Mining Crypto-Metals

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Inspired by HeavyMetal's thread title: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=99274.0

I hope the title speaks for itself, for I would have no clue as to how to build such a thing, but sure the hell can put in a lot of input.

My guess would be that it'll be based on a similar protocol that the Bitcoin client is, but the mining results would all be metals instead of coins, from the most precious on down to the least valuable. That way a person with only a CPU can mine to his/her heart's content without feeling left out, because he'll/she'll will always be able to mine the lower valued metals valued a tad more than the electric cost.

It'll be nice if this idea were more visual than the way mining Bitcoin is set up--just a bunch of text.

Of course, virtual commodity exchanges would have to be built, and the metals would only be exchanged for bitcoins, then can be converted to cash, but can also be used to purchase products and services.

Each miner would have the option of storing their metals on their computer or at Fort Gox, for lack of a better name. One could use the services of MyCryptoMetal to convert their metal to Bitcoin, whereupon... On second thought, what the fuck was I thinking?

Seriously, something to think about for all you coders and investors out there.

~Bruno~

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[organofcorti]

Some pools will convert mined coins to precious metals. Or maybe were going to? Something like that. Anyway, if you have a pool op that's keen to act as an exchange middle man, it's doable.

Of course, you could just take your white hot GPU out to the goldfields and melt your way down to a seam.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Some pools will convert mined coins to precious metals. Or maybe were going to? Something like that. Anyway, if you have a pool op that's keen to act as an exchange middle man, it's doable.

Of course, you could just take your white hot GPU out to the goldfields and melt your way down to a seam.

What I envisioned is a virtual miner that pay outs is clumps of metal (ore), instead of blocks of 50 coins.

Now that I've mentioned ore, perhaps that's what could be mined, with where a smelter has to process the ore, and the 'blockchain' (better word needed) would consist of assayers, verifying the ore/smelted metal.

~Bruno~

[Gladamas]

Of course...the metals would only be exchanged for bitcoins, then can be converted to cash, but can also be used to purchase products and services.

I think the only point of this would be to convert it to real metals/stones and Bitcoins, not to spend it as an alternative currency. Of course, there would be nothing stopping people from doing this, but it would be equivalent to bartering.

In other words, each crypto-metal token/coin is a certificate that can be exchanged for a fixed amount of certain real-life goods/metals. In this way we could have a crypto-currency for anything. In a short time we could be mining shares to a subprime-but-still-AAA-rated CDO.