3
4

"Bigger than the 500 largest supercomputers" ... to process 144 blocks a day? (self.Buttcoin)

shortbitcoin が 投稿

I don't know how accurate it is, but I've heard that the bitcoin network has more computing power than the 500 largest supercomputers on earth.

Then I was thinking that in terms about blocks, which take about 10 minutes each, so that works out to ~144 blocks per day. 500 supercomputers to solve 144 blocks.

That means it would take one of these "largest supercomputers" about 3.4 days of nonstop processing to process one block. To give you an appreciation of the magnitude of that, if you need to rent a supercomputer you'll end up paying thousands of dollars per hour.

Question: how can anybody in their right mind defend a system so flagrantly inefficient?

全 10 件のコメント
並べ替え:
ベスト
トップ新着論争中古い順Q&A

[–]jstolfi 5ポイント6ポイント  (2子コメント)

how can anybody in their right mind defend a system so flagrantly inefficient?

Hear it explained by Antonopoulos 2.0TM

[–]shortbitcoin[S] 0ポイント1ポイント  (1子コメント)

Great link (I probably watched far more than you intended) — and it underscores my point. He brags about how much computing power it consumes, as if that's a good thing.

[–]Slayer706 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

More computing power means it's harder to manipulate. If there were only a few nodes, doing a 51% attack would be easy and inexpensive. All of that computing power is required to make the network secure. And the more computing power that's added, the more secure it gets from that type of attack.

So if you're an anarchist/libertarian bitcoiner who doesn't give a shit about the environment or waste, it is a good thing that the bitcoin network has so much computing power behind it.

[–]ButtcoinLongForm 3ポイント4ポイント  (0子コメント)

They might technically be right but they're also omitting the most important point by far which is that the Bitcoin network is capable of doing one thing and one thing only:

y = SHA256(SHA256(x))

This is literally the only function their shitty network can process. This algorithm is fucking worthless to anyone but (maybe) a password cracker. It is in no way even close to a general purpose computer like everyone associate with modern computing.

[–]GoxPopuli 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

144 blocks a day ought to be enough for anybody.

[–]theskepticalheretic 0ポイント1ポイント  (4子コメント)

how can anybody in their right mind defend a system so flagrantly inefficient?

Ideological imperative. To be more precise, the users of bitcoin view the inefficiencies in a few ways:

  • It's new so it'll get better over time

or

  • The inefficiency is worth the cost to have a decentralized currency over the existing centralized systems.

One could argue that the efficiency would get better, but that's kind of silly considering cryptography is a somewhat known element in terms of processing costs for output. The decentralization argument looks pretty dumb considering all the centralized exchanges the community depends on.

[–]dyzo-blue 0ポイント1ポイント  (3子コメント)

It's new so it'll get better over time

I don't think that's how it works. My understanding is that the difficulties change based on the miners, so if all the big miners stopped mining, the difficulty would drop so home users could mine again, but if they all buy new machines, the difficulty increases.

Basically the inefficiency is not going to get better over time. Bitcoin is literally designed to maintain its inefficiency forever.

[–]theskepticalheretic 0ポイント1ポイント  (2子コメント)

You should read my whole post.

[–]dyzo-blue 0ポイント1ポイント  (1子コメント)

Or learn what "cryptography is a somewhat known element in terms of processing costs for output" means. But I'm probably not going to do that.

[–]theskepticalheretic 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Well, the quick explanation is such: it's a fixed formula of X amount of work provides result Y. There's no way to make an efficiency gain considering what they're doing.