
Proof of work algorithm in Monero based on random code execution - maxfan8
https://github.com/tevador/RandomX
======
thesz
I did an analysis of this PoW at my line of work and I would say that it is
really complicated. Unnecessarily so, I have to add.

I also have a comment about ASIC resistance.

There are tools that allow to customize hardware upon programs it will
execute, [1] is an example of one such tool, there are some others.

[1] [http://openasip.org/tta.html](http://openasip.org/tta.html)

If you write a RandomX code generator and interpreter and customize the CPU
hardware using tools like one above you will get an optimized version of the
hardware. Take a look at [2] for a results of such codesign attempts for
Fourier transform. The optimization in energy efficiency can be as high as
100+ times over general purpose processors and on par and exceeding ASIC
implementation.

[2]
[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321700396_Codesign_...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321700396_Codesign_case_study_on_transport-
triggered_architectures)

One would duly note that RandomX employs floating point instructions in some
parts of hashing process. I will respond that floating point operations can be
expressed as operations on fixed point values and these hardware parts can
(and will) be shared with other computations. Basically, the codesign tool
will implement for you a split (FP)ALU. This will also increase energy
efficiency over GPU and general purpose CPUs which have different paths for FP
and integer computations and usually do not share ALU parts between these.

To comclude, first, RandomX is needlessly complicated. Second, I think that
ASIC version can be attained without writing everything in Verilog by hand,
you may stick with C reference implementation for most of the work. And, last
but not least, the gain in hashes per joule from ASIC implementation can be
much higher than 2-5 times over CPU or GPU.

~~~
deepnotderp
Comparing an FFT ASIC to a random code "ASIC" is.... well, just wrong.

~~~
hyc_symas
Yep. His comment completely misses the point, and everything he mentions about
codesign tools is irrelevant.

------
tromp
This PoW is rather complex and takes nontrivial amounts of time and memory to
verify. It accepts these downsides in an attempt to achieve "ASIC resistance",
which means limiting the potential efficiency gains of custom chips to a small
factor like 2x or 3x. This should make their design and manufacture
economically unattractive, with long ROI times. And thus allow commodity
hardware to remain competitive.

~~~
blasrodri
> And thus allow commodity hardware to remain competitive. This would make the
> system more robust, at the expense of increasing the power consumption. Is
> that correct? Doesn't seem really eco-friendly.

~~~
Nursie
Everything about proof-of-work systems is not eco-friendly, and involves
burning power 24/7, up to as much power as the produced cryptocurrency is
worth. This seems perverse in a world where we're trying to cut down on energy
use in almost every other area.

(no doubt someone will be along in a minute to tell me that cryptocurrency
mining somehow uses "spare" electricity and burning the same amount of power
as a mid-sized country isn't actually a problem at all!)

~~~
a1369209993
Nope! The[0] blockchain necessarily has use on the order of half the (non-
dedicated) power generation capability it's host civilization in order to
achieve proper security; otherwise the other half of said power could used to
mount a 51% attack. It's less in practice, both because it's not worth that
much to attack, and because it's not fully secure, but in theory, a Kardashev
3 civilization would need a Kardashev 2.97 or so energy expenditure to secure
it's blockchain.

0: and it _is_ a definite article, like the internet. There by definition
can't be more than one at any given time.

~~~
sparkie
PoW doesn't run on "power" in general, but on electricity. It can be trivial
to convert some forms of power into electricity, but not all. One particular
form of power which could seen as "wasteful" is that of burning fuels to
create heat. A mining chip is a 100% efficient electricity to heat converter.
If the cost of useful mining chips could become small enough, it would never
make sense to use a traditional burner for heating a space, but using mining
equipment would be preferable because you could recover some of the cost of
the energy used to heat the space in potential mining rewards.

This is the goal we should aim for: As we're approaching the upper limit of
Moore's Law, mining equipment will have a much longer lifetime and focus on
reducing the cost of production could turn households and other buildings into
data furnaces. It may not even be necessary for mining to be profitable - as
long as there is there is a large enough ROI for users of such data furnace to
cover its initial cost and eventually reduce their heating bill.

> 0: and it is a definite article, like the internet. There by definition
> can't be more than one at any given time.

