Integer Factorization as PoW in a Blockchain

[tServo]

There was something like this done a while ago that found Cunningham chains.
In fact, I think they found some big chains.
It never got enough interest to reach critical mass.

It seems pretty dead now.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primecoin



https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/primecoin

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by tServo

It seems pretty dead now.

Like most ponzi scams...

I think Warren Buffet summed it up best... There is no actual production resulting from all of the CC.

It's all just expending a huge amount of energy to create an immutable ledger. Sometimes it actually costs orders of magnitude more to transact a tiny exchange.

There are less expensive ways of doing this.

[factorn]

Originally Posted by nordi

If that works out and someone finds a vastly superior way of factoring integers, they can completely take over the blockchain because they now contribute most of the work. Sounds like a bug rather than a feature.

@nordi, that is correct. That can be said of anything, though in hashing land this is not as true or pressing. In factoring land that would be a great achievement in mathematics. The point is to increase the likelihood of this happening. Yes, factoring would be easier for those who find those mathematical breakthroughs....that would be their reward. If a method was found such that it allowed them to factor significantly faster and no one else could come up with it, or the discoverers did not publish their findings, then the likelihood of the blockchain being "owned" by one entity is indeed troubling. If this happened and the blockchain were no longer used because the rest of the network could not compete then the blockchain served its purpose. Though, if the findings were not published that would be a bummer. But if they were published , the system would be balanced again and its all good, so there is an incentive to publish.

[factorn]

Originally Posted by retina

None of the crypto stuff is good for anything, except for increasing the profit of power companies.None of the crypto stuff generates interesting numbers for anyone. But the more extra steps you make people do, then hopefully the more people get bored with it and do other things that are more productive.

@retina, what would be "interesting numbers"? Maybe I could come up with a way to integrate those into the blockchain. :)

[factorn]

Originally Posted by chalsall

Like most ponzi scams...

I think Warren Buffet summed it up best... There is no actual production resulting from all of the CC.

It's all just expending a huge amount of energy to create an immutable ledger. Sometimes it actually costs orders of magnitude more to transact a tiny exchange.

There are less expensive ways of doing this.

Yes! This is true! My idea was, since PoW is going to use this massive amount of electricity anyway why not change the PoW scheme to a problem where there is actually some interest. It was easy enough to change the bitcoin code so i went ahead and did it.

[chris2be8]

Originally Posted by factorn

@retina, what would be "interesting numbers"? Maybe I could come up with a way to integrate those into the blockchain. :)

Most interesting numbers would have a formula, eg (91^145-1)/90, a lot shorter than the decimal expansion of the number. You could find a lot of such numbers in factordb (even if you only accept numbers that have been in factordb for more than a year).

But I can't see any way to stop people factoring them in advance, then waiting for a chance to submit them.

[factorn]

Originally Posted by chris2be8

Most interesting numbers would have a formula, eg (91^145-1)/90, a lot shorter than the decimal expansion of the number. You could find a lot of such numbers in factordb (even if you only accept numbers that have been in factordb for more than a year).

But I can't see any way to stop people factoring them in advance, then waiting for a chance to submit them.

Perhaps a better approach is to ask, what "forms" of integers are interesting to factor as opposed to which specific integers are interesting to factor. So for example, say that the form (a^b - c)/d is interesting. That could be one of the forms. Then we could ask, are there ranges of values for a,b,c,d which are interesting? If so, the blockchain could choose this form with probability w1 from a set of "interesting forms", and then biased the a,b,c,d towards a given range of values, but still pseudo-random.


Of course, "form" may also take the shape of mathematical properties the integer must have and not just a formula the number can be written in. There are several technical questions that must solved to integrate this into a blockchain still, but that aside for now. Thoughts?

[Uncwilly]

A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse.

[factorn]

Originally Posted by Uncwilly

A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse.

I am very much interested in creating things that are useful and will pursue ideas even if in the final analysis I decide against them. If you would like to chime in with constructive criticism I am all ears, even after all the clubbing, they still work. @Uncwilly.

[VBCurtis]

You're not the first, nor the second, person to think "I know, I'll use factoring as the basis for a coin!"
But you're the least educated one, so far- the lowest expertise about crypto, or about factoring (see your P vs NP comments- good job trying to sound smart on a forum of people who actually know what they're talking about).

Your idea isn't good, and isn't well thought out. Smarter people than you have had the same idea, and went nowhere because it's not a good idea. You can educate yourself- go right ahead. But "help me build this!" for this topic on this forum will get you ridicule, and little else.

[factorn]

Originally Posted by VBCurtis

You're not the first, nor the second, person to think "I know, I'll use factoring as the basis for a coin!"
But you're the least educated one, so far- the lowest expertise about crypto, or about factoring (see your P vs NP comments- good job trying to sound smart on a forum of people who actually know what they're talking about).

Your idea isn't good, and isn't well thought out. Smarter people than you have had the same idea, and went nowhere because it's not a good idea. You can educate yourself- go right ahead. But "help me build this!" for this topic on this forum will get you ridicule, and little else.

That may be indeed be the case -- being the least educated person to attempt this. And yes, crypto and factoring are not my area of expertise. I do enjoy math in general and computational related things specifically. I make no claims about being smart nor do I make an effort to sound smart...as you can probably tell by now. I work with the knowledge that I have and learn as I go along.

Thank you for your feedback. I will keep in mind that this is not a good idea and that smarter people than me have tried.

I was not asking for help building the blockchain, it is already built and live, you can go to github under FACT0RN/FACT0RN and find the code. I was asking for help in regards to implementing a feature for it. A feature I thought a community like this would find useful, but apparently there is no interest in it. I thought a deadpool for integers to be factored would be useful. I wanted help and new ideas to implement that feature securely, but it appears I have come to the wrong place.

For a forum with such highly educated folks like yourself it certainly is depressing that not even a hint of what would be useful to you as a community has been given. And perhaps, indirectly, you are right. Perhaps blockchain technology has nothing to offer this community; but, under the microscopically small chance that it does I would like to contribute.

Ridicule is all fun and stuff. If along with it you can take the time to communicate something productive to someone who cares about this community and is trying to help it, then maybe this community can grow to include amateurs and not just experts. Who knows? Maybe I will be able to contribute some day.