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[garlonicon]

Will bitcoin ever move to prove of stake?

Technically it can, but I don't think it will. And if someone will do that without reaching consensus, that could easily become just another altcoin, if not done correctly and without having backward-compatibility and soft-forks in mind.

I’m sure all these waste of energy will be solved

No, it will not. Here is some economical point of view: https://www.truthcoin.info/blog/pow-cheapest/

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[n0nce]

Ideally, we should all have a say, regardless of how much Bitcoin you have or what sort of equipment you have. If you have a good idea, I'd like to think it would be taken into consideration.

It's actually a pretty big topic in legit altcoin projects, which try to implement Satoshi's original '1 CPU, 1 vote' idea as stated in the whitepaper:

Proof-of-work is essentially one-CPU-one-vote.

I'm not sure anyone really succeeded in doing so; we could argue Ethereum partly does, since GPUs are still viable for Ethereum mining (even though ASICs do exist) and it's pretty profitable to mine on a home computer, which is great for hashpower decentralization.
However, due to the ability of running tons of GPUs off a single platform, industrial miners still have it easy to 'centralize hashpower'. If an algorithm was found that is only able to run on CPUs (maybe even non-parallelizable between cores), it would be optimal. If you wanted to run a mining farm, compared to GPU mining, you would need to buy 1 PSU, 1 motherboard, 1 set of RAM for every mining chip (in this case CPU). The need for a whole separate platform for each chip adds a lot of overhead and could reduce the incentive of building large farms.

An important question though: while something like this increases decentralization, doesn't it also significantly reduce the power put into the network? People who believe mining is wasteful would argue that's a great thing, however it means lower security and easier to attack using a botnet or any other large set of individual CPUs like a manycore cluster. Right?
So maybe the current ASIC landscape might be somewhat centralized, but it allows to pump a ton of energy into the network and gives it such strong security.

IMO, the only way to reduce the electricity consumed below the above is to switch from PoW to PoS.

That's wrong though. There are other algorithms, exactly like pooya is saying.

Even if we agree that PoW should be replaced, the replacement is never going to be a weaker algorithm such as PoS that has many flaws.

One concept that I found cryptographically interesting is Chia-Network; particularly because there is something 'wasted': storage space (and also the drives themselves whose lifespan is limited - while staked coins don't 'wear') and also some computation.

[garlonicon]

One concept that I found cryptographically interesting is Chia-Network;

As said in Paul Sztorc's article, it is still obscured Proof of Work. There are many other options to choose from, for example Proof of Burn. But they are still just some obscured Proof of Work. It is better to split Proof of Work between miners in a decentralized way than to invent a new consensus.

I'm not sure anyone really succeeded in doing so;

There is a way to make it literally true, but it could kill the whole network. I mean: every miner could produce a new block from scratch. Then, instead of sharing just 80 bytes of block header, every miner will send all shares (expressed as the whole blocks) to all other miners. Then, it is possible to collect everything, produced by all miners, and execute any coinbase-splitting algorithm that is based on all blocks produced by all miners. But it is overkill, unless it will be sufficiently optimized. If many transactions are the same, then only transaction hashes are broadcasted. If merkle tree is created in some order-independent way or if there are rules to always have it somehow sorted, or swapped in some predefined way, then it is possible to broadcast only merkle branches. If it is merge-mined and included as a commitment to the coinbase transaction, it is even better compressed, because then no additional on-chain bytes are needed. If the coinbase transaction is some kind of N-of-N Taproot multisig, that could be even a payment channel shared by N people, that could be also CoinPool or something like that, there are many ways. But still, there are only ideas, they have to be collected and combined to form some BIP.

we could argue Ethereum partly does, since GPUs are still viable for Ethereum mining (even though ASICs do exist) and it's pretty profitable to mine on a home computer, which is great for hashpower decentralization

The algorithm does not matter that much. We should assume that ASICs will be designed even for CPU-mineable yespower, when it will be profitable. The only thing that matters is splitting the coinbase transaction.

An important question though: while something like this increases decentralization, doesn't it also significantly reduce the power put into the network?

