Jack Dorsey Says Square May Build Open-Source Bitcoin Mining System (independent.co.uk) 31
Square CEO Jack Dorsey says the company is starting a "deep technical investigation" to create an open-source Bitcoin mining system. It comes as the price of Bitcoin passed $62,000 while threatening to pass the all-time high of $65,000. The Independent reports: Mr Dorsey said Bitcoin mining isn't currently accessible to everyone, but it should be as easy as plugging into a power source. "Silicon design is too concentrated into a few companies. This means supply is likely overly constrained. Silicon development is very expensive, requires long term investment, and is best coupled tightly with software and system design," Mr Dorsey said in a tweet. "If we do this, we'd follow our hardware wallet model: build in the open in collaboration with the community," he added.
The company's hardware lead building the wallet, Jesse Dorogusker, is also starting the technical investigation required to take on the mining project, Mr Dorsey said. While announcing Square is considering getting into the mining business, Mr Dorsey said the process needs to be more energy-efficient and more distributed. "The core job of a miner is to securely settle transactions without the need for trusted 3rd parties. This is critical well after the last bitcoin is mined. The more decentralized this is, the more resilient the Bitcoin network becomes," he said. "There isn't enough incentive today for individuals to overcome the complexity of running a miner for themselves," he added.
The company's hardware lead building the wallet, Jesse Dorogusker, is also starting the technical investigation required to take on the mining project, Mr Dorsey said. While announcing Square is considering getting into the mining business, Mr Dorsey said the process needs to be more energy-efficient and more distributed. "The core job of a miner is to securely settle transactions without the need for trusted 3rd parties. This is critical well after the last bitcoin is mined. The more decentralized this is, the more resilient the Bitcoin network becomes," he said. "There isn't enough incentive today for individuals to overcome the complexity of running a miner for themselves," he added.
Improvement or control? (Score:1, Insightful)
How could this be fundamentally more performant than the already customized ASIC machines?
Bitcoin mining is evil, (Score:2, Insightful)
fuck you for making it easier.
Re:Bitcoin mining is evil, (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Bitcoin mining is evil, (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Of course it is evil. It is harmful and stupid.
Re:Bitcoin mining is evil, (Score:5, Insightful)
...reducing the power of the world governments by weakening their nasty fiat currencies, and bestowing access to true private property rights to people across the globe.
Bitcoin: weakening society, one empowered criminal at a time.
Re: (Score:2)
Bitcoin: weakening society, one empowered criminal at a time.
That is literally the weakest indictment against it. Look at this whole Joe Manchin Coal Profit thing, where he's torpedoing the future of... well the planet, really, to protect his massive coal profits. THAT is "weakening society one empowered criminal at a time".
Re: (Score:2)
I hope that the delegates at the upcoming Cop 26 [ukcop26.org] conference issue a message that lambasts Dorsey for contributing to worldwide fires & floods. Even better make Bitcoin mining illegal.
Eventually this affects us all, even if rich bastards like Dorsey can mitigate personal problems for longer than others.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Agree, has this complete fuckwit (Dorsey) not noticed the extremely negative environmental consequences of pointlessly creating hardware and burning insane amounts of energy just so that speculators, gamblers and criminals can have a shitty transaction system that is slow and has a high transaction cost.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Isn't the issue the pools? (Score:4, Insightful)
The more decentralized this is, the more resilient the Bitcoin network becomes
While it's a good idea for the integrity of the blockchain to decentralize mining, the issue seems to be the consolidation of miners into mining pools. Sure, more easily obtainable and affordable mining rigs would be nice, but as an individual or small actor, it isn't practical to compete for blocks. The only practical way to complete for blocks (and to receive the related rewards), is to join a mining pool. There are only a small number of competitive mining pools, and when any one of these pools approaches a majority of the mining (total hash rate), the integrity of bitcoin becomes at risk. I couldn't read the paywalled article, but unless there is a proposal to generate more independent mining pools that are competitive, creating new mining hardware isn't going to really make bitcoin any more "distributed" or "resilient". Inexpensive or more freely available mining equipment may allow more people to participate and receive rewards, but it won't make the bitcoin ecosystem any better.
Please, no (Score:1)
We have enough chip shortages, please do not contribute to them with this design to get Monopoly money and destroy the environment.
Mr Dorsey said the process needs to be more energy-efficient
You are not going to make it five or six orders of magnitude more energy-efficient, like VISA or MasterCard do. The problem is with the model, not with the implementation. Please stop.
There's a good reason they're pushing this for BTC (Score:2)
It's because there are cryptos like Cardano that really could eliminate the whole FINTECH industry. Here's a good overview [fool.com] from The Motley Fool on Cardano and why it's one of the most exciting developments in blockchains.
A few TL;DR (but still read it, it's worth it if you think all crypto is stupid)
* Has none of the liquidity problems of BTC (45B Ada vs 21M BTC)
* Hellaciously fast compared to BTC (can do 257 transactions/sec vs 5 from BTC, and for perspective Visa can only process 1700 transactions/s globa
Re: (Score:1)
Re (Score:1)