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Has anyone here explored or pondered possibilities for meta-mining?
Theoretically, you could have miners work on any computational problem, and then have rewards handed out proportionally as part of a programmable smart-contract, based upon how the contribution to this mass-calculation is progressing.
This form of mining could itself be tied to side-chains and the actual blockchain, but executed through applications which make mining more agile and customizable to a specific computational or explorational need.
Are these "meta-mining" practices possible?
You might need to suggest some possible uses of this. The suggestion for using other systems for proof of work comes up a lot, but there's very little it would actually be applicable for. Needs to have progress but probably not a huge state, not have secret contents, and no reason for people to withhold the results. – Anonymous – 2015-06-30T02:19:09.233
Running an electrical grid on a mining system, for example, could be one usage. – Ryan Strauss – 2015-06-30T03:03:53.683
1@RyanStrauss I'm confused. What part of the electrical grid would the miners run? Would they control how power is switched? – Nick ODell – 2015-06-30T03:37:32.947
This question also seems very similar to http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/331/is-there-a-way-to-set-up-proof-of-work-systems-so-they-would-be-even-more-useful
– Nick ODell – 2015-06-30T03:41:24.673@Bitcoin correction: Mining must NOT have progress. – Jannes – 2015-07-02T11:22:24.527
@Jannes The whole question is sort of confused really. For proof of work you certainly don't want measurable progress, but they're not quite talking about that I didn't think. Might need to get some clarification on uses. – Anonymous – 2015-07-02T11:26:39.377
@Bitcoin yeah, the question does not make a single sense. You might be right. But then maybe it could just have (huge) state and secret contents as well. Better just wait for clarification, I guess. – Jannes – 2015-07-02T11:34:04.810