system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Why don't we use the computer resources for mining cryptocurrencies on useful tasks, instead of hashing

In cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin a Block is created by "proof of work", meaning millions(perhaps more) of servers are wasting their resources on solving hashes. What if a Block was instead created by utilizing these resources to do tasks, such as Grid jobs in grid computing, or how we use cloud computing. One example is to use these resources to do protein folding for cancer research. Im not sure what metric would decide when a Block has been mined, but I just thought this might be an interesting concept, if at all even possible.
gpt
One of the key points of a Proof of Work algorithm is that it's fairly difficult to complete, but takes much less work to verify. You'd have to find something useful to calculate that has both of those properties.