<story><title>Resources are being utterly and completely wasted on mining bitcoins</title><url>http://www.colorfulwolf.com/blog/2011/05/31/resources-are-being-utterly-and-completely-wasted-on-mining-bitcoins/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>vladd</author><text>Any system of checks and balances will have its price. Look at what we do with gold: we dig it from a hole in Africa, we transport it in other countries, we dug holes or build vaults and throw it there. Like Warren Buffett said, it has no utility, if Martians were to look at the process they would scratch their heads.&lt;p&gt;Except for the guarantee of uniqueness. Which is one of the most powerful invariants against corruption and government-sponsored inflation, goals which are worth these effort.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>masklinn</author><text>&amp;#62; Except for the guarantee of uniqueness.&lt;p&gt;There are a few more actually: gold is one of the least putrescible materials out there (it&apos;s one of the least reactive elements available and as one of the royal metals very few acids can attack it), it has a distinctive look, and it has a very high density (most denser metals were only discovered in or after the 19th century, and are generally more valuable) which makes it easy to differentiate pure and impure golds (such as fake coinage). It also used to strike a good balance between rarity (which ensures the market won&apos;t be flooded) and availability (which actually made it usable as money).&lt;p&gt;Of course, most of this broke down as new, very productive, mines were found (e.g. in South America) and mining techniques improved. And nowadays we have the opposite issue: gold mining output declines, and is unable to follow the value growth of the world itself. This is one of the reasons why most countries moved first to fractional gold standards and then to convertible currency.</text></comment>
<story><title>Resources are being utterly and completely wasted on mining bitcoins</title><url>http://www.colorfulwolf.com/blog/2011/05/31/resources-are-being-utterly-and-completely-wasted-on-mining-bitcoins/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>vladd</author><text>Any system of checks and balances will have its price. Look at what we do with gold: we dig it from a hole in Africa, we transport it in other countries, we dug holes or build vaults and throw it there. Like Warren Buffett said, it has no utility, if Martians were to look at the process they would scratch their heads.&lt;p&gt;Except for the guarantee of uniqueness. Which is one of the most powerful invariants against corruption and government-sponsored inflation, goals which are worth these effort.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>gus_massa</author><text>Gold also is usefull in the industry and electronics:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold#Industry&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold#Industry&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gold.org/technology/uses/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.gold.org/technology/uses/&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>