

Ask HN: Biological Bitcoin? - quantumpotato_

I'm wondering what a biological implementation of Bitcoin would/could look like. Like a chemical process that takes time to produce a rare molecule which can be encoded with transaction data.<p>Is this possible? How would this work?
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jakeburtn
The time to produce a rare molecule is the proof of work function[1] in
bitcoin this is an enhanced version of Hashcash[2] (I believe). In effect you
have to expend computing time (CPU cycles) to find a hash collision which can
be varied in difficulty by the length of the collision.

The closest thing resembling a hash, or indeed a structure that can store data
is nucleic acids, DNA, RNA and the like. Assuming you could engineer an
organism to perform these tasks you can make some direct comparisons between
Hashcash and a biological proof of work.

Instead of hash collisions you could match a DNA base sequence by chopping the
DNA at random intervals (e.g. with restriction enzymes) - when you have the
correct piece - say GATACCA you can make mRNA from this which codes for a
polypeptide the cell can later secrete. Other cells could detect the presence
of this polypeptide/protein and know that you had chopped your DNA up
correctly. At this point they might take in the protein and combine it with
another molecule creating a chain of polypeptides sort of like the bitcoin
blockchain.

Somehow the protein needs to represent transaction data, perhaps encoded in
the amino acid sequence but apart from that this could kinda work like
bitcoin.

I hope I explained that well enough.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_of_work> [2]
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashcash>

