Infrastructure bill cryptocurrency surveillance provision is a privacy disaster

Re:Infrastructure bill cryptocurrency surveillance provision... by robot_no_419 on Tuesday August 03, 2021 @12:45PM (#28051312)

You come off as rather disingenuous in your way of conversation; pretending on one hand that you don't really know that much or have an opinion but in reality, it's something you've done a considerable amount of research in and have a strong opinion on. It's almost like you're a honeypot encouraging people to argue with you. It screams bad faith discussion and I just don't like it. Be honest in who you are, what you know, and what you stand for.

PS: There would be no BTC-based IMF, just like there's no gold-based IMF. That's literally the whole point of Bitcoin - decentralized finance with no need for an International Monetary Fund regulating its monetary policy.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Infrastructure bill cryptocurrency surveillance provision... by henearkr on Tuesday August 03, 2021 @01:00PM (#28051509)

You misunderstand.

What I honestly don't know is if there exist useful algorithms making usage of all these hashes produced by BTC-mining machines.

It's a very precise challenge. And it could change the face of the industry. I'm for real.

For example, any possible usage in mathematics? Or maybe in physics, by switching in a different space to perform the calculations? I'm just throwing ideas.

Figure a world where you cannot use these machines for BTC anymore, because "regulations". Then, what do you do with them? Throw them? What a waste!

Now you understand my point?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Infrastructure bill cryptocurrency surveillance provision... by robot_no_419 on Tuesday August 03, 2021 @01:11PM (#28051657)

I'd say that the cryptography and computer science field as a whole have tremendously benefitted from cryptocurrency indirectly. It has led to numerous new cryptographic protocols that are being used outside of blockchain. POW is an effective tool being used by websites to fight DDOS attacks and spam. Zero knowledge proofs that were originally designed for Proof of stake are being used for credit cards. Internet security is being reworked from scratch to address the many security issues that blockchain has uncovered.

It's been hugely beneficial for science from a theoretical and academic POV. Just like space exploration has no obvious benefits but fertilizes the field of engineering with new technology, cryptocurrency is currently doing the same to Computer Science.

And E-waste is a huge problem in general, it's not specific to bitcoin. Online gaming with powerful GPUs has zero benefit to society and also generates lots of useless energy consumption and e-waste. Why don't we brick all of the playstations instead of a whole financial ecosystem?

[ Parent | on HN ]