tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5415813315629967856.post801745990575285024..comments2023-07-10T06:02:41.546-07:00Comments on random thoughts of a procrastinating CEO: The thermodynamic limit of bitcoin miningBob Lansdorphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15097843745497420365noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5415813315629967856.post-8360617969737191502018-10-08T07:15:30.378-07:002018-10-08T07:15:30.378-07:00"The thermodynamic bound for the energy used ..."The thermodynamic bound for the energy used in Bitcoin mining would be 0 energy per hash rather than k*T*ln(2) energy per hash." If you are doing logical operations, you are spending energy, aren't you? How do you perform a logical operations such as reverse pre-image attacks on SHA256 (e.g. Bitcoin mining) without spending any energy?Bob Lansdorphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15097843745497420365noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5415813315629967856.post-52296080080811316272018-10-07T19:26:54.729-07:002018-10-07T19:26:54.729-07:00Cryptographic hash functions are naturally quantum...Cryptographic hash functions are naturally quantum resistant, so the best quantum algorithm for SHA-256 mining is simply the general purpose brute force search algorithm Grover's algorithm. The assumption that mining Bitcoin takes k*T*ln(2) energy per hash is not right for classical computation since Bitcoin mining is a problem that can be solved completely reversibly in (up to a linear factor) as many steps and with as much space as a a conventional mining algorithm. The thermodynamic bound for the energy used in Bitcoin mining would be 0 energy per hash rather than k*T*ln(2) energy per hash. <br /><br />In other news, SHA-256 is a terrible cryptocurrency mining algorithm since it was not designed as a cryptocurrency mining algorithm and because it has a few bugs when we use it as a mining algorithm such as ASIC-BOOST and approximate mining. Cryptocurrency developers should put a bit more thought into constructing a mining algorithm than to simply use SHA-256 since it is "good enough" because in that case, you get a cryptocurrency backed by pollution (SHA-256 is wasteful. Please talk to me if you want a better mining algorithm.).Joseph Van Namehttp://boolesrings.orgnoreply@blogger.com