I guess you missed the latest news about GPU manufacturers that are designing specialized Graphic cards that are targeted at Bitcoin/Crypto currency mining.
Most people only have a problem with this, because China was smart enough to dominate the ASIC manufacturing scene <racist much?>
If the people in Silicon Valley wanted to be smart, they could have jumped onto the Bitcoin bandwagon a long time ago, but they were more worried about the political implications, than the technological advancement and innovation that Bitcoin brought to the world.
That doesnt solve the energy inefficiency problem of Proof of Work. The GPU manufacturers are adding more problems to inefficient energy usage and waste instead of searching for answers.
Having that said, this blog by nixops, who's an early BTC adopter, is a good piece. He has also talked about the insecurities of PoW.
Energy Efficiency and SecurityBitcoin
- It introduces a heavy reliance on the power system, and for operating any Proof-of-Work coins you will need very large amounts of power. Heavy power usage is usually a red flag to anyone closely monitoring its people. Even in the United States, this happens often with law enforcement, usually in the silly war on indoor marijuana grow homes.
Dangers of Proof of Work
- The use of an ASIC or a GPU is a high risk in some of the most underserved areas of the world. You may laugh but you should really consider nations without good power infrastructure or a dictatorship.
- Electricity isn’t free and is often the first thing that is usually monitored in its’ usage by any good intelligence agency for reconnaissance. This is often how a regime may find counter groups or in some cases mining farms and individual miners in which to raid.
- In these environments the ones in power are also very much so looking to stop those attempting to challenge that authority.
Proof of Capacity
- Burstcoin uses Proof-of-Capacity as a consensus, thus allowing for hard drive space to be used mining. This allows anyone to mine without using significant amounts of electricity and opens up the avenues of using the communication channels provided by the burst wallet.
- By remaining trustless the network can adapt accordingly with the needs of the people. This allows for flexibility and scaling necessary for economic systems. By using a consensus in which anyone can mine with a hard drive.
- This lowers the bar to entry and it also does not compromise the user for ordering a drive. I mention that a nod to an incident a few years ago. As intelligence agencies go they typically choke down to what the people are ordering or doing, in this way you can still mine without compromising that you are intending to mine.
- With this hard drives also do not need to be replaced each time a new model comes out to be competitive in the mining process. Which allows for miners and nodes to continue to operate well into the future with little infrastructure. Thus strengthening the network and providing further nodes to keep the ledger decentralized. This provides the most benefit to the individual as they too can have a voice in what is needed or not in the evolution of their use of cryptocurrency.
