Interesting, I have never heard of this either. I get the essence of why the bit coin has tangible value, but the minting process seems wasteful based on my limited understanding.
For this "mining" procedure, other than contributing to transactions, are the calculations a mining computer performs essentially just a random useless task? Is this like having a bunch of people in a room jogging on the spot and you throw couple coins in for every hour they do it? If so, you'd think the computing power could be harnessed for something like SETI or solving string theory.
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