please delete

[SapphireSpire]

nothing to see

[1714786439]

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[WhyFhy]

2. Employ some kind of dice roll or rock-paper-scissor or pick-a-number scheme to select a miner at random who then does the actual work alone.  This would greatly reduce energy consumption but it would not distribute block rewards as fairly as solution #1.  Hash power would no longer effect a miner's odds of winning so this would eliminate mining pools.

3. Yet another idea is to have nodes announce their intent to mine (register) and wait their turn in a queue.  This would reduce energy consumption as much as solution #2 and it would distribute block rewards more fairly over time and it would eliminate mining pools.

I'm down with these concepts!
However the 1% that owns 99% of the network strength will probably not vote for such measures.

[odolvlobo]

The main obstacle for adoption right now is energy consumption and waste.

The real obstacles are misconceptions about energy consumption and waste.

1. Focus all mining work on the same block by getting all miners to work for the same pool, or create a super pool that consolidates the work of all mining pools.  This would distribute block rewards most fairly but it would reduce energy consumption the least as the minimum work required for a share of the block rewards would only discourage the slowest miners from participating.  This can be adjusted though.

That changes nothing. Miners are not doing redundant work. Miners are already all working on the same block, except in rare cases.

2. Employ some kind of dice roll or rock-paper-scissor or pick-a-number scheme to select a miner at random who then does the actual work alone.  This would greatly reduce energy consumption but it would not distribute block rewards as fairly as solution #1.  Hash power would no longer effect a miner's odds of winning so this would eliminate mining pools.

If you could employ a scheme to pick a miner at random, then you don't even need PoW. This idea is unworkable because it doesn't solve the problems that PoW solves.

3. Yet another idea is to have nodes announce their intent to mine (register) and wait their turn in a queue.  This would reduce energy consumption as much as solution #2 and it would distribute block rewards more fairly over time and it would eliminate mining pools.  However, a miner's ROI would be proportional to the number of nodes they have in the queue, which would encourage node spam.

Same problem as #2.

[Welsh]

The real obstacles are misconceptions about energy consumption and waste.

Exactly. it's not a matter of proving that Bitcoin isn't more resource heavy than several other arguably non essential industries, its the matter of preventing the propaganda that's being spread by the media. Which, I'll be quite honest I don't have a solution for. Convincing the masses, while they've already been fed this information through mainstream outlets, would probably be an impossible task, since it'll always stick in their mind, and its not exactly like the media is going to change their mind upon discovering the facts. I'm quite sure that a lot have a good idea that Bitcoin isn't as impactful as other industries, they just nitpick what they know will generate them money.

Also, I do think its fairly obvious that news have been bribed or pressured in the past to push a certain agenda, while I can't be sure that the governments of the world have done this, I'm rather suspicious the hostile attitude that every single news source seems to have.

[WhyFhy]

Doesnt helium kind of work like 2 and 3?.  1 person issues a challenge ,another challenges, others witness?. all split rewards accordingly?

[BlackHatCoiner]

I'll skip the mining efficiency proposal. You've got a perfect, summarized answer from odolvlobo.

The main obstacle for adoption right now is energy consumption and waste.

Come on, seriously? That's an even worse answer than franky's, who believes that the main reasons are the block size and the low income. The main obstacles for adoption are clearly political. The problem is outside Bitcoin, cryptography, computer science.

Two are the main reasons; the volatility and the government's brainwashing, which includes misconceptions about the energy waste. Most people have got a false idea of what's Bitcoin, because the media have misinformed them so. They can't understand the benefits they can gain if they do this collectively. Most don't even know how money works.

[garlonicon]

Doesnt helium kind of work like 2 and 3?.  1 person issues a challenge ,another challenges, others witness?. all split rewards accordingly?

No, because Proof of Something Else is not better than Proof of Work: https://www.truthcoin.info/blog/pow-cheapest/

1. Focus all mining work on the same block by getting all miners to work for the same pool, or create a super pool that consolidates the work of all mining pools.  This would distribute block rewards most fairly but it would reduce energy consumption the least as the minimum work required for a share of the block rewards would only discourage the slowest miners from participating.  This can be adjusted though.

Go on and do that in backward-compatible way. If you will do it in the right way, then maybe we will have some working example of that conception. But if you will do it in a wrong way, then it is 100% guaranteed that your project will be dumped. As I said in "mining decentralization-related discussions", all you need is collecting all shares and forming a commitment. With Taproot, it is easier than it ever was, so you can base your project on N-of-N multisig with all N miners, then try to make it simpler and cheaper.

2. Employ some kind of dice roll or rock-paper-scissor or pick-a-number scheme to select a miner at random who then does the actual work alone.

