Bitcoin’s biggest impact may not be financial

Published On May 22, 2013 at 16:00 BST. For all the fuss about Bitcoin — it is turning us all into tax-dodging, drug-taking criminals, etc., etc. — its most important impact might have nothing to do with money at all.

The technology at the heart of Bitcoin is the world’s biggest and most powerful supercomputer. It could be this that has a real impact on all our futures. A network that is already as powerful as 500 supercomputers has to be taken seriously.

Google, Facebook and the other internet giants spend billions of dollars on their networks of data centers. Companies switch computer processing from data centers around the world depending on off-peak electricity costs or the presence of colder temperatures to reduce cooling costs.

The industry depends on tiny improvements in power or heat performance to cut prices for hosting websites or more complex computing functions.

But the Bitcoin architecture of a perfectly distributed computer would allow its network to run almost any computing function.

This isn’t the first such network … anyone remember SETI@home? - Read more here: http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoins-biggest-legacy-could-be-in-computing-not-finance