Crypto mining
- Thread starter LabR@t
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Caporegime
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Money, like almost everything in the world.
I get that bit, but what is the computing power used for, what it the final outcome of all that power?
Maintenance of the Blockchain.
Which is/enables what outcome
Soldato
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Bigger profits for *cough* certain computer shops via shameful price gouging.
The block chain is what verifies and logs bitcoin transactions. Mining is the running of the system.
Though I don’t what that means for when all the bitcoins are mined and what the incentive to maintain the system is at that point.
Depends on the specific “coin”, it could be as simple recording transactions of the coin ie it’s used as an equivalent of money.
Well, at the very least it’ll be a technological advance in secure distributed data storage. Whether Bitcoin or any other coin becomes an accepted standard for use as actual financial transactions is a different matter.
it all goes wrong, the **** hits the fan and a lot of people end up feeling very stupid
Associate
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Money for nothing, as Dire Straits put it.
In a sense all modern money is symbolic, a pretence that people agree to follow. It's not assets and it's not really backed by assets. Cryptocurrency just takes that a step further by having it backed by nothing at all.
I remember when a bitcoin was "worth" a few pence and people were "mining" them with old laptops they had no use for. I wish I'd bothered, but at the time I thought it seemed like a silly fad.
Global thermonuclear war. The only winning move is not to mine.
In reality thats only a tiny part of it. The transactions could be processed far more easily. Ripple for example executes way more transactions with way (we are talking many orders of magnitude) less computing power.
99.9999% of it is just to make it hard to earn block rewards.
If that is the case, it's a disgusting waste of power and resources that could be used for good.
I suggest a crypto-tax to help repair the damage to the environment and the extra costs to non miners that these excessive energy loads they are running. Which surely must result in higher prices for us all?
Permabanned
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Its all about money, however not really profiteering. The "vision" of a lot of crypto's is to reduce or remove the cost of transactions. Potentially saving millions of pounds in fees.
Mining/trading is an off shoot really.
Mining/trading is an off shoot really.
Soldato
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It is not just a gimmick though, there some interesting aspects of crypto that can be applied to other things which would be game changers in the industry.
A few friends of mine are working on using something focusing on the decentralized aspect of crypto currencies, as well as how it validates the transactions and could keep track and confirm the legitimacy of the trade. Rather than use it in a digital currency, they are planning on using it to counter things such as counterfeiting, fraud as well as reselling. Imagine if ticket sales to events, concerts and such could not be better tracked and huge re-sellers stopped dead in their tracks, you could also stop counterfeiting and could validate and check your ticket. It also has application in ID/passports and not just to prevent fraud.
I don't know much about it, just snippets from what they have said when the topic strays that way when we go tot he pub. I know that it was just an idea a while ago and over the course of 2 years, they have come out with something impressive enough to attracted huge backers from a variety of industries which you simply would not expect to be interested.
A few friends of mine are working on using something focusing on the decentralized aspect of crypto currencies, as well as how it validates the transactions and could keep track and confirm the legitimacy of the trade. Rather than use it in a digital currency, they are planning on using it to counter things such as counterfeiting, fraud as well as reselling. Imagine if ticket sales to events, concerts and such could not be better tracked and huge re-sellers stopped dead in their tracks, you could also stop counterfeiting and could validate and check your ticket. It also has application in ID/passports and not just to prevent fraud.
I don't know much about it, just snippets from what they have said when the topic strays that way when we go tot he pub. I know that it was just an idea a while ago and over the course of 2 years, they have come out with something impressive enough to attracted huge backers from a variety of industries which you simply would not expect to be interested.