The quickest and simplest answer to this question: "Why did I decide to mine Burst?" would be - Because I was able to do so without need to buy some extra, new and expensive equipment and without fear it would skyrocket my electricity bills or burn out my CPU or GPU!
Burst is another cryptocurrency or another altcoin built on the blockchain. The main difference between Burst and most of the other mineable cryptocurrencies is that you don't need expensive equipment with high energy consuming processors and almost science-fictional graphics cards, as you would need, e.g., for Bitcoin and many other coins out there.
Burst (BURST) has been launched and introduced to the crypto world on August 10, 2014. The goal of the team who created it maybe is best described in their moto published on the Burst official site, saying:
Burst is solving Bitcoin’s biggest problems: very low energy usage per transaction, decentralized by design, mineable by everybody.
Image source: Free to use icon with permission for commercial use from PoC-Consortium Marketing Resources and according to the Visual Identity Guide.
How Burst managed to accomplish that goal?
For instance, and in contrary to Bitcoin, which mining, every day more, is getting less and less accessible and affordable for an average Joe, mining Burst is available to anyone with the computer or laptop (PC or Mac) and with some free space on the hard drive.
In other words, as Bitcoin mining is getting more and more dependable on large farms of specialized ASIC hardware which then continuously and progressively overtaking the control over a large number of mining operations and by that decreasing the number of smaller individual network contributors Bitcoin is becoming less decentralized and more and more centralized.
In contrary to that, mining Burst is available to every average user with existing computer what helps enlarging the network with more smaller users. By that, the control over mining operations disperses more widely what helps to improve the decentralization.
As mining Burst wouldn't cost you more than regular charging and recharging of your mobile phone because Burst mining is not designed on so-called Proof of Work (PoW), as Bitcoin is, but on Proof of Capacity (PoC) protocol; Burst managed to avoid unnecessary waste of energy too.
For better understanding the difference between Proof of Work and Proof of Capacity and putting it in a very simplified laic language, as first, try to think about each block (of the blockchain) as a different complex equation that should be solved. Each such equation is created by different inputs (transaction requests) that should be resolved (so each transaction could be processed), while miners are those who are trying to solve that equation.
To do that, with Proof of Work algorithm, miners need specialized and high energy consuming hardware (ASIC) to be able to run the numbers continuously through a hash function looking, so to speak, for the solution of the equation. In other words, Proof of Work is a process that defines an expensive computer calculation in which miners are trying to solve each block 'problem.'
That way, the hardware used with Proof of Work is in some sort of constant solving equations loop looking for the right solution.
In contrary to that perpetual "Proof of Work" work, and using the same explanatory simplified laic language, with Proof of Capacity the miners would do the same job of solving the equation but only once and in advance.
They would save the results on their hard drive (the portion of it they separate for that) where from they would be able to use it for each next new block mining without the need to go through the whole solving equation process over and over again. The method of such in advance solving the equation is called plotting.
By plotting you would prepare your computer for Burst mining, and plotting time is the only time frame in which your computer would consume more power and use more extensively your CPU or GPU.
The amount of time needed for plotting depends on the amount of disk space you want to use. For instance, for just testing the waters with a few gigabytes (GB) you may even use your USB stick in which case plotting would take only several minutes (how many exactly also depends on CPU or GPU and number of RAM your computer has).
For plotting several hundred gigabytes (GB), it may take few hours, while for plotting, e.g., an external, several terabytes (TB) big disk it may take even few days.
However, in comparison to Bitcoin mining which would do the same process constantly for weeks, months and years (of course, with specialized ASIC hardware), even a whole week of some extra large disk plotting for Burst mining, but only once, and with your existing computer seems like nothing.
Infographic source: From PoC-Consortium Marketing Resources, free to use and with permission for commercial use.
Why they say Burst had the fairest possible release?
The answer to that one is plain and simple. Before Burst has been launched, there were not any crowdsale, premining, either not any Initial Public (IPO) or Initial Coin (ICO) Offering.
In other words, no one got the advantage before the coin was publically out and available to everyone.
Besides that and as the addition to above mentioned Proof of Work and Proof of Capacity there is also a newer methodology known as Proof of Stake (PoS) which algorithm Burst doesn't use as well.
Proof of Stake is way better than Proof of Work regarding spending computing power and energy. As well, Proof of Stake, that way, same as Proof of Capacity is avoiding that hash power is getting centralized and in control of just a few mega-mining farms.
To achieve the distributed consensus (or let's say, simplified again, solving the equation) with Proof of Stake is not going to be done by mining but by staking.
To participate in staking, at first user would have to buy a certain amount of the coin (every coin who use that methodology determines the minimum amount needed) and hold it (stack it) in, for that specially designed, so-called "staking wallet."
For smaller investors, usually, there is also a possibility to lend whatever amount they want to some larger staking pool.
However, one way or another, with Proof of Stake the winner (or creator) of new block will not be chosen as the first who managed to solve the block problem (equation), what's the case with Proof of Work, but depending on its wealth (number of stakes).