Technically multiple chains can and do exist at any time because there is no
"given time" \- time is relative. Two miners at two ends of the earth may both
produce a valid block at a given time (say, in UTC), but the nodes in
proximity to them will receive their blocks at different times, due to
distance and the fundamental speed limit of information transmission. The
multiple chain conflict lasts until the next block is produced. Such conflicts
could last for multiple blocks in a row, but with a probability which rapidly
declines with number of blocks.

~~~
a1369209993
> Two miners at two ends of the earth may both produce a valid block at a
> given time

Er, no, I mean you can't have more than one (distinct) live blockchain
_standard_ ; eg if you have Bitcoin and Litecoin, one of them must be using
less than 50% of the available hashing capacity (because otherwise it would
add up to >100%), and therefore not be secure[0].

Good point about some power use having beneficial side effects (heating) in
addition to the actual work though.

0: because if it ever actually needed the security - was more valuable to
attack than the majority chain - then the miners on the majority chain would
have a economic incentive to attack the minority chain and gain more from
attacking than they lost from undefended attacks on the majority chain.

Obviously it's possible to have two blockchains in practice, just like it's
possible to have two internets in practice, but there's a constant pressure to
drain applications from the minority (quasi-)singleton into the majority
singleton until the minority goes defunct from lack of use.

~~~
lawn
This seems empirically false as for example Bitcoin Cash is gaining more
applications and usage compared to Bitcoin to a larger degree than it's 3%
hashrate would suggest.

There have even been reorg attempts that have been defended by miners that
support the minority chain, making it a bit more difficult to determine how
secure a chain really is.

------
lvs
We should reject PoW algorithms as generally destructive. When I say
destructive, I mean they cause more global harm than they purport to
alleviate.

PoW should have been set aside as soon as it was generally understood that the
network's energy consumption might be unbounded.

~~~
sparkie
> We should reject

Who is "we"?

You can't "set aside" something which a free market has chosen to accept. If
you're upset about PoW, invent a superior replacement which the market would
prefer over PoW.

However, I suspect you cannot. I'm doubtful that such thing can exist. Bitcoin
is now an essential commodity because there is no replacement for it when it
comes to saving money or evading warrantless (illegal) surveillance. The
central banks and governments around the world caused this, and they aren't
capable of reversing it.

~~~
david_draco
> Who is "we"?

Presumably society.

> You can't "set aside" something which a free market has chosen to accept.

We have set aside CFCs even though they were accepted by the free market. They
were harmful to the environment, creating the ozone hole.

Similarly, PoW mining has an enormous and well-documented ecological cost.

> If you're upset about PoW, invent a superior replacement which the market
> would prefer over PoW. > However, I suspect you cannot. I'm doubtful that
> such thing can exist.

PoS exist.

> Bitcoin is now an essential commodity because there is no replacement for it
> when it comes to saving money or evading warrantless (illegal) surveillance.

All transactions and account balances in Bitcoin are public. From meta data
and corresponding networks one can figure out where and who the people are
(NSA does this too). It is not very private at all.

> The central banks and governments around the world caused this, and they
> aren't capable of reversing it.

I doubt that it is a essential commodity and suspect you are overestimating
the economic importance of Bitcoin.

~~~
sparkie
> Presumably society.

Which society?

> We have set aside CFCs even though they were accepted by the free market.
> They were harmful to the environment, creating the ozone hole.

Some regulations can be enforced. It's going to be a different story
attempting to regulate something which can be hidden trivially with
encryption, has no physical presence, and can be stored in ones head to
prevent seizure.

> All transactions and account balances in Bitcoin are public. From meta data
> and corresponding networks one can figure out where and who the people are
> (NSA does this too). It is not very private at all.

This is true for plain use of Bitcoin, but there are ways of evading chain
analysis, and you can also swap out your Bitcoin for Monero for spending.

> I doubt that it is a essential commodity and suspect you are overestimating
> the economic importance of Bitcoin.

It may not be essential to you, but there are plenty who consider it so, and
these will only grow as people further distrust their governments and central
banks.

