Bitcoin Forum

http://money.cnn.com/2013/05/23/technology/enterprise/bitcoin-supercomputers/

That's stunning for an "economy" that sprang into being just four years ago, when an inventor using the pseudonym "Satoshi Nakamoto"

Better term at least.

over 8 times the combined processing power of the Top 500. Amazing.

It's Andresen, not Andersen... but on the whole, nice little article, no?

It is totally nonsense, because you cannot compare a bitcoin ASIC with a supercomputer but sssshht, don't tell them, saying "omg bitcoin is moar powerful than supercomputers" is cool  :D

Fact: bitcoin computing power equals to exactly 0 FLOPS

True, it does only one thing, but it does it well  ;D

That's not true.

The hardware using for Bitcoin computing is currently not performing any floating point calculations. The amount of floating point calculations that hardware could perform is a number larger than 0 FLOPS.

Since a supercomputer isn't kicked out of the Top 500 just because it's currently being used for integer calculations instead of floating point calculations it's not accurate to ignore the underlying floating point capabilities of some Bitcoin mining hardware just because it's doing integer math.

It's not totally nonsense, as it's a perfectly valid comparison if you're talking about the risk of a 51% attack posed by an entity with access to a bunch of supercomputers (spoiler alert: none at all ;D).

What about four years from now. Will bitcoin be the first currency to artificially think?

'The Bitcoin Funding Bill is passed. The system goes on-line August 4th, 2017. Human decisions are removed from currency control. The bitcoin network begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug.'

 ;D

These comparisons between supercomputers and the bitcoin network don't make sense. It's like saying Kobe Bryant is better at sports than 99% of all professional athletes. It doesn't mean anything until you compare a specific sporting activity, because there's a big difference between his ability in basketball and say, tennis.

Bitcoin mining ASICs can perform exactly 0 FLOPS as far as i know.

This comparison is pointless, you cannot compare a dedicated ASIC to supercomputers, how in the hell is bitcoin more powerful when it can only do mining tasks? Supercomputers can do thousands of thing, they are more powerful than bitcoin ASICs. Sure, not at mining, but at everything else.

The comparison is not completely useless, because it is possible to estimate the hashrate the supercomputers could sustain and compare that to the current bitcoin network. Then it is comparing apples to apples.  The comparison done is going the other way, trying to estimate the FLOPS rat of the bitcoin network's hashrate.

I think the comparison is interesting in that it gives us a good idea of how much impact th eexisting supercomputers could affect the bitcoin network if they were reprogrammed to mine bitcoin efficiently.  The fact that even with all 500 top super computers turned on bitcoin, they could capture about 10% of the hashrate is rather interesting and somewhat comforting that we are beyond the possibility of a 51% attact by these supercomputers. If somebody was to try a 51% attack, they would have to build the system from scratch and not just repurpose an existing system.

What a waste of energy.

It's a shame this computing power hasn't but put to something useful, like Folding@home or Rosetta@home.

there's a lot of really stupid people commenting on the article. o well, i guess they will be laughing at themselves at how dumb they are pretty soon

Someone should develop a coin where the hash power goes toward something usefull (ike Folding@home or Rosetta@home) and then give credit in coins.

yes, i would also come to the conclusion that a government wastes a lot of energy, human energy and actual energy. what is your point? f- off

This is a good idea.

FWIW, my mining 'puters also run BOINC, mainly WCG, 24/7. The apps seem to coexist painlessly as long as I don't let BOINC use the graphics cards.

Every morning I get to check whether I've found a block or cured cancer during the night.     :)

It would be great if this were all within a single coin app.

The only "waste" here is your lack of understanding.

The hashing power secures the network and helps verify transactions. I'd say that isn't a "waste". Its like complaining about your car wasting energy while idling at a stoplight. Its powering the internal instruments and charging the battery, circulating coolant, etc..

I am fairly new to this, but could this somehow be converted or used to help other projects such as NASA's projects or such where computing/calculating power is needed?

bwahahahaha ;D

Leave him alone. He's only an SEC agent, after all. It's not his job to understand the need for security in financial systems... oh, wait.

1,000 petaflops isn't necessary to secure the network.

The only reason the computer power is even close to that high is because greedy miners are in a constant arm race at the hope of profiting more than the next guy. The irony is that cooperation between the miners to keep mining at a level where cpu mining is more beneficial to everyone, since the average layperson could join in on mining without any additional cost, and power is spread out over a larger group of people.  It's like the prisoners dilemma (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma) , except everyone always chooses betray.

Meanwhile, all that extra computer power could be curing cancer or Alzheimers or something that benefits mankind in a meaningful way (instead of being wasted on some silly internet currency).