In other words, your mining or better to say staking earnings will be determined by the number of coins that you already hold (stack).
That way Proof of Stake methodology favors more significant investors and/or wealthier stack holders, what runs Proof of Stake in another unfair trap that again helps more centralization than decentralization, but in a different way than Proof of Work.
There are over 500 coins that use Proof of Stake methodology, and some of them are: NEO, Dash, Lisk, Stratis, BitShares, PIVX, ReddCoin, Factom, Nxt, Blocknet, BitcoinDark, NAV Coin, Peercoin, CloakCoin, I/O Coin, GridCoin, BlackCoin, Omni, OKCash, Clams, and many others. There are also some talks going around that Ethereum soon would change or have available Proof of Stake (mining) methodology too.
It doesn't mean, please don't get me wrong, that the coins using this methodology are not good by any means. They all have equal chance to be great or poor, from my point of view, mostly depending on the story and project that are backing them up. They just might not be that accessible and affordable, same as those running on Proof of Work to broader masses and every average Joe.
Infographic source: From PoC-Consortium Marketing Resources, free to use and with permission for commercial use.
Is it Proof of Capacity that Burst uses entirely free of unfairness?
From my point of view, the answer would be: Not entirely!
Simply because Proof of Capacity methodology also has its own favorites.
Although it doesn't favorite PoW's hash power centralized huge-mining conglomerates, either PoS' big stack (coin) holders, PoC favorites more significant disk holders. Meaning, those with a larger disk space available would be able to mine the larger amount of coins (Burst) than those with smaller amount disk space dedicated to mining.
But, disk space prices are significantly lower than the amount of money needed for the minimum purchase of coins necessary for stacking with Proof of Stake (for most of the PoS coins out there). As well, disk space prices are even way lower than the specialized ASIC hardware and costs of power usage for mining with Proof of Work methodology.
Having all of that in mind, I would say that Proof of Capacity protocol that Burst uses is the easiest accessible and most affordable to broader masses of average users, and accordingly although still not perfect or entirely free of unfairness but certainly one of the fairest currently available mining options out there.
Infographic source: From PoC-Consortium Marketing Resources, free to use and with permission for commercial use.
I didn't know for Burst at its very beginning. I came across it about two years after it was launched, somewhere in the second half of 2016. As all above-described made sense to me and seems accessible, affordable and fair enough to provoke my curiosity to extend to at least try it, at first, I tasted the waters with only a few gigabytes (GB).
After a short while when I saw how it works and got more familiar with it, I enlarged my mining capacity to several hundred gigabytes (GB) that I had available on my hard drive. I would call that period as some extended testing time.
However, about six months later I was able to buy several terabytes (TB) large disk and enlarge my mining capacity.
As well, at the time when I started mining Burst for the first time (second half of 2016), its price was around 1 BURST = $0.0003. In other words, for the value of only $3 US, you would get 10,000 Burst.
Somewhere with the beginning of 2017 the price raised to 1 BURST = $0.0005 or $5 US for 10,000 Burst, in which range it was circling for quite some time. From that point on and until today, in this past year (or 14 months to be precise) Burst value raised for over 60x.
In comparison to Bitcoin which value at the beginning of 2017 was around $800, and even taking into consideration its highest peak in December 2017 when it reached almost $20,000 for 1 Bitcoin what would make 25x jump inside one year, Burst growth was even 2.4x better than that. If we take into consideration the current value of Bitcoin (currently going around $10,000 per 1 Bitcoin), the growth difference in Burst favor would be even more significant.
Never the less, the current value of Burst is 1 BURST = $0.032 or $320 US for 10,000 Burst.
Burst team has big plans for 2018 described in the "The Burst Core Roadmap for 2018" article published at the beginning of January 2018, and if they manage to accomplish those goals as they plan, I believe, IMHO, that by the end of 2018 we might witness another similar jump in the value of Burst coin as we already seen in the previous year.
On the other hand, I just read a recently published article saying that "In 10 Years We Won't Have Blockchains," and that right now we are maybe standing on the doorstep of entering into the new transaction technology era called DAG (directed acyclic graph).
If this new model which is still under development sees the daylight and proves to be better than blockchain, I'm sure we would be introduced to the whole new set of different coins with entirely different management style.
As I'm not some expert neither in cryptocurrency nor in the blockchain world, but way more just an exploring amateur, please, do your own due diligence(!), and as well be aware of and take in consideration the following
Disclaimer
The material provided in this article is general in nature; it's based on personal opinion and experience, and has been prepared for informational purposes only, and is not intended to provide any legal, investment or financial advice, and therefore should not be considered as such.
As well, the author of the article has no access to non-public information connected to the topic, and accordingly, the author cannot and does not guarantee the accuracy of information.
Bibliography:
Burst official website
Burst Coin - Vision
The Burstcoinist - News Resource about Burst
Free Marketing Resources with Permission for Commercial use
Disclaimer source