two great tastes? BOINCOIN

I had an idea, might be stupid, might not. Anyway here it is.

A modest proposal for a merger of bitcoin and boinc technologies for the generation of a self funding and motivating research platform.



Summary: The question is asked whether the two technologies (or their inevitable descendants) could be merged as a viable business model for funding and assisting in computationally intensive tasks. I will also offer some very limited descriptions of how the idea might work.


Basic descriptions of the two technologies:


bitcoin: .www.bitcoin.org . Is a p2p distributed cryptographic currency that has recently gained notoriety/popularity due to its potentially subversive/revolutionary avoidance of standard transactional systems and perceived anonymity of its users.


BOINC http://boinc.berkeley.edu/ Is a distributed computational platform that designed to distribute tasks over the internet and run them using volunteered computation on multiple platforms.


Similarities:

Both derive value from the use of the “work” of enormous numbers of offsite computers

.: Both require encryption of the work packets.

Both have a very strong “cool technology” self promotional character. In the case of boinc you have projects like SETI and bitcoin has the additional motivation from the potential of making bitcoins which can be exchanged for other currencies or directly for goods and services.


Differences: Boinc requires a central control point for project compilation, while one of bitcoins major points is the lack of any central authority.


At first glance these would seem to be mutually exclusive, But let me point out that both require that two pieces of data are exchanged in both systems.

The source of the work: In bitcoin this is the “bitcoin address” in the case of BOINC this is collected in the registration process and can be correlated with IP address.


The validity of the work. In both cases one could argue that this is the whole point of the exercise as in both cases false data would render the product valueless.

The only fundamental difference is the “work” in the case of bitcoin it is strongly encrypted and verifiable packets of random numbers, In the case of boinc it is a segment of data from the chosen task.

From this limited perspectives one observes that these are two different solutions to the same problem and that the differences are not central to this discussion as BOINC potentially interact with a bitcoin like “boinc address” as the primary concern is the validity of the work, not where it comes from. Conversely, while bitcoin loses its point with a centralized control, centralized digital currency systems exist. Although I do not know of any that have the potential to create value in the manner of bitcoin.

So with that grossly simple comparisonm may I “coin” the the term “boincoin” representing an encrypted and verifiable packet of the chosen task?.

Funding: I see three funding mechanisms at this point.

The bitcoin method, a pay for work method and an ownership method.

The bitcoin method.

To be honest I do not understand the bitcoin valuation system as it appears to be something along the lines of do a bunch of computational work, at some point it randomly becomes a bitcoin, the more work you do the more chances you have. This strikes me as a magic number lottery but if one acknowledges that perceived value can equal real value as is demonstrated by major national currencies, means that this may not actually be a problem and as such this must be included.

The pay for work method.

This is fairly self explanatory. A client contracts to run a job on the network. Payment is in the form of increased chances of generating boincoins based on the amount of work done by the address.

The ownership method.

A client may contract a percentage of the intellectual property inherent in the data generated.

Note that the second and third options require a centralized authority to contract with the client and to originate payment, but I see no reason why the distribution of funds and the validation of the work could not use the existing bitcoin methodology and retain the advantages of bitcoin.
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The second and third methods also provide for a real world valuation on boincoins as in both cases there would be real assets with real valuations with would be reflected in the valuation of boincoins with some variation of the formula (real assets / number of boincoins = value of boincoin)

Thats all I have right now, please feel free to comment, critique and advise.

James Burgett, aftermath technologies, June 15, 2011.

CC: Creative commons, non-commercial with attribution.