>> Bitcoin mining <<
Doesn't the phenomenon of 'bitcoin mining' essentially boil down to a way for the bitcoin platform to enlist the massive computing requirements it needs to keep the system going?
Due to the nature of blockchain, where every transaction must be forever stored to ensure that new transactions are not mere duplicates of older ones (to solve the 'double spending' problem, and to avoid the need for a 'trusted 3rd party'), there are massive computing requirements that become even more massive as the number of new transactions grows.
This is a huge design flaw, and if cryptocurrency use really took off, eventually it would require all the computing power on the planet to process one transaction.
Bottom line, blockchain technology may be great for the relatively small scale requirements of individual corporations, but not for the billions of daily transactions associated with a widely used currency. Imagine if to pay for a candy bar with a $1 bill, a computer network had to scan through a database of every transaction in history that ever involved a $1 bill. Ridiculous? Yes, but that's the basis of the blockchain approach.
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