Bitcoin Forum

I'm tired of reading news articles criticizing the massive computing power used in BTC mining as a waste. Can these large media corporations not afford a bit a fact checking. They only need to dedicate an hour or two to research the way bitcoin works before writing about it, but evidently that is too much for the modern news writing/click-baiting generation. On a positive note, it is really encouraging to see that the bitcoin infrastructure has grown to the point where the danger of a single entity taking control of it has almost completely faded.

Well, it is "wasted power" for sure. My 6000 kH is benefiting me only while consuming energy that doesn't benefit anyone else. Would be cool if there was some benefit for sure.

it keeps my room warm so it's not entirely wasted :)

The benefit is the entire bitcoin infrastructure. Mining is not solving useless calculations, it is processing the transactions needed for the currency to work. Instead of paying money to large banks for all the infrastructure they require, we are using some computing resources.

Security is not a benefit???

Security does not come for free, never.

Well, I'm not a doomsday prepper so I'm not really fearing an end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it scenario where some dude on the street takes my btc for milk and eggs.

Oh boy...i bet I just opened up a whole new can of worms.

LOL

Like ATMs, banks and other related things do not use electricity...

This is a solid point. I agree that it'd be nice to have a side benefit (like protein folding or something) but what we're doing is acting like the bank. It means less fees since we handle all the work (er, our clients do), so don't think of it as "wasted energy," but rather "working for you."

I would totally mine an alt-coin like F@C (Folding at Home Coin) or S@C (SETI at Home Coin). I see the inherent value in security and "acting like the banking system" but can also see how a currency could benefit us beyond the decentralization.

Interesting.

I read before that none of these would work (folding while also mining). I love the concept though and I have faith that someone, somewhere, can find a way to make it work. If people can send a rocket up to Mars and control the robot while still on earth, I'm sure something like this should be simple.