“…photonic hardware used in hash protocols can also be used for other applications, i.e., the hardware is not necessarily an application-specific device.”

The more I think about it, the more it seems this quote is an extreme security risk… not a desirable feature like it seems.

The inability to reuse ASICs for anything other than mining raises the cost of attacking the network, because the attacker will be left with a bunch of near-useless paper weights (the ASICs).