Quote from: lsd225 on July 25, 2013, 04:44:44 AM

Quote from: Trillium on July 24, 2013, 12:44:56 PM

Quote from: wlwesq on July 24, 2013, 12:19:00 PM

Quote from: Trillium on July 24, 2013, 12:02:29 PM

Before I knew about cryptocoins, I ran a lot of GPU's for BOINC distrubuted computing projects. There are/were(?) heaps of CPU based Prime number finding projects but none of them ever used GPU, so I am agreeing that branching is not suitable for the hardware and that is why no one ever bothered to make a program to mine on them. For this reason I suspect we might never see a GPU or ASIC prime number miner.

This question comes from a complete non-computer engineer, but I'm curious. Since ASIC is designed to accomplish a specific task, wouldn't it be possible to create an ASIC to "mine" prime numbers? [This isn't a question about whether it would be a marketable device like the ASIC USB miners, just about the engineering side.]

We need a hyper geek who has:

* Designed processors
* Knows how SHA-256 works on a machine level
* Knows how prime number searching works and how to implement that at the machine level

They should be able to say for sure.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cunningham_chain
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generating_primes

My brain just hurts looking at these pages and the links that follow. Shocked

I have extensive knowledge of prime number theory and how modern computers can be used to find them but this is not going to 'unlock' more efficient methods of mining the coins. First mining involves more than finding primes. Second and more important in an imaginary world where we had asic chips mining prime coin as the difficulty level shot into the sky the awards of coins per block diminish very low. The design of the coin is such that it yields 'less' the 'more' you throw at it and we would all be in the exact same place we are now.

Personally I think the beta testers of the coin may have perfected some 'better' builds to mine than we have available in public now. I have no proof of this and anyone who helped make this source has a right to use their knowledge to their advantage. We all have the right to not mine the coin.

Until prime coin has some regular uses other than just mining and selling on an exchange it will remain a commodity only. I admire the development team for it's creation at a time when a new coin is launched every other day. Prime coin is popular now because it is unique and while the long term scientific value to be expected from the project is low it is a great step in a direction to design a coin that does something more than drive up electricity use. My advice is to just enjoy it as it is now. Give it a year or two to develop. I suspect if any 'advanced' methods' of mining prime coin are developed they will not be posted for everyone to use. Anyone that gets a powerful edge is most likely to keep it quiet and mine for their own benefit.

Bitcoin was designed to be a form of currency beyond traditional corporate and government control for the better of all but a majority of posts I read give me the impression most are mining to just make a quick buck. The current money system of the world revolves around greed. The true long term benefit to everyone would be a permanent change in how money changes hands in the world and negation of any entity to just 'print more bills' like all nations do now. I may be a minority opinion here but I think this result if achieved would be a much bigger win for everyone than just a few of us making some money in the short run.

So can we relax about GPU, FPGA, ASIC mining and think of the big picture?

More mining power is also about securing the network from attackers better. And if you mine faster than other people, you'll get more primecoins, so holding back on development is kind of silly.