Yeah sure - like every other system out there is just for rainbows and hugs. Lets be frank - every application of any kind of computing power has a motive -- and just because you can't pin Bitcoin's mining power on something safe with a pink ribbon doesn't mean it doesn't have any purpose.

Does that clear it up for you?

No. Not at all actually.

You basically just handwaved away important research that has a measured benefit to society, for an internet currency that is mainly used for black and grey market goods and services.  Still sounds pretty asinine to me.

Yes. Important research that has to be paid for with currency of some kind or another, just like everything else of benefit to society. Money makes the world go 'round. You, of all people, should understand that.

You basically just handwaved away all the benefits Bitcoin has over any traditional banking systems.

If Bitcoin will replace a decent chunk of traditional economy we will save a lot of energy and resources because the Bitcoin mining system stimulates efficiency. Bitcoin mining will mostly take place where energy is abundant (and cheaper because of it). Besides this, Bitcoin doesn't need any fancy buildings traditional banks tend to boast with for instance.

Exactly.
It is perfectly sensible to ask how many flops a supercomputer would need to simulate the calculations performed by an ASIC chip. Then to scale this as a comparison to the network (and include all the non-ASIC hardware as well).

The part that stood out in this article to me: $200,000 electricity/day & 60,000 transactions/day. $3.33 per transaction in electricity cost??? Anyone more bored than me care to fact check that? If that is anywhere close to actuality; this is not sustainable long term without a continued rise in BTC valuation. Transaction fees do not cover this cost.

I do not mine. I realize that the block reward justifies the expense, but for now long? Is CNN just way off?  My guess is that CNN is way off. Someone explain this to me.

Thanks.

The 60,000 transactions per day is correct. I don't know about the $200,000, could be (this stat is an estimate from blockchain.info/stats and says: * Electricity consumption is estimated based on power consumption of 650 Watts per gigahash and electricity price of 15 cent per kilowatt hour. In reality some miners will be more or less efficient). The beauty with the Bitcoin system is that it will always balance out, if the price drops less miners will mine because it is not worthwhile anymore. So the total amount of electricity being used will also drop then. If the Bitcoin value rises it also means demand (and consequently the amount of transactions) is rising and you would need more computing power to handle everything. This will also happen because it will be more beneficial to start and mine again.

What exactly does that have to do with anything? Are you actually implying that because cancer research cost money, it shouldnt be done? Or just that you refuse to help if you arent personally getting paid?

Either way, you sound like an awful person.

Pretty sure cancer research is more important that a p2p payment system.

What exactly does that have to do with anything? Are you actually implying that because cancer research is more important, Bitcoin shouldnt be done? Or just that you refuse to do anything else but focus on cancer research?

Either way, you sound like an awful person.

Nope. I actually stated both could/should be done a few post ago (with the unnecessary amount of extra power that is currently being used to secure the network being shifted to one or more of the BOINC projects  (http://boinc.berkeley.edu/wiki/Project_list) ).

Nice try at being a smartass, though.

It is a waste of energy, since miners spend much more energy than necessary to secure the network. Bitcoin is energy inefficient, admit it.


Oh yes, a car wastes a lot of energy too when it powers 1kW alternator with 150hp engine.

No, it is not that off. Check the blockchain.info, a block with several hundred transactions is mined about every 10 minutes. This gives you 60000/day or so.

This seems okay. The transaction fees are supplemented by the block reward, which is essentially the network subsidizing the miners, so each time a block is found everybodies bitcoins become worth a bit less. That is how inflation works, bitcoin is inflating at about 11% per year right now. The price is not going down at that rate because there are other factors, like speculation and rate of adoption which influence the price as well.

This is a fun game!

Why hasn't anyone pointed out yet that the US currency system is far less efficient to maintain? How many employees work for the Federal Reserve and all it's banks? It's in the tens of thousands at least (although hard data is tough to come by on the interwebs). They work in huge buildings that require electricity and maintenance. I'd bet that the electiricity cost for the combined data backbone of the federal reserve system is far higher than bitcoin. What about the paper printing presses and "distribution" system? How about cars for the Bernanke to travel back and forth to Congress to argue with uppity congressmen? And, don't even try to compare Bitcoin to this giant waste:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Federal_Reserve_Bank_of_Philadelphia.jpg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Federal_Reserve_Bank_of_Philadelphia.jpg)

This giant waste takes care of trillions of USD and millions of transactions per day. Bitcoin is not even close to this scale yet.

I know and understand very little about the mining of bitcoins other than miners facilitate my transactions and earn fees + block rewards for doing so. Is it essentially very inefficient to mine sans the reward? If the reward devalues at any point, mining, and subsequently transaction processing will slow, potentially grinding to a halt?

