Background info: I did a proof-of-concept project for a company in the finance world using Ethereum blockchain.

The concept of mining is such a backwards one. For a blockchain to process transactions, somebody has to be mining it. As soon as there is nobody mining, the whole thing stalls. This means that the mining server is always at 100% load, even if there is nothing to process, and cannot be used for anything else. Imagine having a web server running at full load all the time, regardless if you have visitors or not.

As a result of more mining, the complexity (the cost) of mining a transaction is inflated. This means that eventually only a few super-computers are powerful enough to mine the blockchain for a reward, and everybody else would just be wasting electricity not being able to catch up.

I still think a blockchain is an interesting concept, but current implementations leave a lot to be desired. I know there exist alternatives to mining based on some complex math, but none are really proven in the field yet.

Also there exist blockchain implementations that are complete bullshit. Either because they are technically not blockchains at all, but pretend to be, or have so many holes that you can exploit that it's not even funny.

I think that blockchains are good testing grounds for new interesting crypto theories, but I do not believe that they will see widespread use in the current form. We will probably see cryptocurrencies that are not blockchains, or elements from blockchains implemented in more traditional systems. But that's just my opinion, man.

Last edited by Linas on 1 December 2020 at 11:47 pm UTC