~~~
Nursie
> It's going to be a different story attempting to regulate something which
> can be hidden trivially with encryption

Regulate on/off ramps. Watch it wither on the vine. Job done.

~~~
sparkie
How does regulation work for illegal drugs, prostitution, or other black
markets, which can overall amount to double-digit percentages of economies?

Bitcoin only needs the black market to be a huge success. If it can avoid any
surveillance ramps, that is ideal. It doesn't need to be everywhere.

IMO, the surveillance on/off ramps are going to have a hard problem ahead of
them, of their own making. Black markets are only going to accept "cleaned"
bitcoins because they won't put themselves at risk of being surveilled. The
"cleaned" bitcoins will not be usable on AML exchanges. The "unclean" bitcoin
can be cleaned through CoinJoins and such, at the risk of whoever obtained
them in their unclean state, but once cleaned, they'll be back on the black
markets.

Trading fiat currencies for Bitcoin will happen mainly in person, with cash,
to avoid the surveillance.

You will be able to tell, to an extent, whether bitcoin are clean or unclean
through their transaction history - a clean coin will be one which originates
as the output of a CoinJoin. All transactions on the black markets will be a
CoinJoin of some kind.

For most purposes, this won't matter because the majority of trade will be
conducted over the Lightning Network, which has sender anonymity, and will
very likely get receiver anonymity in the near future. Node operators can use
Tor to avoid being surveilled - and the transport protocol used is fully end-
to-end encrypted and authenticated.

Since the majority of trade will be happening on the black markets, exchanges
which built their castles in KYC land will eventually fail. Nobody will care
for "unclean" bitcoin if they are too heavily regulated. There will probably
be a premium on clean bitcoin due to the risk involved in anybody who decides
to wash unclean bitcoin.

Savers will not care if they have to resort to black markets to protect their
wealth from theft or seizure. As long as they can find some local black market
vendors who'll trade them for some other goods or fiat cash.

For governments to attempt to stamp out the black markets, the solution
involved will be much worse than anything you could imagine being caused by
Bitcoin - complete totalitarianism is the only way it could be enforced, and
your open internet will be finished long before then. Careful what you wish
for.

~~~
Nursie
> How does regulation work for illegal drugs, prostitution, or other black
> markets, which can overall amount to double-digit percentages of economies?

Very few people want bitcoin for itself, most are in it purely to get rich
through speculation, and even those who use it to transact will find it less
attractive if it can't easily be converted.

Your Heath-Robinson process of money laundering there is hilarious, and reads
like a how-to for lengthy jail terms.

~~~
sparkie
> Very few people want bitcoin for itself, most are in it purely to get rich
> through speculation, and even those who use it to transact will find it less
> attractive if it can't easily be converted.

From an outside perspective, it might seem that way. There is a plentiful, and
growing crowd who understand Bitcoin as a means of saving and avoiding state
interference in their finances. Conversion of fiat to Bitcoin is highly
desirable because people want to save over long periods. The conversion of
Bitcoin back to Fiat is less desirable because it is trading good money for
bad money. People only do the latter when they have a liquidity crisis. The
bulk of bitcoin users are HODLers, as can be seen through the UTXO ages on the
blockchain. Market speculators are a minor subset of bitcoiners.

> Your Heath-Robinson process of money laundering there is hilarious, and
> reads like a how-to for lengthy jail terms.

I wasn't talking about money laundering at all. What are you reading? Not sure
you know what money laundering means. I'm referring to people taking their
legitimate earnings and storing them in Bitcoin for the purpose of avoiding
devaulation by inflation and illegal surveillance without warrant.

People pay their income taxes when they earn (Usually with no choice because
it will be deducted fromn their wage via a PAYE scheme). They also pay their
sales taxes when the purchase any items from outside of the black markets. The
Bitcoin saver who merely interacts with this black market as a means of
exchanging fiat money for bitcoin is not engaging in illegal activity. It is
the black market vendors who provide the services who are.

Consider this: You go to a shop and purchase an item which costs $0.99 (inc.
sales tax). The owner of that shop decides to pocket the sales tax and does
not pass it on to the tax authority. Have you engaged in illegal activity by
purchasing this item? It has nothing to do with you whether the shop owner
pays his sales tax - you paid yours.

Ok, it might be possible to dodge sales taxes by purchasing within black
markets, but the black market doesn't necessarily provide all the commodities
one would want. The most common use case will be converting back to fiat cash
to use at local stores, where every purchase has a sales tax.

If money laundering is a concern, then a government would really want to
deregulate bitcoin and encourage its use in paying taxes. By utilizing the
blockchain and its auditability, they could largely automate the process of
tax collection and save significant amounts of money. People will still be
paying their income taxes via PAYE, but the process can be fully automated by
every participant involved (employer, employee and tax authority).

By attempting to overregulate, they push most of the activity underground,
where they are no longer collecting sales taxes on the transactions.

