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RE: Why I Am So Optimistic About The STEEM Blockchain
Oh man that is so true, it makes me make many faces. I try to cross reference though, and pass on my studies to others who maybe don't get a chance to read as much.
That's good. It can be hard to find source materials, though I know they're all somewhere. What I've been trying to figure out lately is the real energy cost of the Steem blockchain. I feel like my father and mother would love it here. They, like many on here, are permaculture enthusiasts. But that's precisely why they are resistant. They worry that the energy cost of maintaining the blockchain, like it's been reported about the Bitcoin chain, is excessive inefficient use of power. I think and hope they're wrong, but there are 14k+witnesses, and multiply that by however much energy each witness machine uses, and you've got a lot. And considering how relatively few accounts that's supporting (1 million-ish, fewer active accounts) and it does look like, even though it could be fairly efficient if we only used the 21 minimum machines needed, it won't be until there are many more users than witnesses/wannabe witnesses.
Interesting! Maybe you could say that if they joined, it would become more energy efficient!
My understanding with energy usage and computation is that it increases with load, so although these wannabee witnesses are setting up cloud servers around the world, they don't actually get many (any?) blocks to work on. But this is a really awesome question. I think I/we could bring it up at the next MSP-waves witness forum!
The reason bitcoin is so terrible is because every single miner is under this extra-mega-super load even though the majority aren't actually producing the blocks, only one does each final block. The consensus algorithm shares the load (and I am 95% on load = energy, maybe after some base energy for being prepared to do some load).
That was the point I was making, about why btc is so bad, but also, every witness needs to be receiving all the blocks, right? Otherwise they wouldn't be able to process a new block. Someone who is actually a witness should know what their computer is doing when it's not receiving blocks, right?
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Yes! And it is a good point, and a great question...
I will keep this in my mind for talking to witnesses...every once in a while I have the opportunity to do so, and I like to bombard them with only the toughest of stuffs!