It is even worse, because it increases work that you need to verify things. Just try to download some CPU-mineable coins, it will take a lot more time than initial block download for the same blocks on SHA-256 mined chain, you can even re-mine that on regtest and compare downloading and verification time. Even if both nodes will be running on localhost, it will have far worse performance for CPU-mineable coins than for SHA-256-based coins.

[n0nce]

One concept that I found cryptographically interesting is Chia-Network;

As said in Paul Sztorc's article, it is still obscured Proof of Work. There are many other options to choose from, for example Proof of Burn. But they are still just some obscured Proof of Work. It is better to split Proof of Work between miners in a decentralized way than to invent a new consensus.

That makes sense; then I would tell PrimeNumber7 that there are absolutely ways to reduce energy consumption, while staying within PoW, by possibly using hard drives to prove space in time (even though that's just another type of work), since keeping a platter running doesn't take much energy.

we could argue Ethereum partly does, since GPUs are still viable for Ethereum mining (even though ASICs do exist) and it's pretty profitable to mine on a home computer, which is great for hashpower decentralization

The algorithm does not matter that much. We should assume that ASICs will be designed even for CPU-mineable yespower, when it will be profitable. The only thing that matters is splitting the coinbase transaction.

It does, though. For instance (I'm not very familiar with altcoins in general), I believe to remember Ethereum (or another coin) needs a ton of fast memory since it needs to do lookups in large data sets as part of the mining process. There also is the attempt of some currencies trying to simply change the algorithm or some non-predictable parameters in regular intervals for instance. Honestly, even pretty unpopular coins have such high prices these days that the incentive to build ASICs for them should be pretty high. Especially as we saw SHA256 ASICs very early on, when the dollar-price for 1BTC wasn't very high and the longevity of the project wasn't yet certain. Still Bitmain et al started making these chips. But I need more knowledge about altcoins to really be able to judge whether they do succeed in making their hashing algorithms ASIC-proof.

[garlonicon]

by possibly using hard drives to prove space in time

That part is tricky, because Proof of Capacity (also called space and time) can be faked (also, it is not the first coin with this consensus, there were other failed attempts before, for example Burstcoin). There were fake plots on Chia. Like someone said on Discord, it is like selling a car and assembling it at the same time, when you are trying to pay for it. If you have 1 TB plotted hard drive, then you can play by the rules and get some coins, equivalent to this 1 TB. But if you can plot things in memory, and then save only every second piece, then you need only 500 GB, you will still have some chance to hit something, and you could recompute things when needed. In general, as in ECDSA: you don't need real signature, you need a signature that can pass verification. The same with Chia: you don't need to plot 1 TB, you need to produce a proof that you did it, even if you plotted only a part of that and splitted your work between plotting and on-the-fly computation. So, I guess it could be possible to mount an attack that would plot nothing and focus on mining. For well-designed ASIC, that could be more profitable than buying large disks and plotting everything, also because your read/write to disk also takes time, when RAM operations or some assembly code based on registers could do some parts much faster, so there is no point in storing them permanently on your disk (also because you only need to verify things, not to plot exabytes by yourself to check that it was plotted correctly).

But I need more knowledge about altcoins to really be able to judge whether they do succeed in making their hashing algorithms ASIC-proof.

I remember some discussions, where people reached nice results for yespower on FPGAs. And also I remember that some people complained about yespower in early days, even before the coin was released. They were saying that this algorithm can be optimized for non-CPUs, and judging by historical blocks and network difficulty, I guess at least some of them were right (or they had a lot of CPUs, definitely warehouse-level, not home-miner-level).

[pooya87]

It's actually a pretty big topic in legit altcoin projects, which try to implement Satoshi's original '1 CPU, 1 vote' idea as stated in the whitepaper:

This is a simplification of explanation not a promise. It is not like ASICs were invented after bitcoin invention. They existed ever since 1967. Not to mention that having ASICs or even a ASIC farm doesn't centralized mining as long as these farms are distributed around the world which they are.
What centralized mining (even if you can only mine it using CPU) is when majority of hashrate is controlled by a handful of people. This has never happened in bitcoin (ignoring day 1 of course when it was only Satoshi and a couple of others mining blocks).