~~~
Nursie
> I wasn't talking about money laundering at all.

All that stuff about clean coins, joins and mixers. Money laundering.

> The bulk of bitcoin users are HODLers

Who are doing so because they expect the price in fiat to go up, so regulating
on/off ramps would likely kill that.

~~~
sparkie
> All that stuff about clean coins, joins and mixers. Money laundering.

The use of a CoinJoin does not imply money laundering. Launderers can and do
use these tools. Merely using the tool does not make you a launderer. If you
are suspected of laundering, you can prove your money movements to a law
enforcement body which offers a warrant to search them. This is how things
should be. Innocent until proven guilty.

CoinJoins are necessary to evade _warrantless_ surveillance, because
transactions on the blockchain can be linked to your person when the state
obtains parts of that information from KYC exchanges. Since you have a right
to secure against unreasonable searches, you have a right to thwart these
efforts to illegally monitor your financial activity.

> Who are doing so because they expect the price in fiat to go up, so
> regulating on/off ramps would likely kill that.

They expect the price to go up because they understand the subjective value of
commodities, Gresham's law, and human self-interest. It has nothing to do with
regulation. Bitcoin will grow with or without state involvement because it
solves real problems that governments and others have created. More people are
becoming aware of this, and Bitcoin has propelled some of the issues into the
spotlight. The role of the state could slow down or accelerate Bitcoin
adoption, but it cannot stop the inevitable - particularly when their own
policy of infinite inflation is the major driver of Bitcoin adoption.

As said above, a government would be unwise to attempt to push the activity
underground, where they can no longer monitor and collect taxes on it. If the
regulatory burden on exchanges ends up making it more difficult for me to
obtain bitcoin through a KYC exchange than via the black market, then I will
end up doing the latter, and by doing the latter, I might then potentially
increase my interaction with the black market (reduced sales tax), hide my
earnings (less income tax), hide my profits (less capital gains tax), hide my
wealth (bye bye inheritance tax). Isn't going well for the government, who
will see a reduced tax income.

The government just wants people to pay taxes. It shouldn't really care much
about whether people are using dollars or bitcoin - only that Bitcoin can
potentially make it easier for people to dodge tax. The best option for a
government is to make it easier to use bitcoin for legitimate services than
the black market so as to discourage black market involvement.

A government should be working on ways for it to utilize Bitcoin for the
purpose of tax collection, and then encourage its widespread use in retail and
in PAYE, such that it can have an almost live view of the economy and can see
who is paying their taxes. Any delays in mobilizing such systems will ensure
that superior, more privacy preserving systems will instead be adopted, and
will give limited benefits to the government.

~~~
Nursie
> The use of a CoinJoin does not imply money laundering.

Cleaning coins and obscuring their origins between black market and AML
compliant exchanges does though. You described a great way to get jail time.

> you have a right to thwart these efforts to illegally monitor your financial
> activity.

Good luck with that, but it seems that you actually don't, nearly every
country now has a variety of monetary controls and monitors flows of cash with
a warrant or otherwise. Merely disguising money flows is often enough to get
you investigated. See also things like "structuring", a crime involving moving
money in such a way as to avoid checks, which is illegal even if no other
crime is committed.

