[qwertywerty]

>Beyond that there's cryptocurrency, where finding a less-efficient algorithm is a design goal to maximise the energy wasted, in order to impose a global rate limit on "minting" virtual tokens.

I don't disagree with the gist of this, but from a your technical description verges on nonsense. I'm questioning if you're serious.

>...finding a less-efficient algorithm is a design goal...

At no point is anyone searching for an algorithm. Most mining algorithms were chosen at random or for novelty; Bitcoin uses double SHA-256, Litecoin uses scrypt, Primecoin searches for primes.

>...maximise the energy wasted...

Energy is wasted during mining in order to maximize security. The waste is a side effect.

>...in order to impose a global rate limit...

This is plain false.

>..."minting"...

It's called "mining". I wouldn't complain if this wasn't in quotes.

The whitepaper is only nine pages, but nobody seems to read it. https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

[g82918]

I actually prefer "minting" as it is a more accurate name for the activity. Usually governments mint coins. No one mines a coin whole from the ground. The quotes show they know it is an odd usage. I mine cryptocurrency. I "mint" new-type coins.

[qwertywerty]

>The quotes show they know it is an odd usage.

Using scare quotes to mean that nobody else says something strikes me as odd, but you're probably correct.

[g82918]

Imagining you were doing so, what would you do to denote an intentional odd usage? (sic) is used if the originator is incorrect.

[trakout]

The word "mint" really takes the meaning out of the word "mine". True though, minting is part of the economics included in mining.

Usually governments mint coins, but no government (or centralized entity) currently operates a legitimate network that matches up with the same properties as bitcoin.

I might have used an asterisk, maybe? :)

[o-__-o]

Governments need to mine or turn to mining companies to get the raw material that makes their coins. This is what you are doing with cryptocurrency. You look for the bits that make a coin valid and then the network mints the coin.

[plerpin]

That's not true. The coins that advertise ASIC resistance have chosen algorithms which are deliberately stubborn to optimize with HW. In other words, inefficiency (=> high resource consumption) is an explicit goal.

[qwertywerty]

I did forget about ASIC resistant coins. I think my general point still stands.

You're making a logical leap between intentional GPU/CPU coins and inefficiency as an explicit design goal. GPU/CPU coin developers are most likely true believers in a distributed security model. They could also own GPU farms or botnets. I highly doubt developers design cryptocurrencies while dreaming of squandering global resources.

[bordercases]

If it's a real consequence of their actions that they're aware of, they're complicit in the continuance of that effect.

[pjc50]

I have read the paper; unsurprisingly, it doesn't address any of the subsequent developments in the field.

>> finding a less-efficient algorithm is a design goal

The Bitcoin paper doesn't actually specify a specific algorithm at all, it just says "such as":

> To implement a distributed timestamp server on a peer-to-peer basis, we will need to use a proof of-work system similar to Adam Back's Hashcash [6], rather than newspaper or Usenet posts. The proof-of-work involves scanning for a value that when hashed, such as with SHA-256, the hash begins with a number of zero bits.

The Hashcash paper uses the term "minting".

>>...in order to impose a global rate limit..

> To compensate for increasing hardware speed and varying interest in running nodes over time, the proof-of-work difficulty is determined by a moving average targeting an average number of blocks per hour. If they're generated too fast, the difficulty increases.

ie to limit the global rate of block generation. Which is what makes it useful as a global distributed timestamp server.

>> maximise the energy wasted

> The steady addition of a constant of amount of new coins is analogous to gold miners expending resources to add gold to circulation. In our case, it is CPU time and electricity that is expended.

As everyone noticed fairly early on, like gold mining, this creates a means of expending energy to produce something which can be sold. Just as it's economically advantageous to burn down rainforest, it's economically advantageous to perform a trillion SHA operations and throw away the results of almost all of them.