This sentence is some kind of definition of Proof of Work. We have pick-a-number scheme. That "number" is called "nonce", defined as "number used once". We cannot do "alone" part, because you cannot prevent other people from using computers, unless you want to shut down power grids and put citizens in ancient times with knights and horses.

the coins a miner earns would be proportional to the number of nodes he has in the selection pool

That is one of the reasons why the LUCK altcoin was destroyed: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5254068.400

3. Yet another idea is to have nodes announce their intent to mine (register) and wait their turn in a queue.

This leads to centralization and depends on network connectivity. Also, it is not resistant to sybil attacks (or it may be, but then you have to turn on the Proof of Work).

However, the coins a miner earns would be proportional to the number of nodes he has in the queue, which would encourage node spam.

It can be attacked more easily, just by informing the network that you had a lot of connections, even if you were sitting alone on localhost. Newcomers will know nothing about the past without any Proof of Work. That is also another reason, why the LUCK altcoin was destroyed.

These schemes are only intended to replace competition as a selection mechanism.  They do not replace POW.

Aha. That means some part is centralized and some part is not. Using Proof of Work here and not using Proof of Work there is not a good idea, because unprotected parts will be attacked, as they were in many altcoins.

So, to sum up: you can try to create some basic network for concept number one, with collecting shares, with Taproot, with N-of-N multisig, maybe on test network, maybe only with tweaked keys used as commitments, but forming a good concept for decentralized mining is hard. And there are some existing concepts like CoinPool, so maybe joining them is a better idea.

[pooya87]

We have a proverb which I'm always reminded of when I hear someone trying to fix "energy waste" that goes like this, "you wanted to fix her eyebrow but ended up blinding her".

You wanted to fix the imaginary "energy waste" but all you did was to introduce a single point of failure by destroying the decentralization that currently exists by adding the single mining pool that would control the entire mining power so it can censor transactions, censor blocks or even reverse transactions (51% attack turns into 100% attack!).

[so98nn]

I think just keeping your miners in good condition and maintaining them in between could bring you enough efficiency. At the end of day, efficiency = mining reward - overall electricity cost. I’m mining alts, but whether you do BTC mining or alts, again the output you looking for is $ at the end.

The best way to increase efficiency of your miners is to note down at what price you got rewards and at what price you will be selling your BTC.

This does not even need technicalities.

With respect to technical aspects, you can just wait for higher ASICS hitting the market with some upgrades done claiming this model is more efficient etc etc.

[larry_vw_1955]

3. Miners announce their intent to mine (register) over the network and wait their turn in a queue.
Pro: Eliminates wasted effort.
Pro: Substantially reduces energy consumption.
Pro: Eliminates incentive to mine for pools.
Pro: Distributes rewards more fairly.

The main problem with this one I think is probably that miners aren't going to like being forced to "register".  Not only that but it sounds way more complicated than normal proof of work. Imagine people trying to explain how it works to their friend. Impossible.

Suggestion 3 is the best, how could it be implemented?
The queue is stored in the blocks as it's own chain of messages.
1.  A node who wants to mine generates a pubkey and payment address for use when they solve blocks.
2.  The miner broadcasts a special message that contains the pubkey, payment address, fee and IP address.
3.  All miner messages are temporarily stored in the mempool with unconfirmed transactions.

Regarding #2 above, all I can say is if I was a miner, I would configure my bitcoin core to send those "special messages" directly into the recycle bin. Competition eliminated.

The order of the messages in the queue chain determines the order of the miner's turns.
When a miner solves a block, they update the message chain:
1.  Include the signature for the pubkey they published in their own message as proof of identity.
2.  Removes the message of the previous miner if they:
         failed to publish a block when it was their turn, or
         published a bad block and got dropped.
3.  Adds new messages to the back of the message chain.
4.  Removes their old message and adds a new message to the back of the message chain for themselves to change their pubkey and payment address (but not their IP).

Overly complicated.

[PrimeNumber7]

The vast majority of the energy spent on mining Bitcoin is wasted through the competitive aspect of it's POW protocol.  Miners compete by doing the same work in parallel but it's only the miners who win whose work counts, the rest is wasted.  

This is false.

When miners are mining via Bitcoin's PoW protocol, they are generating random numbers, passing each of those random numbers through a hash algorithm, and when the output of the hash algorithm is below a target, the miner will broadcast their found block. The output of the hash algorithm is effectively random, so with a given target, the expected number of "guesses" will be the same regardless of if one person is working on the block, or a billion people are working on the block.

There might be an argument that some work is waisted when two miners find a block at approximately the same time, however reducing the number of miners mining at once will not address this issue as most mining entities are going to be using multiple computers at once to try to find a block. I am not sure of how frequently this happens, but I understand that in the past it had occurred approximately 1% of the time, and this has likely gone down.

