Bitcoin mining efficiency and Botnets

Eugen Leitl eugen at leitl.org
Tue Oct 15 07:21:36 PDT 2013


On Tue, Oct 15, 2013 at 02:30:22PM +0100, Cathal Garvey wrote:
> > Moore is dead, long live Moore (in 3d volume integration
> > of molecular components, coming in a couple decades).
> 
> Well, I'm no singulatarian, but I do think it's naive to expect
> something as complex and immutable as a block-chain based currency of
> *any design* to last longer than a decade (or even half that) these

Never mentioned Bitcoin, and I would agree in principle.
Due to network effect and apparent good design Bitcoin may
last a lot longer than its detractors like to think, but 
it will fall, eventually. 

> days, before needing replacement. What you should aim for is relative
> stability in that term, not the "long term", so that you can transition
> gently to updated 'coins as they emerge to tackle new technology.
> 
> Thankfully we do generally get good advance notice of new technologies.
> We know that there's progress in Quantum, but we know its not there

I disagree there's palpable progress in QC inasmuch practical
computing is concerned, at least in the open literature.

> yet. We know there are proof of concept DNA computers, but for now

DNA computers basically don't work.

> there's no conceivable architecture for a general-purpose DNA computer;
> each must be built for the mathematical task to hand (although that
> doesn't rule out a mental genius creating a sha256-hashing DNA computer
> and brute-forcing through nigh-infinite parallelism).

You're sampling conformation space of a linear molecule with
lots of viscous drag. There is very little infinity in that.
 
> So; design your coins to last as long as they're likely to last. Don't
> expect or desire them to outlast that. Given the leverage a currency
> has on an economy, you could even regard a new 'coin as a "budget plan"
> for the next few years, though god help you if you get it wrong. :)



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