This is troublesome. However, it also presents an opportunity for less resource intensive and possibly lower value altcoins. Me thinks diversifying into litecoin might be a good idea.

The theoretical infinite divisibility of BTC potentially sets it up for future failure by reaching the maximum network carrying capacity too soon. Less miners and less people running -qt seems like a bad thing to me. It makes sense why Gavin has said small transactions will be 86'd in the future.

Thank you for the clarification. Every solution brings more problems.

I ignored the troll - probably should've last night but I had to get a word in edgewise.

Relatively new account, scant number of posts - should've given it away.

to top it all off, you can't put a price on all the corruption.

I'm saying it won't be done if it can't be paid for. What, do you actually think all those labs and microscopes and doctors just fall for free from the sky or something? ::)

Actually for cancer research to exist a decent economic system is required.

I don't think you understand how this works. Folding@home already has funding. You contribute by having your computer runs simulates folding various proteins and drug simulations for the project, which in turn is used by scientists around the world for various types of disease research. In fact, the project has been extremely successful.

I still have no clue why you think any of this is relevant to the discussion, but whatever.

You know why it's successful? Because people can buy these computers, and electricity to run them, and pay scientists' salaries. You know how they do that? With money.

You have no clue why the importance of a secure and functional financial system in a modern society is relevant to a discussion on the merits of devoting resources to said financial system instead of other projects those resources could potentially be used for? Wow. And you're allegedly an SEC agent? You really ought to turn in your badge. Tell them it's because you suck at getting clues.

+1  :) :)

Behold the power of peers!

I'm going to tell you something that you apparently have never heard before in your life. You might want to have a seat because this is going to blow your mind.

Ready? Ok, so you know all that energy and processing power that you're talking about? That's not being used in the way you think it should be used?

It's not yours. You can't rightfully tell everybody else how they should use it.

Amazing, isn't it? Despite everything you may have been told or thought up until now, you aren't the center of the universe and you don't know what's best for everyone. If other people have a different opinion than you about whether they should devote their resources to Bitcoin mining or to cancer research, you have no objective basis for calling them wrong or classifying their preferences as "waste" just because they disagree with you.

I know, it's pretty painful to accept that other people exist in the world and deserve to have opinions of their own, but at some point you've just got to accept it if you want to successfully operate in reality.

Get mad all you like, I'm simply pointing out what a colossal amount of energy is wasted on some bullshit Internet funny money (whose primary use is drugs, money laundering, and child porn) as opposed to being used for doing something that actually benefits society in a meaningful and measurable way.  

For all of you bitcoiners big talk about taking down bankers and replacing government fiat, all you've managed to do is make it easier for pedophiles, violent criminals, terrorists, and drug traffickers to get paid, hide, and move money.

You should be super proud of yourselves.

I still think that the comparison is pointless. Supercomputers are made for their tasks. They have huge hard disks, tons of memory, they have tons of nodes all connected to each other, they have good FLOPS performance, both single and double precision.

But all these things are useless for bitcoin. We only need tons of integer power. But the fact that we have more integer power does not mean we are more powerful than supercomputers!

We sure are. We invented a new technology, and it works. As a government agent, I believe it's your job to keep the general public safe if our inventions should happen to fall into the wrong hands. But it doesn't seem like you're actually doing your job. All you're doing is standing around complaining about the problem that you're in charge of fixing. Does your boss know about this?

the electricity argument is invalid. as asic chips will be taking over soon. gpu miners will have to quit, some will migrate. asic chips are far more effective. 1 ghash for a measly 10 watts. its like comparing incandescent bulbs to LED's. get your facts straight

I cannot understand why some people (even on this bitcoin forum) so ignorant to call mining a useless thing.

We have a payment system, which doesn't require a central authority....try to comprehend this statement you ignorant lot. :D

As for the concerns of illegal activity, I've been involved in bitcoin for a few years now and I didn't order drugs, cp,  etc. Also, it's quite basic, but you can buy any illegal stuff with fiat. so, it's a moot point.

I cannot even understand why some people care to join and spread these false claims here

The things you fret about are the essence of trolling. Nobody knows for sure why trolls do what they do, although it's often discussed. The usual explanation is that they seek attention, although sometimes it is obvious that they have an agenda to disrupt or to help one entity gain a competitive advantage over another.

Most people agree that the best defense is to ignore their posts. Engaging with them tends to encourage them to continue. The "ignore" button here is very helpful. However when people you don't (yet) ignore quote an ignored person's post then you still have to read the quotation. For blatant trolls who engage in tag-team-trolling or troll-vs.-troll flame wars, you'll eventually ignore all the participants and be left with a relatively normal discussion thread. It's all just part of life on the interwebz.

http://www.lowgenius.net/post/The-Way-Of-The-Kook.aspx