So reducing wasted work theoretically has an upper bound potential to reduce the amount of electricity consumed via bitcoin PoW by 1%.

[PrimeNumber7]

When miners are mining via Bitcoin's PoW protocol, they are generating random numbers, passing each of those random numbers through a hash algorithm,...

They don't generate random numbers. What they do is increment a nonce which alters the data set of a block producing a different hash.

Increasing the nonce effectively produces a random number. What I said is a very simplified explanation of what happens.

...and when the output of the hash algorithm is below a target, the miner will broadcast their found block. The output of the hash algorithm is effectively random, so with a given target, the expected number of "guesses" will be the same regardless of if one person is working on the block, or a billion people are working on the block.

In other words, every block has a range of hash values that it will produce as the nonce is incremented, and the first value in that range that satisfies the size requirement of the difficulty level exists at a specific height in that range and therefore requires that much work to reach regardless of whether it's one miner working solo or a whole pool.  That's all true, I never argued otherwise, but none of it supports your assertion that what I said is false.

Yes, it does. The expected number of hashes required to find a block is the same regardless of if one miner is trying to find a block or a million miners are trying to find a block.

If a nonce, x results in a valid block, nonce x + 1 will not necessarily also find a valid block.

There might be an argument that some work is waisted when two miners find a block at approximately the same time,...

This causes a soft fork in which the leading end of the blockchain splits into two or more chains.  It gets resolved when one of the chains gets longer than the others. When that happens, all the work that was spent solving the blocks in the discarded chain is wasted.  This is in addition to the waste that I bought up in my OP which is only about the energy wasted in each round by solo miners who fail to solve their blocks first.  And, after all these words, you still haven't proven how this is false.

I disagree with your terminology.

When there are two competing blocks, block x, the work spent trying to find block x + 1 is duplicated. However, as I mentioned, this has happened approximately 1% of the time int he past, and is likely lower now. There is no other duplication of work.

[larry_vw_1955]

The vast majority of the energy spent on mining Bitcoin is wasted through the competitive aspect of it's POW protocol.  Miners compete by doing the same work in parallel but it's only the miners who win whose work counts, the rest is wasted.  

wrong. this is a frequent misconception though. and someone else already explained why it is a misconception. bottom line is, no energy is really wasted since the entire network hash rate is needed to find one block every 10 minutes. end of story.

That implies there are unnecessary steps, which ones are superfluous?

Does #3 have a name? or is that just something you thought could work?

#2 does have a name. So it's nothing new. wonder why it hasn't been adpoted with open arms. well probably because there are good reasons.

[odolvlobo]

There might be an argument that some work is waisted when two miners find a block at approximately the same time,...

This causes a soft fork in which the leading end of the blockchain splits into two or more chains.  It gets resolved when one of the chains gets longer than the others.

That's not what a "soft fork" means. A "soft fork" is a backward compatible change to the protocol. What you are describing is generally called a "fork/branch/split in the chain" and one of the blocks will eventually become a "stale block".

It doesn't happen very often, as you already wrote.

[dkbit98]

Everyone mines for the same pool.

This is terrible idea that only leads to centralization and single point of failure.

Employ some kind of dice roll, rock-paper-scissor, or pick-a-number scheme to select a miner at random.

I think that miners are selected randomly even now, so there is no need for inventing the wheel yet again.

Miners announce their intent to mine (register) over the network and wait their turn in a queue.

Announce to whom? Some central authority maybe?
As soon as they are online they are announcing they are ready for mining, no need to add anything extra on top.

I saw one cool project for using all the heat generated from bitcoin asic mining for heating the swimming pool, and I think we need to think more like this.
Other people are using heat for heating up their home during winter and cold season, and I am sure there could be other interesting projects like this.
If I remember correctly Intel recently created new energy efficient bitcoin mining chip, so it's possible to have new developments in that field.

[n0nce]

Employ some kind of dice roll, rock-paper-scissor, or pick-a-number scheme to select a miner at random.

I think that miners are selected randomly even now, so there is no need for inventing the wheel yet again.

They're not selected; after all, who would select them? There is nobody to select something. The very process of mining though, 'selects' one miner (by being the first to extend the chain correctly) whose block candidate is added to the blockchain. So this 'dice roll' is what mining does.

I saw one cool project for using all the heat generated from bitcoin asic mining for heating the swimming pool, and I think we need to think more like this.
Other people are using heat for heating up their home during winter and cold season, and I am sure there could be other interesting projects like this.
If I remember correctly Intel recently created new energy efficient bitcoin mining chip, so it's possible to have new developments in that field.

Yeah, it's pretty nice to use the heat since it increases the efficiency. If you could use all the heat, the efficiency could theoretically exceed 100%. I was thinking about putting ASIC chips into boilers for instance, instead of a plain resistance wire; the expended energy would be the same, but you would get heat + Bitcoin instead of just heat.

