Powering down Bitcoin with silicon photonics: Low power PoW algo and HW
sciencex.com
sciencex.com
Here's the central thesis and there's so much wrong with it.
Leaving aside the topic of whether you think the way bitcoin requires the consumption of electricity is good or not, the consumption of electricity is not a side effect, it's the whole point.
You must burn electricity to be part of the game. If you are part of the game, you have a chance to win. If you win, you will well and truly cover your electricity costs. If you cheat, you will be ejected from the game, and lose all the money you've spent on electricity. It is to your advantage to discover other cheaters so you can eject them, as that will allow you to win more.
Bitcoin 101. Reducing the energy consumption of the hashes will not decentralize the network more.
The reason the bitcoin network is less decentralized today than it was in 2010 is because ASICs are hard to manufacture, which means they are only made in a few places and are very expensive per unit. That makes them hard to buy in small batches, and near impossible to buy in many countries.
This situation will not be improved by making photonic ASICs.
There's more nuance to this, and that nuance makes this proposal even worse, but lets leave it at that.
> the consumption of electricity is not a side effect, it's the whole point.
The OP would argue that it's about the consumption of resources in general. The interesting point of discussion here is CAPEX vs. OPEX dynamics in mining. The CAPEX of creating ASICs is a huge factor in Bitcoin mining.
One of the arguments for using photonic ASICs for mining is that it actually decreases centralization in hardware manufacturing. Photonic circuits are printed using older processes which are cheaper and more widely available than 5nm ASICs that will be made for Bitcoin.
I recommend you read the paper linked by the OP or watch his talk. Personally I don't know if I really believe in the idea, but there are definitely interesting points being made that are worth studying.
httpss://uncommoncore.co/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/A-model-for-Bitcoins-security-and-the-declining-block-subsidy-v1.06.pdf
You're literally the first person I've ever heard express such an opinion. Could you give citations for "pretty well established"?
Multiple, please, since it's "well" established. Preferably ones that have citations at the bottom? The document you linked contains no citations and is thus an opinion piece, not an academic paper.
Are you talking about miners constructing invalid blocks? Their blocks would simply be rejected by everyone else. And no miner is stupid enough to waste electricity producing invalid blocks. This whole paragraph seems irrelevant to the issue at hand...