2013-02-04 Bitcoin Grows Up

[Piper67]

https://freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/randomwalker/bitcoin-grows-up-gets-its-own-hardware/

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[TraderTimm]

My comment on a point that keeps coming up in bitcoin articles - how hashing isn't "useful".

I find it odd that the “Why doesn’t hashing do something useful” gets so much traction.

It is useful, it secures the block-chain and enforces the rules that make bitcoin what it is. You don’t have people complaining that a word processor program isn’t using its spare cycles to render “useful” 3D objects, or that a car isn’t using its spare horsepower to fix potholes.

Useful work is happening, even if it is perceived as repeated calculations doing “nothing”.

[kiba]

My comment on a point that keeps coming up in bitcoin articles - how hashing isn't "useful".

Security works like that. What's the use of having a large army, locks, bank guards, and so forth if people are angels? People aren't, so we are force to make security a part of our budgetary concern.

All the technology that makes bitcoin would be moot if nobody read secrets or steal coins. We could just use a global central database server and keep it at some United Nations building.