> Unless I'm missing something, the person with the fastest hashing processor will usually win.
You have to factor in power usage as well. Unlocking a 0.1 BTC bounty while spending 0.2 BTC on electricity isn't wise.
I mean, we can easily get to the point where unlocking a secret can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in electricity. At that point, it's not about who's fastest, but who can unlock the secret without spending too much money.
Why would I want to do that? Remember, I'm just trying to make timelock encryption practical, which means we want a good estimate on what's the fastest implementation of the underlying chain kernel that exists now and will in the future. I really don't care who collects the bounty; if it's the same small group of people over and over again, so what? I do care that the best implementation possible - probably a highly clocked custom ASIC with exotic cooling - isn't that much faster than the best implementation possible without too much capital investment - probably a high-end overclocked FPGA with exotic cooling built by some kid in university as a term project.
You have to factor in power usage as well. Unlocking a 0.1 BTC bounty while spending 0.2 BTC on electricity isn't wise.
I mean, we can easily get to the point where unlocking a secret can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in electricity. At that point, it's not about who's fastest, but who can unlock the secret without spending too much money.