[Kakmakr]

I think people are looking for solutions for a problem that are very exaggerated and not properly researched. We can come up with any solution to reduce energy consumption and the (paid) media will still push the misinformation to the public. We cannot introduce anything that will centralize Bitcoin mining into a single Pool... so #1 is a definite NO for me. 

Also, if you want to win the argument against the Bitcoin&Energy myth, then you should have a better researched counter argument. So.. How many people have actually did the math to find out what percentage of Bitcoin mining is done with "Clean/Renewable" energy? (If it is even possible....)

Do not change the PoW into something that will destroy decentralization and also the strong security that the hashing power provides. 

[n0nce]

by possibly using hard drives to prove space in time

That part is tricky, because Proof of Capacity (also called space and time) can be faked (also, it is not the first coin with this consensus, there were other failed attempts before, for example Burstcoin). There were fake plots on Chia. Like someone said on Discord, it is like selling a car and assembling it at the same time, when you are trying to pay for it. If you have 1 TB plotted hard drive, then you can play by the rules and get some coins, equivalent to this 1 TB. But if you can plot things in memory, and then save only every second piece, then you need only 500 GB, you will still have some chance to hit something, and you could recompute things when needed. In general, as in ECDSA: you don't need real signature, you need a signature that can pass verification. The same with Chia: you don't need to plot 1 TB, you need to produce a proof that you did it, even if you plotted only a part of that and splitted your work between plotting and on-the-fly computation. So, I guess it could be possible to mount an attack that would plot nothing and focus on mining. For well-designed ASIC, that could be more profitable than buying large disks and plotting everything, also because your read/write to disk also takes time, when RAM operations or some assembly code based on registers could do some parts much faster, so there is no point in storing them permanently on your disk (also because you only need to verify things, not to plot exabytes by yourself to check that it was plotted correctly).

Sure, you can trade memory / storage for computation and as always, an ASIC is the most efficient way to accomplish such a thing (like with any other task, ASICs are obviously the most efficient chip to solve said task). I believe in the end, it comes down to a simple equation where you'll be trading various sorts of energy (used for producing hard drive storage) for electrical energy (for doing more compute work on a CPU or ASIC). By the laws of physics, the energy should equal out and the most efficient (cheapest to operate) solution will prevail.

It's important though, that energy will be expended in one way or another - be it in production of spinning platters or in powering highly optimized electrical circuits.

It's actually a pretty big topic in legit altcoin projects, which try to implement Satoshi's original '1 CPU, 1 vote' idea as stated in the whitepaper:

This is a simplification of explanation not a promise. It is not like ASICs were invented after bitcoin invention. They existed ever since 1967.

Sure, but did SHA256 ASICs exist before 2009? I imagine if not, it was a pretty large bet starting SHA256-ASIC production back then, because if the Bitcoin project would have failed, all the R&D work and the cost for the chip production masks and whatnot (in the millions) would have been for nothing. I'm pretty sure when Bitcoin ASICs first came out, BTC actually still suffered from a few, but very severe bugs, so it was not yet as 'set in stone' as today's 'immutable, secure L1'. I remember early versions of the codebase didn't even have tests and little structure in it.
But if SHA256 chips existed for some other purpose already, then I'm wondering why Satoshi and the early Bitcoin developer community didn't think those would be going to be used in the future for Bitcoin mining and driving out CPU miners rather quickly.

Not to mention that having ASICs or even a ASIC farm doesn't centralized mining as long as these farms are distributed around the world which they are.

I totally agree! ASIC farms or even large mining pools are often used as an argument to claim Bitcoin mining is centralized, while it's not; especially since pools can be switched at any time.

I do still believe people should mine more at home. Did you guys read about the recent 'Compass Mining incident'? Users' gear was suddenly shut down and they had to sell their gear within 48 hours notice, because the company had issues with the Russian hosting provider. No chance of getting the gear home. I'm not against people building mining farms for themselves, but I'd try to have full control of my hardware at all times and not rent it to someone who might not let me have it back. But I digress, sorry for the off-topic.

