The second part of that is the real hitch for mining. You must throw tons of CPU to "mine" the hash but it's a single evaluation to verify it for the proof.

[wesammikhail]

Basically any NP problem fits that category. Protein folding is one but so are many other problems. But even if the verification itself is hard (EXP problem) that could still work as at least that energy we are putting into the network will eventually produce an answer (less efficiently, granted!) but it is far better than having energy be for literally 0 gain as the produced outcome right now is tossed out as "junk".

[nicky0]

The gain is in the security of the currency. You can argue about how valuable that is, but it is not "literally zero".

[Aperocky]

Because that would just be another more regular token .. like the dollar. Everything will default to the easiest path - crypto worked mostly because people are actually using it for reasons that prevent them from using regular currency. There’s nothing nefarious about science work that need to jump the crypto hoop.

[wesammikhail]

huh? Not sure you follow.

Nothing would change in the fundamental nature of bitcoin or any other currency. The only difference is the algorithm that you run on the back-end to mine the coin would be one of scientific importance rather than one with 0 societal value. The algorithm run right now is based on an NP problem. So why not just use another NP problem worth actually solving?

[Aperocky]

I’m saying that transaction need not be denoted by crypto. There’s no point to create something that already exist (buying computing power at AWS/ voluntary compute power sharing) just so it could be a crypto