Re: [math-fun] New Mersenne; GIMPS Coin? Why not GIMPS for POW?
"Adam P. Goucher" <apgoucher@gmx.com> wrote:
The main reason is that proof-of-work solutions should be hard to find and easy to verify.
Mersenne primes are hard to verify.
But what about Mersenne *composites*? It's hard to find the prime divisors of Mersenne numbers (the Lucas-Lehmer primality test won't find them), but easy to confirm a claimed divisor.
Another important thing is that the rate at which blocks are mined be fairly constant; bitcoin and ethereum both have a difficulty parameter that's tweaked in each block to keep the rate constant. On Sat, Dec 29, 2018 at 7:09 AM Keith F. Lynch <kfl@keithlynch.net> wrote:
"Adam P. Goucher" <apgoucher@gmx.com> wrote:
The main reason is that proof-of-work solutions should be hard to find and easy to verify.
Mersenne primes are hard to verify.
But what about Mersenne *composites*? It's hard to find the prime divisors of Mersenne numbers (the Lucas-Lehmer primality test won't find them), but easy to confirm a claimed divisor.
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