The rest of your post is just more nonsense. If people found they couldn't
exchange cryptocurrencies for fiat, HODL would be a thing of the past, and
black market uses would also drop because people don't want bitcoin for
itself. BTC is dead without conversion being available.

~~~
sparkie
There is nothing illegal about keeping your own money private, and requiring
that a lawful warrant be issued for you to reveal your full financial
activity. The warrant must also be issued with probable cause. It's
questionable whether merely using a CoinJoin is probable cause - and given how
prolific CoinJoins will be for perfectly legal uses, I can see many
magistrates requiring more than just a CoinJoin to issue warrants. Different
jurisdictions may have a different opinion, and will see their economies
suffer as a result.

In the USA, you are protected from government overreach of your possessions by
the fourth amendment. Some places have already declared bitcoin to be
property.

> The rest of your post is just more nonsense. If people found they couldn't
> exchange cryptocurrencies for fiat, HODL would be a thing of the past, and
> black market uses would also drop because people don't want bitcoin for
> itself. BTC is dead without conversion being available.

If you have no background in Austrian economics it may sound like nonsense.
Mainstream economics thinks that economies are influenced top-down. The
outside perspective ignores that the majority of hodlers have a very low time
preference and treat Bitcoin as a long term saving, perhaps even a pension
strategy. No early adopters ever expected Bitcoin to grow as rapidly as it
did, but many held on anyway. They don't intend to convert back to fiat
because they have a firm belief that they won't need to - enough people will
desire Bitcoin in the long run that they won't have much trouble acquiring
services or goods in exchange for Bitcoin in future, and their purchasing
power may be increased too. (So far, has increased beyond their wildest
imagination, before governments have even decided what they want to classify
it as. Regulation never had anything to do with it.)

Your belief that Bitcoiners can't wait to convert back to dollars is absurd.
If you take a look at the value of a dollar relative to Bitcoin[1], then it's
quite clear that HODLers aren't merely investing in bitcoin, they're divesting
in dollars. Bitcoin is the escape route from a failing fiat system, and some
are just ahead of the curve.

While there is a market for exchange, the market will be filled, whether it is
KYC exchanges or black markets. People will mostly chose the one which is
cheapest, which is currently the KYC exchanges. Increased red tape will
increase the costs of exchange, and the black market will fill the gap.

[1]:[https://i.imgur.com/GgPNbyx.png](https://i.imgur.com/GgPNbyx.png)

~~~
Nursie
In the USA you are under _constant_ financial scrutiny, and yes, subject to
enforcement on things like structuring. You're a fool if you think otherwise

I am familiar with Austrian economics. It's widely regarded as bullshit, and
its adherents generally immature financial larpers with bizarre, extreme views
like "inflation is theft".

------
cryptica
Someone should make a PoW algorithm based on useful things like game theory;
for example a chess bot competing against other chess bots, the top winner
forges the block and gets the rewards. This is still not extremely useful, but
better than just hashing useless strings.

Ideally, PoW algorithms should be focused on real science and/or economic
problems.

~~~
kolinko
There is already a PoW that helps with protein folding.

As for „should” - you may not be aware of this, but telling someone they
„should” do something if you don’t plan to help is a bit offensive.

~~~
cryptica
>> but telling someone they „should” do something if you don’t plan to help is
a bit offensive.

I disagree with this very strongly. How is sharing good ideas offensive?

Even if some people already knew about this, not everyone did and sharing
these ideas could only help society.

That would be like telling Elon Musk to shut up when he came up with the idea
for the Hyperloop but didn't implement himself... Elon just didn't have the
time.

I'm no Elon but I also don't have the time because I'm working on a DEX which
I think is a better use of my skills. The fact that I'm no Elon gives me even
more incentive to share my ideas.

I don't have many followers, so if I implement my idea, nobody will use it (no
matter how good it is); I won't be able to generate enough hype. On the other
hand, if some rich person from HN sees my idea and implements it, then it will
be more likely to succeed (just because of network effects). I can contribute
more to society by giving my idea to someone else than implementing it myself.

You severely underestimate the power of network effects and capital.

I don't have much capital so even the best ideas in my own hands are
essentially worthless. If I implement it, even if it's very good and the best
of its kind, I guarantee almost 100% that nobody will be interested in it.
Nobody will accept that it's the best of its kind. The media ignore it,
companies will not encourage their employees to discus it with each other,
etc...

------
polytely
Total sidenote but someone should start a cryptocurrency that is proof of
Storage-space(does that exist?), where you have to allocate space to mirror
the content of the Internet Archive. Is there a way that could work? (I know
almost nothing about cryptocurrency)

~~~
chemmail
There are a ton of them. THey don't pay enough for people to take seriously
though. Amazon does it way better right now.

~~~
Lewton
There's a ton of filecoins mirroring the internet archive?