[garlonicon]

I do still believe people should mine more at home.

Home miners have mostly CPUs, sometimes GPUs, sometimes some other hardware. But you can safely assume that most users have CPUs. If you want to encourage people to mine more at home, then they should be rewarded for doing so. Mining a block with difficulty equal to one on CPU is still possible, so every miner could start mining on top of the latest block and produce some hash with a much lower difficulty than needed for the network. However, people can use merged mining and be rewarded for doing that. They can for example receive rewards through LN. So: technically it is possible to have a node that will give you a discount on fees if you mine something on your CPU. Some millisatoshis probably, but still, that will be proportional to the work done by that home miner.

Every miner can adjust its own starting difficulty. It is also possible to be connected to N nodes and assign a difficulty for each of them, it could depend on submitted shares and be auto-adjusted. To start with, it is possible to collect just 80-bytes block hashes. That could be the base layer, the bare minimum to mine anything. Then, that system can be extended by adding more and more limits, to make nice blocks, as people will start mining at home. So, when a lot of people will switch to mining 80-byte headers, then it is possible to soft-fork and add a rule that each miner has to show the coinbase transaction. Then, coinbase amount validation (by checking fees) can be added, the system could be extended. It mainly depends on resources, because a stream of 4 MB fully filled blocks, where each miner will mine entirely different block, that would be hard to check. But checking just headers, allocating coins, and unlocking them after full validation, that could be easier.

So, the easiest thing to do is collecting 80-byte headers, checking Proof of Work and doing some basic validation, then preparing reward for each miner. If someone will attack by making random headers, then such coins will be simply burned. That system could work in case where there are a lot of headers. On the other hand, by assigning a difficulty for each connection, we should receive shares in regular intervals, for example every 30 seconds, as it is in many mining pools. Then, it should not be a big deal to fully validate each share, and sending rewards for that (or just a discount on LN fees). So, I can see two options: checking everything and distributing rewards only to honest miners, or checking only basic things, and delaying validation to the moment when someone will claim the reward in LN (optionally, coins can be burned if they will be invalid, to discourage cheating the simplified validation).

Another thing is that people can commit as much data to a single address as they want. So, home CPU miners can just tweak their keys to later prove they mined some blocks, if such proof will be needed. In that way, the network of decentralized shares could be automatically commited to the blockchain, without increasing size of any on-chain transaction, used during opening and closing channels. However, there are some issues with that system. It is a good start, but it still needs clarification on some points, also it may be connected with CoinPool, we will see.

[pooya87]

It's actually a pretty big topic in legit altcoin projects, which try to implement Satoshi's original '1 CPU, 1 vote' idea as stated in the whitepaper:

This is a simplification of explanation not a promise. It is not like ASICs were invented after bitcoin invention. They existed ever since 1967.

Sure, but did SHA256 ASICs exist before 2009? I imagine if not, it was a pretty large bet starting SHA256-ASIC production back then, because if the Bitcoin project would have failed, all the R&D work and the cost for the chip production masks and whatnot (in the millions) would have been for nothing. I'm pretty sure when Bitcoin ASICs first came out, BTC actually still suffered from a few, but very severe bugs, so it was not yet as 'set in stone' as today's 'immutable, secure L1'. I remember early versions of the codebase didn't even have tests and little structure in it.
But if SHA256 chips existed for some other purpose already, then I'm wondering why Satoshi and the early Bitcoin developer community didn't think those would be going to be used in the future for Bitcoin mining and driving out CPU miners rather quickly.

No SHA256 ASICs didn't exist back then but my point wasn't about their existence but the possibility of their existence. Satoshi surely know that CPU mining won't last long and other methods would replace it soon like GPUs, FPGA and eventually ASICs since they all existed way before bitcoin and were used in computationally intensive work similar to bitcoin mining. Ergo we shouldn't focus on the "1 CPU" 1 Vote quote so much since as I said it was a simplification.

