All this mining is ultimately meaningless

[globalkeith]

Ok, so forgive my ignorance here, but am I right in thinking that as a result of Bitcoin and the literally hundreds of alternate currencies springing up daily, we, the human race are using BILLIONS UPON BILLIONS of processing cycles to calculate worthless sums? I say worthless because the hashing is mostly wasted effort, am I right in understanding that?

Surely the logical next step here is to make this ENORMOUS BOTNET calculate something useful? I'm thinking of solving science questions, SETI, fighting cancer, or any other distributed software projects, that kind of thing?

Do any of the alt currencies attempt to tackle this, or are we still a way off actually utilising these CPU/GPU cycles for the good of our species and/the planet.

[DeathAndTaxes]

They aren't useless the secure the network.

If you decide to open a bank so you pay a contractor a lot of money to build a secure vault, and then you install lots of cameras, pay for an alarm system, and hire security guards .... and then the bank never gets robbed (maybe because the security is too tight) was it a waste of resources? 

[laowai80]

Humanity is greedy and hopeless, don't bother saving it.

[A L I E N]

Do any of the alt currencies attempt to tackle this, or are we still a way off actually utilising these CPU/GPU cycles for the good of our species and/the planet.

Gridcoin does this.  They have done a ton of updates since it launched recently to make the system with BOINC solid and secure.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=324118.msg3472286#msg3472286

[globalkeith]

They aren't useless the secure the network.

If you decide to open a bank so you pay a contractor a lot of money to build a secure vault, and then you install lots of cameras, pay for an alarm system, and hire security guards .... and then the bank never gets robbed (maybe because the security is too tight) was it a waste of resources? 

So are you saying that the process of mining is purely validating transactions? I apologise for my question if that is the case, I had the impression most mining calculations were akin to brute force calculations looking for special numbers that match the formula - similar to hunting for prime numbers. Have I got this all wrong then?

[tinytiger]

Ok, so forgive my ignorance here, but am I right in thinking that as a result of Bitcoin and the literally hundreds of alternate currencies springing up daily, we, the human race are using BILLIONS UPON BILLIONS of processing cycles to calculate worthless sums? I say worthless because the hashing is mostly wasted effort, am I right in understanding that?

The processing power is not wasted because the process that is called "mining" is the way by which creates the credibility of the whole Bitcoin payment system. Without that processing taking place, there would be no Bitcoin system. What is called mining is actually the process of creating a confirmed chain of blocks of transaction. By "confirmed" I mean that most part of the Bitcoin network agree to the validity of the blocks. The Bitcoins that are given to the miners are rather an incentive for the miners to keep going with this process.

[Rannasha]

They aren't useless the secure the network.

If you decide to open a bank so you pay a contractor a lot of money to build a secure vault, and then you install lots of cameras, pay for an alarm system, and hire security guards .... and then the bank never gets robbed (maybe because the security is too tight) was it a waste of resources? 

So are you saying that the process of mining is purely validating transactions? I apologise for my question if that is the case, I had the impression most mining calculations were akin to brute force calculations looking for special numbers that match the formula - similar to hunting for prime numbers. Have I got this all wrong then?

Mining isn't to validate transactions, every node tries to validate a transaction when it receives it. Mining is to wrap a set of transactions in a tamper-proof layer, called a block. The point of the calculations is that if someone wants to alter the transaction-history, he has to redo the calculations in order for it to be accepted by the network. And he has to redo these calculations while trying to beat the network of honest users that is trying to extend the block chain with honest blocks.

The precise algorithm used for these calculations is not important as long as it satisfies the following conditions:
- The puzzle/solution has to depend on the transactions in the block. Change the transactions and the puzzle should change.
- The puzzle/solution can be tweaked automatically to be more difficult if the network increases in computational power. And vice versa.
- It is hard to find a solution, but very easy and fast to verify that a given solution is correct. Other nodes in the network should be able to check the validity of a block efficiently.

[Pente]

They aren't useless the secure the network.

If you decide to open a bank so you pay a contractor a lot of money to build a secure vault, and then you install lots of cameras, pay for an alarm system, and hire security guards .... and then the bank never gets robbed (maybe because the security is too tight) was it a waste of resources? 

So are you saying that the process of mining is purely validating transactions? I apologise for my question if that is the case, I had the impression most mining calculations were akin to brute force calculations looking for special numbers that match the formula - similar to hunting for prime numbers. Have I got this all wrong then?

Yes, the mining secures the blockchain. The 25 bitcoins that the miner receives is totally worth the security provided. You aren't the first person to misunderstand this process. It is partly a language thing, but using terms like "Securing" & "Securers" just doesn't flow easily off the tongue.

The Bitcoin protocol fits all together as a very elegant operation. When the media complains about one aspect or another about how Bitcoin works, it is a bit like complaining about how math, logic, or computers work.

[romerun]

That's how ppcoin comes in

[PenAndPaper]

There are coins that are trying to do that. Primecoin for example is looking for prime numbers.
In any case mining is essential for bitcoin to work so you can't really call it a waste.

[Kazimir]

Ok, so forgive my ignorance here, but am I right in thinking that as a result of Bitcoin and the literally hundreds of alternate currencies springing up daily, we, the human race are using BILLIONS UPON BILLIONS of processing cycles to calculate worthless sums? I say worthless because the hashing is mostly wasted effort, am I right in understanding that?

