Yup, there's no question that one can find innovative edge-cases such as this.
But they are just that, edge cases. And they will stay that way.
If a case like this were to become the main use of cryptocurrency, it would be a travesty, as it would be better to not burn the excess energy for hash-searching but to innovate better distributed storage-retrieval at that scale.
If that's what you got out of that post, I must have been unclear
Of course it's good to bring electricity to those who lack it and want it.
But if that program ever gets so big that using any excess to mine crypto is a major use-case for crypto, then such programs have achieved a scale that rather than mining crypto with the excess everyone would be much better off, and sufficient scale would have been achieved that it would be more feasible & beneficial to develop better methods of excess-energy-storage
I.e., better at scale to [increase total energy availability] than to [mine crypto].
> It's almost as if you see bitcoin mining as a waste of energy
Bitcoin mining is a waste of energy, by design. It is proof-of-work; it is built from the ground up to repeatedly spend electricity on redundant calculations.
Proof of work - yes - this is fundamental to any fair money, including gold, Rai stones, even beads and shells etc. Would you consider gold mining a waste of energy?
If you don't need to perform work of equivalent value to the money you are creating, what do you think will happen?
> Would you consider gold mining a waste of energy?
If the amount of work put into getting it is not reciprocal to the value of the outcome, then yes I would consider it a waste. So would most commercial gold miners, I reckon.
> If you don't need to perform work of equivalent value to the money you are creating, what do you think will happen?
The work miners do doesn't give Bitcoin it's value, the supply and demand economy does. Miners are supposed to validate blocks and push the ledger forward, without an active trading economy their work is inherently wasted. That's like... Bitcoin 101 right there. God help you if you own any.
It's completely different to cRypTo though. Crypto is essentially 10,000 scams (or naive projects at best) while bitcoin is one of the most important inventions in the history of mankind.
Really? Explain how. And please, use the actual definition of cryptocurrency instead of your subjective shill one.
> That deserves some distinction.
It wouldn't deserve to be un-classified as a cryptocurrency if it was the E-gold whitepaper republished by Hal Finney himself. Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, besides being popular there is almost nothing unique about the blockchain itself.
This feels a bit like those KJV Christians; only one highly-specific variant of the thing is the One True Thing, while all of the nearly identical things are HERESY.
Bitcoin's essentially a self-organising scam, just like the rest of them.
Yes it is a bit like that except that bitcoin's importance is based on time-proven monetary theory and game theory, rather than make believe. It certainly is self-organising, but it's not a scam. Unfortunately you likely won't figure out why until after another couple of halving epochs.
How many lifetimes do you have to spend on HODLing? Because if me and the other commentor are willing to compare Bitcoin to religion, imagine how hostile the regular public will be towards it. You know, the people who were warned for years to not use unmediated currency because it wildly increases the risk of scamming?
Your initial claim that Bitcoin is not cryptocurrency is obvious bullshit that would rightfully have you laughed out of any properly scientific establishment. You have not produced any evidence to disprove that and are instead quibbling with the other commenter about the nature of their insult. Dust yourself off, find a new hobby like model trains or science fiction. Being the Ayn Rand of computer economics will routinely end with your funeral being empty and everyone remembering you as a greedy crook. Case-in-point: Elon Musk.
Until you learn what money really is, you'll have no hope of understanding bitcoin. Bitcoin doesn't need you, you need bitcoin, but your attitude gives me zero motivation to help you understand further - I've got way better things to do with my time, like stacking more bitcoin.
You'll see straight through the scam of unregulated currency.
> Bitcoin doesn't need you, you need bitcoin,
You don't need Bitcoin, but Bitcoin holders need your fiat.
> but your attitude gives me zero motivation to help you understand further -
Explaining myself fully or discussing this in detail would prove that I am lying,
> I've got way better things to do with my time, like stacking more bitcoin.
So now I will pretend like my quality-of-life wasn't so bad that I felt obligated to defend Bitcoin online for free in the first place.
I really hope you do have better things to do with your time. It would bum me out if the Jordan Belfort of Bitcoin spent his free time trying to convince the tech industry he's a principled investor. Alas...