[Welsh]

Will bitcoin ever move to prove of stake? I’m sure all these waste of energy will be solved

"Waste" of energy is rather subjective. Depends what you mean, do you mean the energy lost from the heat the miners create, or the energy expended to satisfy the Proof of Work system? If it's the latter, simply put it's an important part of what makes Bitcoin stand out, if you change from a different algorithm, then much of the benefits are lost, without too much to gain.

I do still believe people should mine more at home. Did you guys read about the recent 'Compass Mining incident'? Users' gear was suddenly shut down and they had to sell their gear within 48 hours notice, because the company had issues with the Russian hosting provider. No chance of getting the gear home. I'm not against people building mining farms for themselves, but I'd try to have full control of my hardware at all times and not rent it to someone who might not let me have it back.

The problem with this is that a lot of people would rather take that risk, which to be honest isn't exactly common, than pay the increasingly higher electricity rates at home. I'm assuming you mean by home, actually in their house, or even if you're referring to mining within their own country, if you're in the West, then you're very likely paying more for your electricity than you would in the East. So, naturally there's a lot more incentive to have off shore if you will, mining operations.

Also, the other downside, and this only really applies to if you mean mining at their actual home is even the quietest miners, tend to make some sort of audible sound, which not everyone wants in their home. Then you have to think about the dynamics at home, the husband/wife might want to mine, but does their partner want the constant hum of the miners, and the wires sprawled everywhere. Its not like the West have better availability of clean energy, so it doesn't even work in that favour.

The way to go forward likely is creating their own energy, and then hooking the miners up to that. Although, that only appeals to a very select few, and probably more of the type that have hundreds of miners on the go, rather than just a hobbyist.

[n0nce]

I do still believe people should mine more at home. Did you guys read about the recent 'Compass Mining incident'? Users' gear was suddenly shut down and they had to sell their gear within 48 hours notice, because the company had issues with the Russian hosting provider. No chance of getting the gear home. I'm not against people building mining farms for themselves, but I'd try to have full control of my hardware at all times and not rent it to someone who might not let me have it back.

The problem with this is that a lot of people would rather take that risk, which to be honest isn't exactly common, than pay the increasingly higher electricity rates at home. I'm assuming you mean by home, actually in their house, or even if you're referring to mining within their own country, if you're in the West, then you're very likely paying more for your electricity than you would in the East. So, naturally there's a lot more incentive to have off shore if you will, mining operations.

Even though 'off-shoring' is often cheaper, as I say you run the risk of losing (access to) very expensive hardware which should be seen as a cost (with a probability attached to it). Also if you use a miner as a 'stacking device', how I've seen it called, it's profitable even in very expensive countries; you're essentially buying Bitcoin at a discount, with a one-time investment of the mining hardware. If you try to break even, it's a lot harder, I agree.

Also, the other downside, and this only really applies to if you mean mining at their actual home is even the quietest miners, tend to make some sort of audible sound, which not everyone wants in their home. Then you have to think about the dynamics at home, the husband/wife might want to mine, but does their partner want the constant hum of the miners, and the wires sprawled everywhere. Its not like the West have better availability of clean energy, so it doesn't even work in that favour.

However, it's important that people do it, and every little bit of hashpower helps, so if someone is willing to splurge $200 on a Compac F or $600 on a 3TH/s Apollo, they can aid the network without a lot of noise and without spending too much money.

The way to go forward likely is creating their own energy, and then hooking the miners up to that. Although, that only appeals to a very select few, and probably more of the type that have hundreds of miners on the go, rather than just a hobbyist.

Honestly, many people today are already creating their own energy by putting solar cells on their roofs. Especially in expensive energy countries like in Europe, it is very interesting to get such an installation instead of buying power from the grid. I wouldn't be very surprised if we see completely integrated 'green' mining solutions for homeowners in the near future (hobbyists are already working on them as we speak), consisting of solar panels on the roof, using the miner's heat output to heat water for the house (needed winter & summer) and a way to put it outside or submerged to make it silent. The miner(s) could even help repay the solar installation faster, as you don't usually pull the whole power that it can theoretically provide, so part of the generated energy is lost if you're not mining. With a good OS, the power draw can be dynamically adjusted depending on the output of the solar array.