Today I read part of this article which I found really interesting. https://medium.com/@magusperivallon/a-financial-hail-mary-for-the-climate-an-argument-for-bitcoin-adoption-1a695b668529
It appears that according to various studies, the existing banking sector is a big contributor to pollution and climate change in a multitude of ways and the tiny energy footprint of Bitcoin globally is really nothing to be concerned about. Apparently, the articles goes on to show how Bitcoin mining and this high demand for electricity could become a big driver for the expansion of solar plants and other types of renewable energy that so far were unprofitable to build. But I've yet to finish it.

So in essence, I'm not at all worried about energy consumption and wasted work.

[dkbit98]

They're not selected; after all, who would select them? There is nobody to select something. The very process of mining though, 'selects' one miner (by being the first to extend the chain correctly) whose block candidate is added to the blockchain. So this 'dice roll' is what mining does.

I know they are not really ''selected'', I just used his words and I forgot to put quotation marks.
Imagine a teacher giving a task to solve math problems in a classroom full of kids, first who solve them are ''selected'' or ''chosen'' one.  

Yeah, it's pretty nice to use the heat since it increases the efficiency. If you could use all the heat, the efficiency could theoretically exceed 100%. I was thinking about putting ASIC chips into boilers for instance, instead of a plain resistance wire; the expended energy would be the same, but you would get heat + Bitcoin instead of just heat.

It's not a bad idea, but only thing that would be annoying in this case could be noise generated by mining.
This is not unsolvable problem, because I saw some special cases that are made to totally isolate all the noise generated by mining, in your case you would need to better isolate your boiler

[n0nce]

They're not selected; after all, who would select them? There is nobody to select something. The very process of mining though, 'selects' one miner (by being the first to extend the chain correctly) whose block candidate is added to the blockchain. So this 'dice roll' is what mining does.

I know they are not really ''selected'', I just used his words and I forgot to put quotation marks.
Imagine a teacher giving a task to solve math problems in a classroom full of kids, first who solve them are ''selected'' or ''chosen'' one.  

Yes, that's pretty much the exact same way that miners are selected, by being fastest - good analogy!

Yeah, it's pretty nice to use the heat since it increases the efficiency. If you could use all the heat, the efficiency could theoretically exceed 100%. I was thinking about putting ASIC chips into boilers for instance, instead of a plain resistance wire; the expended energy would be the same, but you would get heat + Bitcoin instead of just heat.

It's not a bad idea, but only thing that would be annoying in this case could be noise generated by mining.
This is not unsolvable problem, because I saw some special cases that are made to totally isolate all the noise generated by mining, in your case you would need to better isolate your boiler

I'm not 100% sure; because what's loud are the fans, but when you heat water with your ASIC, you don't need fans right? Since you transfer all that heat into the water.
I've also seen someone submerge S19's into those special oily non-conductive fluids and exchange the heat from the 'oil circuit' into the 'water circuit'.

[PrimeNumber7]

I saw one cool project for using all the heat generated from bitcoin asic mining for heating the swimming pool, and I think we need to think more like this.
Other people are using heat for heating up their home during winter and cold season, and I am sure there could be other interesting projects like this.
<>

Some smaller/hobby/home miners can potentially double their mining equipment as space heaters if they live in a location that is cold at least part of the year. Unfortunately, this is not really something that can scale because at one point, someone will own more than enough miners to keep their home warm.

When oil companies are mining oil, they will sometimes (always?) encounter natural gas, and often there is no natural gas pipeline nearby. Historically, oil companies have had to burn this natural gas into the atmosphere, however, some oil companies are buying up bitcoin miners, and converting the natural gas into electricity that is used by these bitcoin miners. These miners are still consuming electricity, however the electricity they are using would otherwise literally be burned if not for the miners.

[dkbit98]

I'm not 100% sure; because what's loud are the fans, but when you heat water with your ASIC, you don't need fans right? Since you transfer all that heat into the water.
I've also seen someone submerge S19's into those special oily non-conductive fluids and exchange the heat from the 'oil circuit' into the 'water circuit'.

I honestly don't have a slightest idea how this could work in real life, but it's obviously not going to be asic fans running in water like submarines 
Fans are used for cooling of the chip and I am not sure how long would chips survive if under higher temperature load for long time.

These miners are still consuming electricity, however the electricity they are using would otherwise literally be burned if not for the miners.

If we take a look at a bigger picture, most of the energy produced in the world is wasted anyway, and bitcoin mining has just a tiny percentage of total energy productions, but it looks bigger when you zoom in and talk about that on MSM.
Can you only imagine how much energy is wasted for all the wars happening constantly around the world for various reasons...