Why aren't all coins, sha and scrypt based done like this.....

[mikekolba]

https://www.computingforgood.org/register
http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/research/viewAllProjects.do

Seriously.  Generate coins by actually using your compute/gpu/asic to work on these math based tasks to

Improve our world.  Cure cancer, aids, improve the environment, improve energy usage, etc...

You can still have exchanges, trade coins, etc but have the coins generation directly tied to specific projects like these so there's additional tangible, real-world benefits.  Certainly would help improve the value of the coins and keep them stabilized?

Makes a lot more sense than what we're all currently doing now with all this current coin generation and speculation..

If we're going to have a nuclear arms race with asic's, might as well cure cancer, aids and improve the world in the process

My 2 cents.

Mike

[instructor2121]

I believe we will have this eventually...its just a frenzy now with most altcoins. Most do not serve a purpose other than mining and pumping, which can  turn into a nice profit with the right marketing of a coin.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Learn what mining actually does, why it is needed, and how the current solution works without centralized control.

Once you do that it is obvious why your idea makes no more sense than designing a toaster which also cures cancer and paints your house.

[KWH]

Learn what mining actually does, why it is needed, and how the current solution works without centralized control.

Once you do that it is obvious why your idea makes no more sense than designing a toaster which also cures cancer and paints your house.

I want that toaster! 

[mikekolba]

and exactly why they should be tied to a specific purpose  tie one to clean energy, tie one to cancer research, tie one to seti and astronomy analysis, etc...  Makes a lot of sense to do in so so many ways.

Actually I could eventually see this as a mechanism for allocation of tax dollars.   Bypass the government morons and their pork projects and have us, the people just allocate our "dollars" directly to the projects we want.  Have government budget and spending directly dictated by the people.

[corebob]

It has been tried over and over. It doesn't work with centralized solutions like ripple.

It all starts with decentralization, then we can have crowd-sourcing projects on top of that.

[franky1]

because its like the coinlab version. mining for goats. where 20% goes to charity and 80% goes to the owner of the service.

you do realise that ripples are not a blockchain, but a binary database right?

you think your doing good by creating ripples.. well theres no difference between ripples and dollars, and look at how dollars are with all their daily creation.

i would rather mine bitcoins and donate those bitcoins to my local foodbank or seans outpost.

[mikekolba]

The thought was to keep the current decentralized mechanism for generating coins, but just tie the mining output also to something that has additional tangible value (like curing cancer or creating clean energy, etc).  Doesn't change how a person would use their generated coin or their ability to use exchanges or trade them but gives the mining process some additional inherent value.

[un_ordinateur]

Because the "math problem" the miner must solve to be rewarded a coin must have specific properties these distributed initiatives don't.

1. The answer must be difficult to find, but once the answer is found, it must be -real- easy to check it is right.
The first part is obviously true, but the second is not always true for the distributed science initiative.

2. For a given problem, there must be only one right answer, and everybody must be able to check by themselves (no external input) it the answer is good. Those science initiative are relying on a central authority to validate "good answers".

3. The problems must be bound to the data inside the block. If not, the work done does not help securing the blockchain. Distributed science uses data supplied by the lab to work with.

4. The problem must not require data from outside the blockchain to work. Becausw then you'd rely on a central authority. (One may of course include external data in a block, but it does not affect a blocks validity)

5. The odds of finding the right answer must be the same for each trial. The distributed science problems may have a wildly varying difficulty per problem, some beaing more easily solved by some kind of processor that the other, etc...

It had been tought of, of course. But it is mostly impossible while keeping the decentralysed nature of bitcoin. Of course these science project may start their own virtual currency which is rewarded in function of work done, but people would have to trust the organisers of the system to be fair.

The only altcoin that currently exists that I know of that does some kind of useful work is Primecoin, which finds primes.

[DeathAndTaxes]

The thought was to keep the current decentralized mechanism for generating coins, but just tie the mining output also to something that has additional tangible value (like curing cancer or creating clean energy, etc).  Doesn't change how a person would use their generated coin or their ability to use exchanges or trade them but gives the mining process some additional inherent value.

Yeah that is like saying "Keep toasters exactly like they work now except they also solve cancer".

[technocoma]

Learn what mining actually does, why it is needed, and how the current solution works without centralized control.

Once you do that it is obvious why your idea makes no more sense than designing a toaster which also cures cancer and paints your house.

Unfortunately this is 100% correct, if it were that simple someone would of already done it & with the role that mining takes I don't see how it could ever be implemented but maybe someone smarter than me may one day have an idea on a different way to use POW.

[mikekolba]

Take a look at gridcoin as another example of this.....

[Notanon]

Curecoin is another one in the works.

[thejepper]

those can be cheated

[Nullu]

Until there is a method to combine these computational tasks with encryption hashing, it aint going to happen.

[Ardolafat]

Gridcoin is using Boinc
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=324118.0

[BenHur]

Gridcoin

[r0ach]

To solve the cheating problem, you can have many clients work on the same computation, and only ones with consensus are rewarded.  

This introduces latency issues, and doesn't really address the centralization problem though.

To solve centralization, the data that workers process has to be uploaded as kind of a one time thing...like Riecoin or whatever.