[zbig001]

Thermodynamically, it hardly makes a difference whether the security budget of a given monetary network is spent directly on proof of work or on return on capital securing this network, for energy consumption will inevitably occur as the owners of capital begin to consume the profits.
So switching to PoS does not reduce energy consumption if at least a similar level of security is to be maintained (secure PoS is just obfuscated PoW).

Do you want to really save energy?
Work and earn less, in order to be able to spend less.

Otherwise you only contribute to shifting energy consumption between industries, depending on what you prefer to spend your income on.

[Welsh]

I wouldn't be very surprised if we see completely integrated 'green' mining solutions for homeowners in the near future (hobbyists are already working on them as we speak), consisting of solar panels on the roof, using the miner's heat output to heat water for the house (needed winter & summer) and a way to put it outside or submerged to make it silent. The miner(s) could even help repay the solar installation faster, as you don't usually pull the whole power that it can theoretically provide, so part of the generated energy is lost if you're not mining. With a good OS, the power draw can be dynamically adjusted depending on the output of the solar array.

By that, do you think it'll ever be a possibility that energy solutions might be sold or supplied with the purchase of mining equipment, or is that a little bit too expensive, and bulky to justify?

I do agree, that a lot of miners will be looking to repurpose that lost energy, and heating water might the method of choice. Although, I haven't looked at the practicalities of that or how much water you'd be able to actually heat up. Since, most water is heated up on demand, i.e if you want a bath, that's when your boiler kicks in, and heats up the water. I'm not sure if a miner will have enough to be able to do that on demand? The energy could be banked potentially, and then used?

I'm not a miner, I'm just interested in combatting this movement of Bitcoin vs Energy. While, I do think it's blown out of portion from what I can gather, its still an issue that ideally we need to overcome. Public perception means everything when it comes to adoption.

[n0nce]

I wouldn't be very surprised if we see completely integrated 'green' mining solutions for homeowners in the near future (hobbyists are already working on them as we speak), consisting of solar panels on the roof, using the miner's heat output to heat water for the house (needed winter & summer) and a way to put it outside or submerged to make it silent. The miner(s) could even help repay the solar installation faster, as you don't usually pull the whole power that it can theoretically provide, so part of the generated energy is lost if you're not mining. With a good OS, the power draw can be dynamically adjusted depending on the output of the solar array.

By that, do you think it'll ever be a possibility that energy solutions might be sold or supplied with the purchase of mining equipment, or is that a little bit too expensive, and bulky to justify?

I can definitely imagine this happening, yes. Especially since it's not very easy to set up without a lot of knowledge not only about Bitcoin mining, but also about fields like solar energy and house installations. What we have today are specialists in specific areas, but an integrated solution doesn't exist yet, so I believe there's a market for it. I've seen a bunch of DIY projects that use excess solar energy to run miners and the heat of the miners to heat their home, as well as people doing just one of the two.

Here's one I could quickly find again, who 'reduced natural gas use by 64% in March and reduced his effective electrical residential rate to $0.073/kWh': https://twitter.com/DaddyBTC_pleb/status/1516118484375293957

The creativity of some people is commendable! This guy runs the hot air from the miner into his drier to run it without gas: https://twitter.com/missaghi/status/1515371115664846848

And this one here heats his whole house with seven S19's (not cheap, I agree, but if you can afford it, they will pay back quicker this way, since he doesn't have to pay for heating anymore): https://twitter.com/ResetEconomic/status/1506428719778435073

I do agree, that a lot of miners will be looking to repurpose that lost energy, and heating water might the method of choice. Although, I haven't looked at the practicalities of that or how much water you'd be able to actually heat up. Since, most water is heated up on demand, i.e if you want a bath, that's when your boiler kicks in, and heats up the water. I'm not sure if a miner will have enough to be able to do that on demand? The energy could be banked potentially, and then used?

