I used to do some computation for Folding@home and SETI on BOINC. Such projects would at least be useful as a basis for manufacturing scarcity (controlling inflation), as compared to Bitcoin mining which solves incredibly resource-intensive problems which have absolutely no utility at all besides calling dibs on a block. My issue is mainly that I don't think such a mechanism for producing scarcity is necessary. Bitcoin exists to isolate the value form from the influence of centralized monetary policy. For Libertarians this is a win because there is no Federal Reserve which can arbitrarily decide to start minting trillion-dollar coins, but it still doesn't prevent exceptionally wealthy people from stockpiling reserves of currency and influencing the market the old fashioned way like when we used to use specie (think Fort Knox but Bitcoin) .
For a socialist state, we could instead simply mint digital currency as needed the way the Fed does now (but not evil), while reaping the benefits of full financial transparency.
:100-com:
I used to do some computation for Folding@home and SETI on BOINC. Such projects would at least be useful as a basis for manufacturing scarcity (controlling inflation), as compared to Bitcoin mining which solves incredibly resource-intensive problems which have absolutely no utility at all besides calling dibs on a block. My issue is mainly that I don't think such a mechanism for producing scarcity is necessary. Bitcoin exists to isolate the value form from the influence of centralized monetary policy. For Libertarians this is a win because there is no Federal Reserve which can arbitrarily decide to start minting trillion-dollar coins, but it still doesn't prevent exceptionally wealthy people from stockpiling reserves of currency and influencing the market the old fashioned way like when we used to use specie (think Fort Knox but Bitcoin) .
For a socialist state, we could instead simply mint digital currency as needed the way the Fed does now (but not evil), while reaping the benefits of full financial transparency.