What's going on: Bitcoin's and other cryptocurrency's energy consumption is one of the biggest issues (though it's actually not that dramatic as some would like it to be). Many media outlets and critics have been pointing at the enormous amounts of energy needed to power the Bitcoin- or Ethereum-network. But what if you could harness and reuse the energy, that is being wasted in the mining process? That's exactly the question Intel is trying to answer. The aim is not to reduce energy consumption per se, but to let the wasteful-by-design proof-of-work (PoW) protocol do additional stuff.
Intel inventors Ned Smith and Rajesh Poornachandran call this idea in their patent a "multipurpose PoW", where miners not only proof the credibility of transactions and genereate new blocks, but also determine sequences of nucleobases. The physical traits of a person, animal, or plant can be determined based on the order of its nucleobases, that are sequenced in a nucleic acid (DNA or RNA).
Why should I care: A "multipurpose PoW" like the one described in the patent of the two Intel scientists could significantly lower the relative energy consumption of Bitcoin mining. And it could also add a component to it, that really benefits society. They write: “Possibly leading to improved prevention of cancer and other diseases, improved understanding of biological ecosystems, improved tracking of populations and pathology, etc.”
This is really cool stuff and I can't wait to see if and how this idea will be implemented in the near future.
Source: cointelegraph.com
GIF: giphy.com
Want to get essential news on Cryptocurrencies and everything Blockchain for free? Subscribe to Cryptomizer, the daily newsletter with the most essential news on Bitcoin and everything blockchain.