Bitcoin planet mining

Most critiques of cryptocurrency mining's energy consumption are actually identifying the flaws in capitalism, not Bitcoin's challenging design.
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Online exchanges offer hundreds of smaller cryptocurrencies and derivatives, many of which avoid the mining cost that stigmatizes Bitcoin. Facebook is developing its own cryptocurrency, and more significantly, nations are launching blockchain-based digital currencies. Federal Reserve is now saying the digital dollar is a priority for What these new central bank digital currencies will mean for Bitcoin is a matter of debate.

Bitcoin was a brilliant and elegant innovation — yet needlessly destructive to the planet. Leave Bitcoin behind for Elon and the crypto-cowboys, and just hope that their bubble bursts. Follow Cognoscenti on Facebook and Twitter. He writes about energy, climate, politics and Boston. Skip to main content.

Don’t buy Bitcoin if you care about the planet

But history has demonstrated that destructive technologies become cheaper and easier to wield over time. Humans of the future may be just as tribal and easy to incite to stupidity and violence as those of today. A century from now, nuclear technology will be commonplace and some burly faction on Earth could launch a few H-bombs at Mars and obliterate the entirety of its young civilization.

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This would be effective, but immoral and unwise. Destroying Martian infrastructure would do more collateral damage to the closely linked economy of Earth than the success of Muskcoin ever could have. This is a counter-productive response to the economic threat posed by Muskcoin. Strong cryptography prevents anyone from stealing Muskcoin, but coordinated factions of Terran bitcoin miners antagonistic towards Muskcoin may have vastly more pooled hashrate than Muskcoin supporters on Mars.

Such an attack might be the analogue of a special forces op against a rogue nation. A precise demonstration of power designed to serve as both temporary setback and warning. The people of Mars may not be swayed by such displays.

Disproportionate, violent responses from empires tend to legitimize the claims of revolutionaries and strengthen their zeal. In this case, antagonistic factions on Earth may have to resort to the ultimate weapon of hash war, the cryptographic analogue of a traditional H-bomb: the hash bomb. A hash bomb is a sequence of empty blocks of tremendous weight mined directly on the genesis block of some blockchain to be destroyed. A hydrogen bomb can reduce a city to its foundations, and fallout makes rebuilding difficult.

Complete and utter economic ruination. Martian revolutionaries have two significant advantages that they will seek to maximize before they engage in hash war:. This suggests that the timing of the Muskcoin launch is extremely important. Launch too early, and small pools of antagonistic Terran miners will be able to hash bomb Muskcoin just for the lulz. Long before actually launching Muskcoin, smart Martian revolutionaries will perform simulations to determine whether or not they have sufficient relative hashrate against their Terran adversaries to support a Muskcoin launch.

Bitcoin Is Terrible For The Planet. Now There Are Better Choices | Cognoscenti

They will produce analyses like the one below produced with the hashwars program :. The plot shows the fraction by block weight of a new blockchain mined y-axis by a defender at a given distance each line from an attacker as a function of the relative hashrate between attacker and defender x-axis. Deviation of the plotted lines from the white line representing zero distance shows the dis advantage conferred by the hash horizon at that distance.

Following the white, zero-distance line to the left, as the relative hashrate of defenders decreases, they mine fewer blocks. Following this white line to the right, as their relative hashrate increases, they mine more blocks. At zero-distance, the relationship between hashrate and block weight mined is linear, as expected. This makes sense because this simulation assumes the blockchain starts at the location of the defender, giving them a small initial advantage.

This is a direct consequence of the Law of Hash Horizons — being in the minority at a distance confers a mining disadvantage. Conversely, following the red-orange Mars curve to the right, it rises faster than the white, zero-distance line. This effect is even more dramatic for the outer planets at greater distances. The further a new blockchain launches from its potential attackers, the less relative hashrate is needed to defend it. Martians will perform more realistic simulations than those presented here. They will try to plot their own hashrate curve, predicting their chances for success given their hashrate estimates.

But are there any other techniques which can adjust the odds in their favor? But in the future, blockchain engineering will be much better understood, a science rather than a dark art. Martians may have other consensus-based defenses which we cannot fathom today. When the time is right, Martians will have tools and strategies to help them launch and defend Muskcoin. But when will this be? How long exactly before Muskcoin goes to the Moons? Yet new BTC will continue to be mined at an ever-diminishing rate for another years, till Why did Satoshi pick this timeframe and not, say, or ?

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But why continue to trickle out tiny amounts of BTC per block for another years? Why not 60, or ? What if Satoshi was trying to estimate something…. Even if this conjecture is false, at some date in the future, the Muskcoin Revolution will succeed. Bitcoin will continue to dominate trade near Earth, but Muskcoin will be used near Mars. Trade between the worlds will rely on cross-chain atomic swaps. The cynicism of Terran nocoiners during the Muskcoin Revolution will be understood as a reasonable stance to have taken given the total hegemony of bitcoin in their lives.

After the revolution, everyone will understand that successful human colonies near locations with abundant natural resources that are able to attract settlers and build industry will launch their own blockchains once they have sufficient political will and hashrate. Indeed, becoming a peer in the Solchain network will become the definition of what it means to be a successful colony. Future econobiologists will see the Muskcoin Revolution as not exceptional but natural.

An expanding civilization, limited by light lag, must necessarily become more distributed. A blockchain makes a strong body for an economy, but it is anchored to its center of hash. When a spore of humanity lands in a far off place, it relies on tenuous connections back to its parent blockchain body. If the location is rich in resources, the spore multiplies and becomes capable of extracting more energy from its environment.

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Eventually a new blockchain body springs forth, reliant on its own mining metabolism, carrying the genetic imprint of the original chain but now independent. A child body, a daughter chain. In this way blockchains will seep across the solar system, attracted by energy and resources. Humanity will grow like a fungus or slime mold, comfortable in our warm and dark corner of the Milky Way. This section was inspired by conversations with and the excellent work of Brandon Quittem.

Why would we travel all the way to another star system if we can build anything we need right here at home? What will it take to extend the tendrils of our civilization across the gaps between the stars? Science fiction often presents interstellar colonization as an inevitability of future progress. The more realistic scenario is that humanity will reach some point where interstellar colonization becomes theoretically possible but practically unachievable due to costs.

While it may be practical to send small probes quickly, sending thousands of humans and equipment on a years-long journey to another star will be one of biggest investments humanity ever makes. What would be the return? Consider that there is sufficient matter and energy right here in the solar system to support indefinite growth in human population. We know how to create spin gravity , and the asteroid belt alone has enough raw matter to fashion many thousands of Earths worth of living space in artificial habitats. Fusion powered by water would let us ignite miniature suns for ourselves wherever we choose to live.

And we can begin to harvest the enormous power output by the Sun each second, currently lost to space, uncollected by anyone. Why would there be demand to settle new star if our own solar system has infinite supply? Why settle Alpha Centauri? The answer again lies in blockchains, distance, and artificial scarcity. While the first Martian settlers were easily able to use bitcoin on Earth, the first settlers of Alpha Centauri would be operating with a 4 year light lag to Earth.

It will initially consist of both DMG's and Argo's hashrate, which currently uses energy generated by hydroelectric resources, the announcement said. He added that the new pool is "an important step towards protecting our planet now and for generations to come.