On 04/10/2018 01:11 PM, Matthew Miller wrote: > On Tue, Apr 10, 2018 at 01:03:18PM -0700, Rick Stevens wrote: >> I've never understood the underlying concept of bitcoin/xmr/whatever >> mining. Currency (money) is usually tied, ultimately, to some physical >> thing. This just seems nebulous. Are they using our systems to come up >> with better cryptography? I just don't get it. > > The basic idea of cryptocurrency is that instead of "some physical > thing", they are tied to a different limited resource: compute time. > Hence, the "mining". Yes, I get that, but what is being "created"? What are the providers of the mining algorithms trying to accomplish by bribing us with cryptocurrency to use our machines? With the SETI project, there was a stated goal there (use the spare CPU cycles to help decipher the radio signals we've gotten, looking for a possible ET transmission). Cryptocurrency doesn't seem to have such a stated goal (or I just missed it). Like I said, I just don't get it and I'm a bit skeptical about possibly helping someone do something evil. But that's just me. I don't mean this thread to devolve into a cryptocurrency pro-vs-anti thing. I was just stating my position. I don't and won't do mining. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- - Rick Stevens, Systems Engineer, AllDigital ricks@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx - - AIM/Skype: therps2 ICQ: 22643734 Yahoo: origrps2 - - - - If Windows isn't a virus, then it sure as hell is a carrier! - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ users mailing list -- users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe send an email to users-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
