
Crypto-currency craze 'hinders search for alien life' - dsr12
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/technology-43056744
======
lawlessone
They might benefit later when the price of the hardware plummets after a
bigger crash...

who am i kidding, this is ruining everything.

The whole crypto craze is starting to remind me of "The Shoe Event Horizon "
from the Hitch Hikers Guide.

~~~
notahacker
Or Bostrom's Paperclip Maximiser (edit: someone else got there before me)

Ironically if you draw a Venn diagram of "people who are worried about a
dystopian future in which badly-designed _AI_ reallocates enormous portions of
the world's resources to an utterly useless end" and "people really into
promoting and mining crypto" you might not need a second circle

~~~
jacquesm
Click at your peril:

[http://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/](http://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/)

~~~
freeflight
I should have heeded the warning, this thing goes places, literally!

------
vthallam
So Cryptocurrencies was all along the plan of Aliens to limit our quest to
find them /s

That said, the demand for GPU's didn't decrease even during the recent market
crash and I personally believe it will be like this until Nvidia comes up with
their custom chips for miners

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _So Cryptocurrencies was all along the plan of Aliens to limit our quest to
> find them /s_

That's just a side effect that prevents us from discovering them. The true
purpose is to accelerate the process of making Earth more habitable to alien
life (and less habitable to us). Apparently aliens like CO₂ and hot climate
(makes me wonder why they don't just settle Venus, but maybe it's _too_ warm
for them there).

------
crypt1d
Proof of stake on Ethereum is right around the corner. As soon as that happens
there will be plenty of cheap GPUs back on the market.

~~~
raverbashing
The funny thing about the bitcoin fans is how they don't realize (or think
it's good) that the BTC network does not become faster or scales as more
hardware is added, quite the contrary

~~~
clarkmoody
It does, however, become exponentially more difficult to double-spend, which
is the whole reason we have proof-of-work security in the first place.

~~~
xg15
Yes, however, it already _is_ enormously difficult to double-spend. If this
were the actual motives of miners adding ever-more hash power, we ought to
discuss at some point how secure is "secure enough" and at which point the
added security has a higher cost than benefit.

Otherwise the whole thing sounds like the paperclip maximizer justifying its
actions: "But if I burn this forest, we will have _even more_ paperclips!"

~~~
clarkmoody
The only motive of miners is profit. This is by design. How else could you
incentivize a bunch of random people to find partial SHA-256 collisions?

Security is ensured by the economic incentives baked into the protocol.
Security is the by-product of economically selfish behavior.

------
omgtehlion
These guys should contact nvidia directly, and ask to reserve some of the
cards nvidia sells via their site.

It releases small batches weekly.

Anecdote: last week it was 300 cards. Most of them are snatched by miners and
scalpers (who resell them on ebay). I managed to get one card I need (to
complete my pc) only by using monitoring script and automating chrome to
purchase. 300 cards were gone in 4 minutes. The next day 12 more were
available (possibly cancelled/failed orders of those 300).

~~~
toomuchtodo
Nah, SETI should be crowdfunding to build ASIC boards tuned solely to do the
necessary Fast Fourier Transform [1] operations to identify what they consider
interesting signals from extraterrestrial sources.

When the EFF commissioned the DES ASIC system for bruteforcing DES encryption
in 1998, it only cost $210k [2]. I can only imagine design and fabrication
costs have declined over 20 years.

"The whole project was budgeted at about US $210,000. Of this, $80,000 was
used to design, integrate, and test the EFF DES Cracker. The other $130,000
was for materials including chips, boards and all other components on the
boards, card cages, power supplies, cooling, and a PC. The software for
controlling the EFF DES Cracker was written separately as a volunteer project
that took 4-5 weeks. The entire project was completed within about eighteen
months, with much of that time being used for preliminary research. The core
team contained fewer than ten people, none of whom worked full-time on the
project. The final cost came in at well under $250,000."

[1]
[https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/sah_glossary/fft.php](https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/sah_glossary/fft.php)

[2]
[https://w2.eff.org/Privacy/Crypto/Crypto_misc/DESCracker/HTM...](https://w2.eff.org/Privacy/Crypto/Crypto_misc/DESCracker/HTML/19980716_eff_des_faq.html)

[+] Entire book on the subject the EFF published for the intellectually
curious:
[https://archive.org/details/crackingdessecre00elec](https://archive.org/details/crackingdessecre00elec)

EDIT: @fundemental: Would love to hear more about this if you're willing to
share and have the time. Contact info is in my profile.

~~~
fundamental
Interestingly last time I was active in this area (specifically VLBI radio
astronomy), I was working on a project for moving FFT computations _away_ from
existing FPGA based solutions to GPU based ones in order to save money.

------
flipp3r
I think the solution here is very very easy...

Aliencoin when?

~~~
AznHisoka
I predict a huge spike soon.
[https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/aliencoin/](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/aliencoin/)

~~~
jameskegel
No active markets.

------
spoiledtechie
I think nVidia is only getting more research and development dollars because
of the bitcoin craze. Its gotta be taking some of that cash and making things
faster and better. Prices and hardware in short supply will quickly come down.

