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Best Way To Mine Bitcoins - Allow Errors!

Posted by BeauHD on from the looking-for-gold dept.

An anonymous reader writes: A recent paper from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign shows that bitcoin mining profits can be increased considerably if mining hardware is allowed to produce occasional errors. The research shows that mining hardware that allows occasional errors ("approximate mining") can run much faster and take up less area than a conventional miner. Furthermore, the errors that are produced by the miner do no corrupt the blockchain since such errors are easily detected and discarded by the bitcoin network. Mining profits can increase by over 30%.

7 of 167 comments (clear)

  1. Shifting the workload onto other people? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So, they basically shift part of the workload necessary for mining onto the nework, and thus pay less?

    1. Re:Shifting the workload onto other people? by Solandri · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Both parties are the same. Republicans shift workload onto society via corporate welfare. Democrats shift workload onto society via government welfare programs.

      There's nothing "wrong" per se with either type of program as long as you can keep inefficiencies down. In that respect it's good to have both R and D at each others' throats - helps keep their pet programs honest. Corporate welfare helps to guide the direction of economic development and technological progress (renewable energy being the latest example). Social welfare helps to act as a safety net allowing people who fall on hard times to pick themselves up and become productive members of society again more quickly.

      But when any of these programs are given a free pass (as the most staunch conservatives and staunch liberals do), inefficiency (corruption) begins to creep in and their cost to society eventually exceeds their benefit. Corporations take the subsidies without producing a meaningful product. People mooch off welfare with no intent to re-enter the workforce. If you can see the possibility of that happening with only the half of these programs your political party opposes, you're part of the reason our government wastes so much money.

    2. Re:Shifting the workload onto other people? by Dahamma · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Both parties are the same. Republicans shift workload onto society via corporate welfare. Democrats shift workload onto society via government welfare programs. ...
      But when any of these programs are given a free pass (as the most staunch conservatives and staunch liberals do), inefficiency (corruption) begins to creep in and their cost to society eventually exceeds their benefit.

      True, and an insightful point. Though I would argue that the result of corporate welfare abuse is that the already rich 0.1% benefits the most. The result of social welfare abuse is that the poorest 25%+ benefits the most.

      Neither form of waste and corruption is ideal, of course, but if I had to choose the lesser of two evils I'd prefer to direct the inefficiencies to the 25% of the poorest people in society living day to day with underfed kids and horrible health care than I would to millionaires wanting to add an extra comma to their net worth.

  2. Re: Great news! by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 5, Insightful

    > worthless

    All value is subjective. Back to ECON101 with you.

    --
    My God, it's Full of Source!
    OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
  3. Re:Gold vs BC by slashping · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Industry use of gold is very small, and does not explain its value. And the monetary value is a big reason for people to buy gold jewelry (otherwise they'd all get gold plated stuff).

  4. Standard academic practice by John+Allsup · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That is what is done with writing research papers these days: pay sufficient lip service to the notion of science to get published, and if errors turn up, just ignore them. Increases rate of publications significantly, and that's what people get paid for these days.

    --
    John_Chalisque
  5. This is cheating by mysidia · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The research shows that mining hardware that allows occasional errors

    All you are doing is making other people do the checking work for you.

    This is wasting other people's CPU and bandwidth.

    Your mining pool should ban you if you're caught doing this.

    Completing 'fake' shares, which ultimately enrich yourself at the cost of the total profits of your pool and other miners.