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Re:One Bitcoin miner is buying 20,000 16nm wafers from TSMC ... by cortic on Monday January 22, 2018 @05:20PM (#16208549)
I think you are looking at it wrong; its like saying a bank teller or stockbroker or even a cash machine has no 'useful industrial application'. They are necessary for the currency to work, and they must be paid to do a job. I suspect paying a cryptocurrency miner their 'fee' is a lot cheaper (per transaction).
Re:One Bitcoin miner is buying 20,000 16nm wafers from TSMC ... by bb88 on Monday January 22, 2018 @11:46PM (#16211070)
There's a non-zero cost with making stock trades, keeping money secure, and transporting money into an ATM machine.

There is a practical (as close as we can get) non-zero cost for moving bits around the internet. It seems like there should be a similar mechanism for building trust in the blockchain.