~~~
omgtehlion
Unfortunately, nvidia (or amd) does not get extra cash from this craze. Not
even partners and oems.

Most profits are reaped by retailers and resellers

~~~
michaelbuckbee
Nvidia's profit margin seems to be swelling.

[https://ycharts.com/companies/NVDA/profit_margin](https://ycharts.com/companies/NVDA/profit_margin)

I would kind of expect that to be the case as each card they issue has a very
high initial cost to design, test, promote, etc. and now cards that were
getting "old" have suddenly shot up in demand.

------
root_axis
To those offering up suggestions of "seticoin" and similar ideas, the reason
why this hasn't been done is because its prohibitively difficult to build a
PoW system using useful work because useful work usually cannot be verified as
correct without redoing all of the work. Another problem is that the inherent
nature of useful work generally precludes it from being delivered in units of
controllable and predictable difficulty.

------
neals
But think of how in awe the Aliens are of the freedoms we have created for our
selves.

~~~
BoorishBears
We’ve allowed people to be venture capitalists in the system [crypto] that
will replace our current finance system

-Actual rational behind letting people investing their savings in crypto be from an article I read

~~~
nukeop
The greatest thing is that nobody's "letting" invest anyone anywhere here,
because nobody has any authority over the system. Rather than being
"allowed"to invest in crypto, you are _free_ to invest in crypto.

~~~
BoorishBears
It’s clear the implication is crypto is “letting” you invest in itself by its
nature, where as some government trying to invent a new monetary system
probably wouldn’t let individuals invest for a stake in future circulation

But realistically, the government can stop you from investing. Or more
specifically, the government can derail investment in the system by removing
the aspect of speculation that’s driving this “investment”, by limiting
people’s ability to liquidate.

The government moves slow. Yesterday hundreds, if not thousands of people here
in CT got letters requesting taxes on out of state online purchases from
Newegg from up to _3 years ago_. Everyone knew the law was that you should
report your own purchases and pay taxes on them, but they ignored it and
thought “buying out of state will let me not pay taxes!”. Now the taxman is
coming for its due.

Stories like this on current transactions could start to hamper the
speculation on crypto drastically.

------
trisimix
Check out gridcoin. Its a cryptocurrency that rewards you for using boinc.

------
Artst3in
Oh, but there is a great group of people who crunch projects for them all the
time through BOINC.

It's called Gridcoin.

(credit to: going_full_turbo)

------
zitterbewegung
My brother has been able to sell his graphics cards that he has had for six
months at MSRP or better even while being slightly used a few months ago.
Graphic cards are hard to come by and they can't even make them fast enough.
Even for gamers who need only one card.

------
dogma1138
Sounds like an opportunity for an ICO called SETIcoin.

They can both raise funds and if they figure out how to run their algorithms
via smart contracts also get access to much more hardware ala BOINC.

~~~
trisimix
Gridcoin

------
perseusprime11
Are we not more likely to find alien life through SpaceX rockets that can
launch telescopes deep into space?

~~~
roywiggins
The expensive part is building the telescopes. James Webb is going to cost
something like $8.8 billion. Compared to that, launching it is easy.

------
hrasyid
I feel it's probably the least of my worries about crypto-currency craze

------
arisAlexis
cryptocurrencies will radically change our societies so it's well wotth it.
Alien life would probably destroy it.

~~~
Ygg2
If by radically change our societies, you mean waste billions of watts on
overly complex Get Rich Quick schemes, then yes, yes they will.

~~~
arisAlexis
I mean about permanent proof of government spending, ultra secure voting
systems, decentralized government and direct democracy. bonus tip: many coins
do not need watt burning. p.s you were probably an internet naysayer too

------
callmedavetoo
Isn't it ironic that he is so short-sighted? The demand for GPUs increases
research in that area and will drive down costs soon. There will be a huge
amount of cards that use too much energy for mining but that are perfect for
research.

------
nukeop
Searching for alien life is an irrational waste of energy and resources. In
thousands of years of mankind's history we have seen zero compelling evidence
of alien life existing in any form anywhere. The energy spent on
cryptocurrencies is the cost of the unstoppable financial freedom they are
creating for us. Obviously, we all wish it were smaller, but to ensure that
nobody can have total control of the system, it has to be computationally
heavy and expensive in terms of energy required per transaction.

~~~
paulgb
> to ensure that nobody can have total control of the system, it has to be
> computationally heavy and expensive in terms of energy required per
> transaction.

To be entirely safe when I go to the grocery store I could drive a tank, but a
cost-benefit analysis reveals that I shouldn't.

As a thought experiment, what would happen right now if the mining incentive
went to 0 and miners subsisted entirely on transaction fees? Would the system
still be secure? (It's an important question since that's what will eventually
happen with difficulty adjustments)

~~~
nukeop
Long before that happens we will have already moved to better, more advanced
crypto currency systems. Bitcoin is not the only alternative and its
importance is dwindling. "Mining incentive" won't even have any meaning by the
time the danger you envision is in the realm of possibility.

