Is there a larger known networked computing project?

[mcdett]

According to [1] we're on top of the world with combined cpu.

Can anyone site another network of combined cpu for a cause over 208,000 TeraFLOPS?

Keep on crunching!



[1] - short unofficial list of sources
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_computing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_distributed_computing_projects

[1714843743]

1714843743

[DeathAndTaxes]

No nothing even comes close (like within 20% of Bitcoin).   That also applies to centralized projects too (grid computing, super computers, cloud networks, etc).  Absolutely nothing is even in the same magnitude.  

There is some controversy though.  The Bitcoin network uses integer operations.  So technically the Teraflops (floating point ops) of the network is always 0.0 and always will be 0.0.  Given almost every measurement of computing power measuring floating point the Bitoin floating point estimate exists simply to allow some kind of comparison to other projects.  That being said there is no way to calculate the TFLOPS the Bitcoin network WOULD be capable of (if it ran floating point computations).  The estimate should be seen as a "best guess" only.  That being said Bitcoin is sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo far ahead of anything else the crude estimate is likely "good enough".

[Elwar]

There is a project out there called Internet that uses a lot of CPU.

[oldschool]

There is a project out there called Internet that uses a lot of CPU.

I'd bet if you took the combined computing power of the entire internet it still wouldn't be anywhere close.... It doesn't take a lot of computing power to serve or view webpages.

[jojo69]

no, bitcoin is far and away the most powerful computing effort humanity has ever produced, it dwarfs folding at home and government supercomputers...kind of makes you think...

[oldschool]

no, bitcoin is far and away the most powerful computing effort humanity has ever produced, it dwarfs folding at home and government supercomputers...kind of makes you think...

The only reason for this is money though.  If any of the other programs offered money as a reward for computing at the rate bitcoin does, they'd be taking a large chunk out.  Makes you think of how greedy people are haha

[grondilu]

The only reason for this is money though.  If any of the other programs offered money as a reward for computing at the rate bitcoin does, they'd be taking a large chunk out.  Makes you think of how greedy people are haha

And it's also a pity.

Might be an opportunity for me to advert for my proposal about folding molecules instead of computing sha-256:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=108888.0

[BinaryMage]

There is a project out there called Internet that uses a lot of CPU.

I'd bet if you took the combined computing power of the entire internet it still wouldn't be anywhere close.... It doesn't take a lot of computing power to serve or view webpages.

It depends if you're talking about the computing power dedicated or the power actively used at any given time. The former is still much higher, but the latter, perhaps not.

[jojo69]

The only reason for this is money though.  If any of the other programs offered money as a reward for computing at the rate bitcoin does, they'd be taking a large chunk out.  Makes you think of how greedy people are haha

And it's also a pity.

Might be an opportunity for me to advert for my proposal about folding molecules instead of computing sha-256:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=108888.0

Uhhhh, the sha-256 computation secures the blockchain, kind of important

[grondilu]

Uhhhh, the sha-256 computation secures the blockchain, kind of important

My proposal consists in doing both:  securing the block chain while folding molecules.

[cypherdoc]

can a teraflop supercomputer be configured to crunch integer operations?

[mcdett]

Uhhhh, the sha-256 computation secures the blockchain, kind of important

My proposal consists in doing both:  securing the block chain while folding molecules.

your proposal involves forking the blockchain for your cause.  There may be other causes more valuable to society over time (which will constantly change).  One thing we all agree has value is a device that can store our productive output in a unit to be transferred to others for their productive output.

[grondilu]

your proposal involves forking the blockchain for your cause.  There may be other causes more valuable to society over time (which will constantly change).  One thing we all agree has value is a device that can store our productive output in a unit to be transferred to others for their productive output.

No fork.  A brand new chain used as a secondary, alternate cryptocurrency.

[flatfly]

your proposal involves forking the blockchain for your cause.  There may be other causes more valuable to society over time (which will constantly change).  One thing we all agree has value is a device that can store our productive output in a unit to be transferred to others for their productive output.

No fork.  A brand new chain used as a secondary, alternate cryptocurrency.

That's a pretty awesome idea actually!

[grondilu]

That's a pretty awesome idea actually!

Thanks.  However, it's technically difficult and I'm not even sure it is possible.  I think it is, but until someone actually implements it, nobody really knows.

[damnek]

can a teraflop supercomputer be configured to crunch integer operations?

Sure, you can think of an integer as being a float with only zeroes behind the decimal point.

[muyuu]

Those numbers in the Wikipedia article are from February 2012, computing power has more than doubled since. By any reasonable measure Bitcoin is the largest distributed computing effort by far.

[greyhawk]

Those numbers in the Wikipedia article are from February 2012, computing power has more than doubled since. By any reasonable measure Bitcoin is the largest distributed computing effort by far.

And the best thing is, it doesn't matter how much computing power you throw at bitcoin, the result (time between coins/transactions) is going to stay the same. For other projects, throwing more computer power at a problem results in faster solving of the problem. In bitcoin, thanks to adaptive difficulty, computing power is completely irrelevant, other than to decide who gets a block.

The biggest computing effort in human history: fueled entirely by greed.

[Gabi]

+1 to what Holliday said

And no, no other project has more computing power than bitcoin. Of course they try to hide our power by removing us from FLOPs statistics because "bitcoin does 0 FLOPs" 

[greyhawk]

Thankfully someone created money which has rules that can't be changed by those looking to line their own pockets.

Unless of course the 22 confirmed ASIC minirigs go online and immediately fork the chain.

Current total bitcoin computing speed: ~ 21.000 GHash/s
22 ASIC minirigs: ~ 22.000 GHash/s