Monday, June 27, 2011

Is Bitcoin mining wasting energy

Now this would make an awesome Bitcoin Mining Rig!
(Its actually just a nice looking steampunk case mod.)
In my view the Bitcoin mining system as it is now is a waste of time and energy, and also opens the system up to the exploitation of computer networks for monetary gain by criminals or other rouge individuals within an organisation. One way to address this would be to create a distributed computing style screen saver such as Folding@home which will perform the required computations on under-utilized computers, thereby not wasting any electricity in doing so. Also, the Bitcoins that get mined could be donated to a recognized charity. There’s already a project underway to donate mined Bitcoins to a list of Bitcoin-accepting charities. This way, people can be donating their computer  towards both securing the new currency and also giving a monetary donation. I’m sure this would have another added benefit of removing existing negative feelings towards Bitcoin mining and Bitcoin in general.

An actual Bitcoin mining rig, complete with liquid cooling.
This features 4 Radeon HD5870 cards, details here.
Further Reading:

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