Drilling holes deep in the ground to dig up gold, would you consider that a useless waste of resources as well?

[Notanon]

My prediction for the next year or so will be this: Coins that have some more tangible and more noble benefits such as assisting with protein folding or donating part of proceeds to carbon emission offsets or similar benefits will become more dominant and more pointless clones with no innovative features will die off, particularly as more people become wise to them and avoid them like the plague, no matter the marketing and hype that the developers will use to try and rope people in.

[deed02392]

The closest I've seen to benefiting mankind is the Ripple coin project:

https://www.computingforgood.org

[techstorm2]

They aren't useless the secure the network.

If you decide to open a bank so you pay a contractor a lot of money to build a secure vault, and then you install lots of cameras, pay for an alarm system, and hire security guards .... and then the bank never gets robbed (maybe because the security is too tight) was it a waste of resources? 

+1

Also there is tonnes of processing power thrown at the other science problems as well, cant we do both?

[zimmah]

Eventually they will realize only bitcoin is viable.

Because bitcoin is the only currency accepted by merchants, and merchant will have no reason to accept millions of altcoins, so they'll just stick w it's bitcoins.

All other currencies will die out due to lack of support and usability.

[AnonyMint]

They aren't useless the secure the network.

If you decide to open a bank so you pay a contractor a lot of money to build a secure vault, and then you install lots of cameras, pay for an alarm system, and hire security guards .... and then the bank never gets robbed (maybe because the security is too tight) was it a waste of resources?  

Drilling holes deep in the ground to dig up gold, would you consider that a useless waste of resources as well?

Excellent retorts. Securing the block chain is surely more efficient. Also it offers the hope to provide more decentralization and thus freedom. Degrees-of-freedom is equivalent to potential energy (if don't believe me I can cite Wikipedia).

Thus we trade some forms of energy for other more useful and productive potential energy.

Thus mining is more efficient than the old system.

There are coins that are trying to do that. Primecoin for example is looking for prime numbers.
In any case mining is essential for bitcoin to work so you can't really call it a waste.

It can't be secure because all such work is preimageable because it has to be known to someone a priori. The Bitcoin proof-of-work can't be known a priori.

Eventually they will realize only bitcoin is viable.

Because bitcoin is the only currency accepted by merchants, and merchant will have no reason to accept millions of altcoins, so they'll just stick w it's bitcoins.

All other currencies will die out due to lack of support and usability.

We refuted that in the Problem With Altcoins discussion thread.

[jongameson]

Ok, so forgive my ignorance here, but am I right in thinking that as a result of Bitcoin and the literally hundreds of alternate currencies springing up daily, we, the human race are using BILLIONS UPON BILLIONS of processing cycles to calculate worthless sums? I say worthless because the hashing is mostly wasted effort, am I right in understanding that?

Surely the logical next step here is to make this ENORMOUS BOTNET calculate something useful? I'm thinking of solving science questions, SETI, fighting cancer, or any other distributed software projects, that kind of thing?

Do any of the alt currencies attempt to tackle this, or are we still a way off actually utilising these CPU/GPU cycles for the good of our species and/the planet.

these are NOT worthless cycles.  See weed and drugs are not legal everywhere, therefore there will ALWAYS be a need for alternative currencies so people can trade online.

Just think you're helping people get their drugs of choice (sips coffee slowly) 

[globalkeith]

Thanks everyone for providing me clarification. I'm glad to hear about Gridcoin, although I'm not a huge fan of the name (too abstract) tho. Anyway, I feel Notanon has really coined my point here :

My prediction for the next year or so will be this: Coins that have some more tangible and more noble benefits such as assisting with protein folding or donating part of proceeds to carbon emission offsets or similar benefits will become more dominant and more pointless clones with no innovative features will die off, particularly as more people become wise to them and avoid them like the plague, no matter the marketing and hype that the developers will use to try and rope people in.

I see the value and success of alt coins will ultimately come down uniqueness but also genuine innovation. Any coin thats basically a duplicate of an existing coin (and there seems to be a lot of them) with different graphics is a huge waste of everyone's time. Maybe someone who's good at making graphics could do a nice 'genealogy' chart showing the ancestry lineage of coins to get the full picture. Probably make quite a useful site actually

[empoweoqwj]

Ok, so forgive my ignorance here, but am I right in thinking that as a result of Bitcoin and the literally hundreds of alternate currencies springing up daily, we, the human race are using BILLIONS UPON BILLIONS of processing cycles to calculate worthless sums? I say worthless because the hashing is mostly wasted effort, am I right in understanding that?

Surely the logical next step here is to make this ENORMOUS BOTNET calculate something useful? I'm thinking of solving science questions, SETI, fighting cancer, or any other distributed software projects, that kind of thing?

Do any of the alt currencies attempt to tackle this, or are we still a way off actually utilising these CPU/GPU cycles for the good of our species and/the planet.

Perhaps we should ban all those people wasting billions of processing cycles playing XBOX and PS4 games as well? They don't fight cancer either.

[noganoo]

A similar thread I started 2 and a half years ago..  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=6624.0

By the way.. there are dozens of cancer cures readily available to those willing to do some research.  We don't need BOINC for that.