------
hasa
Proof of work is anyway bad idea (work for nothing), unless the work is
something useful.

~~~
sparkie
The work is useful. It randomly selects a participant out of potentially
billions or more to commit the next block, but _only_ the next block, and no
others to the blockchain. This ensures the chain remains fair because any
potentially malicious actor cannot sustain an attack involving malicious
blocks for long - it costs them too much electricity.

There is no known alternative system which is capable of randomly selecting a
participant out of the entire pool of participants. Every other "solution"
works by limiting the participation, because it is impossible for a network
wide agreement at this scale to be done (would require every node
communicating with every other node in the network and having a unanimous
agreement on who has the legitimate authority to commit the next block).

Any system which doesn't require work to be done to prove that the correct
participant was selected is vulnerable to Sybil attacks, where people control
more network nodes in attempt to gain more leverage over others. The idea of
staking some money doesn't fix this either, because proof-of-stake has the
"nothing at stake" problem where stakers aren't actually spending money
because they're guaranteed to get it back for being honest. Running many nodes
is also fairly cheap and has the "not much at stake" problem. Only proof-of-
work has the "much at stake" problem because the irreversible spending of
money on electricity happens prior to any reward which may be received, like a
lottery.

You might consider Bitcoin as a whole to be a bad idea. However, with recent
"printing" in the tune of trillions of dollars, and with Bitcoin providing an
inviolable fix for inflation, I think it might just be worth the effort - at
least for anybody sensible who wants to save money for the future.

In terms of Monero, which doesn't fix inflation, it is useful for evading
unwarranted financial surveillance. I suspect this will be fine for some time
to come, but there will be eventually be enough privacy features on Bitcoin to
make it unnecessary. For now: save in Bitcoin, spend in Monero.

~~~
Nursie
The work is useful _only in the context of it being useful to preserve and
propagate the distributed, trustless consensus_. If you don't give a crap
about distributed consensus, it's not useful.

>> However, with recent "printing" in the tune of trillions of dollars, and
with Bitcoin providing an inviolable fix for inflation

The "printing" of money is a useful feature of national currencies, which can
temporarily support an economy in peril, or be used to keep currency values
approximately stable. I wouldn't want to be in a country where currency was
like Bitcoin, it is deliberately less useful.

By the way, your cryptocurrency ecosystem also appears to have a money
printer, in the form of Tether, which is run purely for the benefit of its
owners. But sure, that's far better!

>> I think it might just be worth the effort - at least for anybody sensible
who wants to save money for the future.

If you have enough money that a small amount of inflation is going to affect
you, you don't keep it in cash, you invest. That's not what money is for.

~~~
sparkie
> The work is useful only in the context of it being useful to preserve and
> propagate the distributed, trustless consensus. If you don't give a crap
> about distributed consensus, it's not useful.

So you don't care about Bitcoin, but you want to leech of the electricity
being used to secure it in order to perform something which _you_ think is
useful? Right.

> The "printing" of money is a useful feature of national currencies

Theft is never a useful feature. There is always a loser. Money printing is
theft - it is stealing wealth from those who have money saved, those who earn
low wages, and those who own property. The beneficiaries of the printed money
are those who first receive it - the government, the banks, the corporations
who take loans from those banks. It increases wealth inequality. All of this
is achieved without democratic consent - taxation without representation.
Truly evil.

> which can temporarily support an economy in peril

The economy is in peril because nobody has credit, only debt. Bitcoin is
credit. If you are sensible and accumulate credit, you don't need to bailed
out when the unexpected inevitably occurs. The ability of your
government/central bank to print money is what created their failure to begin
with. If they had credit, they wouldn't need to print. The printing begets
more printing. It can only go one way, which is for the printing to keep
accelerating until it can no longer be sustained and hyperinflation makes the
currency worthless.

They could attempt to reverse the process by reducing the currency supply
during prosperous times, but you won't see it, because the people involved
have self-interest and super high time preferences and are not able to think
in the long term. Printing money is truly kicking the can down the road - an
experiment which will end in disaster.

> or be used to keep currency values approximately stable

There is absolutely nothing "stable" about the dollar. Bitcoin is absolutely
stable because 1BTC=1BTC, regardless of time and place. Its value relative to
other commodities has more or less consistently increased over its 11 year
lifetime. The value of the dollar is always changing. In its short 49 year
lifetime, it has consistently lost value relative to other commodities. The
value of other commodities changes in response to devaluation of the dollar.
The trick you've fell for is to believe that they're adjusting the quantity of
dollars to account for changes in other commodities - the reversal of cause
and effect.

> By the way, your cryptocurrency ecosystem also appears to have a money
> printer, in the form of Tether, which is run purely for the benefit of its
> owners. But sure, that's far better!

Who is "your"? Cryptocurrency means nothing to me - I've called out these
scams as much as anyone. Only Bitcoin matters. Tether has nothing to do with
Bitcoin. It has something to do with companies which trade with Bitcoin and no
more. Bitcoin is much bigger than any of these transient schemes which attempt
to attach themselves to its brand. Bitcoin will survive all of these attempts
to weaken it and these schemes will all be forgotten about.

> If you have enough money that a small amount of inflation is going to affect
> you, you don't keep it in cash, you invest.

Inflation affects everyone, whether it is a small or large amount. You still
lose a proportional amount of purchasing power. You might argue that people
with smaller amounts of money are harder hit that those with lots of money,
because they don't have as large safety net if unexpected circumstances arise.
Additionally, low earners do not see their wages increase in tandem with the
inflation - it usually lags, reducing their purchasing power over time.

Also, "investing" is increased risk taking, where saving is intended to be a
low risk method of retaining purchasing power over time. Low earners often
cannot afford to take these risks, especially when their limited options for
investing are markets full of fraudsters, and whose potential returns are
still highly dependent on the monetary policy of the central bank.

Keeping earnings in cash is not an option for dollars, but it is for Bitcoin.
This is the game changer. People are now able to make long term savings
without making risky investments. They can ensure that they have a safety net
for unexpected circumstances, and then better plan for the future.

> That's not what money is for.

The value of all commodities is subjective. Money is merely one kind of
commodity. Its use is whatever the owner wishes it to be used for. Saving
(accumulating capital) is a perfectly good use case for sound money.