I'm not 100% familiar with the control circuitry of a modern boiler, since what I have is very old. I think it actually keeps the water relatively warm at all times, since it would need a lot of time to heat up the whole volume if it only kicked in the moment I open the hot water tap. I mean, worst-case, you're heating the water 'more than needed'; so the boiler may be hot the whole day, while you don't need hot water around the clock. But if the alternative is dumping the heat outside the window, that's still better, right?
Sure, you can add in a battery; the whole system just gets more and more complex.
One option I can envision, with modern solar installations often including a battery anyway, is that the miner starts up once the battery is full and you still have excess power.
It would be financially infeasible to go this route with an S19 or so that is very expensive (+10 grand) to buy and already takes ~2 years to ROI when running all the time, but since this is excess power, you can use an old S9 that just costs $500 used.

I'm not a miner, I'm just interested in combatting this movement of Bitcoin vs Energy. While, I do think it's blown out of portion from what I can gather, its still an issue that ideally we need to overcome. Public perception means everything when it comes to adoption.

Honestly, I believe the public perception could shift if people understand two things:
(1) The current monetary system they know and (maybe) love consumes not only much more energy, but also emits more carbon dioxide and costs real human lives.
(2) Bitcoin mining creates an incentive to build new wind and solar installations which will long-term kill coal and gas power, which they must surely be big proponents of if they're really environmentalists.

[thecodebear]

The real obstacles are misconceptions about energy consumption and waste.

This answers the OP's question. OP seems to have misconceptions about mining and energy use and so therefore is trying to come up with solutions (that would be much worse than PoW) to a problem that doesn't exist.

The 'energy waste' of bitcoin mining is something you read about in articles written by people who aren't educated on Bitcoin mining. There is no energy waste because it is all used productively to secure the network. In fact, instead of wasting energy, it actually productively uses a lot of wasted energy, which is obviously a positive thing - society wastes tons of energy, Bitcoin allows us to take some of that wasted energy and direct it to something productive, specifically, the securing of the world's best form of money.

So yeah odolvlobo is right in saying the real obstacles are misconceptions about bitcoin mining energy usage. There is no problem in PoW to solve. PoW solved a set of problems extremely well, and as a huge side benefit it allows humanity to make productive use of the vast amounts of wasted and stranded energy in our society/planet. Furthermore, there is never excess energy used for mining Bitcoin because miners are held to economic incentives - if mining outstrips adoption (aka price) some miners most exposed to a price drop will stop mining and then difficulty drops to keep the economic incentives for everyone left mining.

It is a self-correcting system. PoW mining naturally gravitates toward stranded or wasted energy because that is cheap energy, and the energy usage of mining always stays in line with what the economic value of Bitcoin can sustain. People who think that PoW is some problem that needs a solution don't have a firm grasp on how mining works and the benefits it provides.

[larry_vw_1955]

Also, the other downside, and this only really applies to if you mean mining at their actual home is even the quietest miners, tend to make some sort of audible sound, which not everyone wants in their home. Then you have to think about the dynamics at home, the husband/wife might want to mine, but does their partner want the constant hum of the miners, and the wires sprawled everywhere.

Apparently some company is going to be selling a 128 core cpu next year. i bet that will put asics out of business. plus it won't make any noise.

[pooya87]

Apparently some company is going to be selling a 128 core cpu next year. i bet that will put asics out of business. plus it won't make any noise.

ASIC is like a specialized hardware designed to run at maximum speed to perform a certain computation, in this case SHA256 hashes. Not to mention that they are very efficient when it comes to energy consumption. CPUs can not compete with that.

[larry_vw_1955]

Apparently some company is going to be selling a 128 core cpu next year. i bet that will put asics out of business. plus it won't make any noise.

ASIC is like a specialized hardware designed to run at maximum speed to perform a certain computation, in this case SHA256 hashes. Not to mention that they are very efficient when it comes to energy consumption. CPUs can not compete with that.

yeah you might be right. i checked and i think all it would be able to do is a half a gigahash per second. that wouldn't be enough to make any cash. so it won't help with mining bitcoin but maybe some other altcoin it could.

[odolvlobo]

Apparently some company is going to be selling a 128 core cpu next year. i bet that will put asics out of business. plus it won't make any noise.

No chance. An S19 Pro is 5 million times faster than a CPU core. You would need 40,000 128-core CPUs to match a single S19 Pro.