What if... AMD and NV added support for "background mining" in drivers?

[Headfoot]

I'd much rather they hard code in a kill switch, which fries the card and voids the warranty. Either that or a background process in the driver that diverts all of your crypto "earnings" over to Chinese marketing companies, who in return will send you ads on how crypto is the future.

"I don't or dont want to understand the value of distributed trust systems" -> "GPU makers should destroy peoples property"

Seems legit.

 

[EXCellR8]

if it fixes the absurd market then screw your property. plus, it would only be destroyed if you chose it to be, technically.

also, this "value" you're referring to is what, exactly? oh, the charities, or the generous donations that goes to helping the homeless, sick or otherwise afflicted? my bad.

 

[IllogicalGlory]

"I don't or dont want to understand the value of distributed trust systems" -> "GPU makers should destroy peoples property"

Seems legit.

I don't agree with what the post you're responding to, but is a distributed trust system that requires every consumer grade graphics card ever produced, every consumer grade high watt power supply ever produced, and a whole host of ridiculously power-hungry ASICs, to keep it secure really such a great idea?

 

[PrincessFrosty]

https://arstechnica.com/information...-ads-with-cpu-draining-cryptocurrency-miners/

It's coming. It's going to supplement, or even supplant, advertising on the web. Instead of seeing ads, you'll coin-mine while you view content on web pages.

If ads die due to blocking then crypto isn't going to fare any better. People don't want their hardware slowed down and the massive power bill that would create.

 

[WelshBloke]

I'd rather that they sold specific cards for mining and blocked it in the drivers for "gaming" versions. I'm wanting to build a new PC but theres no way I'm paying the ridiculous prices right now.

 

[NTMBK]

Cryptomining is terrible for the environment. Existing payment systems are massively more efficient.

 

[ultimatebob]

Cryptomining is terrible for the environment. Existing payment systems are massively more efficient.

I keep hearing that they want to switch over to a "Proof Of Stake" system for payment confirmation instead of "Proof Of Work", which wastes tons of processing cycles. No major cryptocurrency has actually implemented it yet, though.

I'm starting to think that the big mining companies are actually liking Proof Of Work as extra barrier to entry, keeping the "junior" miners off of their turf.

 

[Headfoot]

I don't agree with what the post you're responding to, but is a distributed trust system that requires every consumer grade graphics card ever produced, every consumer grade high watt power supply ever produced, and a whole host of ridiculously power-hungry ASICs, to keep it secure really such a great idea?

Proof of Work does not equals cryptocurrency. There are other consensus mechanisms. Nobody is arguing that PoW is the best approach, just that it was revolutionary at the time and the first iteration.

 

[Headfoot]

I keep hearing that they want to switch over to a "Proof Of Stake" system for payment confirmation instead of "Proof Of Work", which wastes tons of processing cycles. No major cryptocurrency has actually implemented it yet, though.

I'm starting to think that the big mining companies are actually liking Proof Of Work as extra barrier to entry, keeping the "junior" miners off of their turf.

Sure if you want to classify "Major" as just Bitcoin, but non-Proof of Work consensus mechanisms are literally everywhere. It's the main focus of 2nd and 3rd gen crypto currencies. Looking at the top 10 by market cap: XRP, Cardano, NEO, Stellar and EOS don't use proof of work. In fact, the main technological and market advantage of most of these coins is their alternative consensus mechanism like NEO's Delegated Byzantine Fault Tolerance. http://docs.neo.org/en-us/node/consensus.html. So 50% of the top 10 by market cap as of right now do not use Proof of Work. Of those 5 that do, Ethereum and Dash have near term plans to move off of Proof of Work and onto a different consensus mechanism (Dash already having 2nd tier network capabilities that dont use PoW).

I'd say 50% of the top 10 and 70% in the near future means that yes, alternative consensus has very much been implemented.