

Automatizing rewards for solving hard problems with Bitcoin - infruset
http://blogchain.fr/programmarket-en/

======
kolinko
As for "M of N oracles running a public code" mentioned in the article -
Orisi.org offers a framework for that.

As for using blockchain directly for contract - there are a few addresses that
have funds locked for the first person to find collisions in sha1, sha256 and
others:
[https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=293382.0](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=293382.0)

Finally, there's (or "there will be") Ethereum which seems best for preparing
contracts that require no external inputs. Solving hard problems usually
requires no such inputs.

~~~
infruset
Thank you very much for the references!

As for Ethereum, I know that it is the goal, certainly the fact that it is
Turing-complete argues in favor of this usecase. However, how practical and
efficient is it, as in what kind of slowdown in the execution would you get on
the blockchain?

~~~
rwallace
Even if it's orders of magnitude slower, that should be okay, because you're
not going to be using it for the hard job of finding a solution, only for the
easy job of verifying the solution once found. (I don't know much about
Ethereum, so I don't know whether it has any arbitrary limits that would be a
problem, but it _should_ be okay.)

~~~
infruset
Well, suppose what you want to check is a proof of the Riemann conjecture in
Coq, this might take some substantial time. So whether it is fast could be
relevant.