~~~
Nursie
> So you don't care about Bitcoin, but you want to leech of the electricity
> being used to secure it in order to perform something which you think is
> useful? Right.

No, I want the world's energy and carbon footprint to reduce, rather than have
people with a decentralisation fetish invent new ways to incentivise
thrashing.

> Theft is never a useful feature. There is always a loser. Money printing is
> theft

Yeah never mind, you're clearly very deep down this particular rabbit hole and
nothing anyone says is going to change that. Best of luck, but I'm glad your
views aren't all that prevalent.

> Tether has nothing to do with Bitcoin

Tether has everything to do with the bitcoin markets and the price of bitcoin,
which is the only thing basically anyone is interested in.

~~~
gingeropolous
> No, I want the world's energy and carbon footprint to reduce, rather than
> have people with a decentralisation fetish invent new ways to incentivise
> thrashing.

Then any way to dismantle the existing consume-everything-to-make-a-profit
economy, which is caused by archaic and inefficient monetary systems, should
be good, right?

How much energy is wasted / burned because of our existing monetary policies?

cryptocurrency PoW is bajillions times more efficient than, i dunno, exerting
currency dominance by shows of military power or shipping goods all over the
world because its "cheaper" to make things here and sell things there.

~~~
Nursie
> Then any way to dismantle the existing

 _any_ way? No, and particulary one that, for instance, encourages
competitive.burning of power for profit and uses the power demands of a small
country to service the transactional needs of a town.

>How much energy is wasted / burned because of our existing monetary policies?

Probably quite a lot. But then they do so much more than cryptocurrency can,
so the comparison is nonsense.

"bajillions" being code for "I have no idea at all" renders your argument at
the end there pretty moot.

------
elcritch
Does this enable using PoW to run something like Ethereum VM/contracts?

~~~
xiphias2
The security of proof of work algorithm depends on the execution not having an
economical value (and actually cost a mostly fixed amount of work).

~~~
elcritch
Good point. Does that consider that case where the economic value of running
the PoW is part of the network itself, as say running an Ethereum app? For the
miners the PoW wouldn't be valuable, but instead of burning computation time
the byproduct could be useful part of the network.

~~~
xiphias2
With Ethereum contracts the cost of validation is expensive, and for proof of
work you need a function that is expensive to run, but cheap to verify (the
inverse of SHA-256 is such a function).

The main concern against proof of stake is what you just described actually:
it doesn't cost money to create, but as the value of staking is part of the
cryptocurrency, a malicious party could get and stake of a lot of that
cryptocurrency, create a leveraged short contract to protect itself, then
reverse the transaction.

Another example would be using protein folding for cancer research for
example, which sounds a noble cause, but it creates an incentive for drug
companies to be miners, and could lead to even bigger centralization of mining
than what is already happening.

