Bitcoin Is Time(dergigi.com)
dergigi.com
Bitcoin Is Time
https://dergigi.com/2021/01/14/bitcoin-is-time/
1,144 comments
I'm so sick of these profound-sounding blog posts that take 1 million words to say precisely jack shit. Yes, the key innovation around Bitcoin was to order events. You can call this 'time' if you want. This is literally the most obvious thing you can say about the system. It's so obvious in fact that it's in the introduction section to the Bitcoin whitepaper. Here is the entire blog post written much shorter and more precisely by Satoshi:
'In this paper, we propose a solution to the double-spending problem using a peer-to-peer distributed timestamp server to generate computational proof of the chronological order of transactions.'
Not trying to be elitist but if you find this topic new then you probably also find Bitcoin's technical workings new. Since it's now more than a decade old I don't find this a very topical inclusion for a 'news' site.
'In this paper, we propose a solution to the double-spending problem using a peer-to-peer distributed timestamp server to generate computational proof of the chronological order of transactions.'
Not trying to be elitist but if you find this topic new then you probably also find Bitcoin's technical workings new. Since it's now more than a decade old I don't find this a very topical inclusion for a 'news' site.
This is the article that made things finally click with me. Thinking about the pre-WWI gold standard and the issues that existed there and the improvements that Bitcoin brings around time, consensus, etc.
The baseless negative comments with no interaction with the article content confirms for me that Bitcoin is on to something. Sour grapes syndrome is a result of pride, I think.
The baseless negative comments with no interaction with the article content confirms for me that Bitcoin is on to something. Sour grapes syndrome is a result of pride, I think.
Nothing is less material than money. . . . Money is abstract, I repeated, money is future time. It can be an evening in the suburbs, it can be the music of Brahms, it can be maps, it can be chess, it can be coffee, it can be the words of Epictetus teaching us to despise gold. Money is a Proteus more versatile than the one on the island of Pharos.
—Jorge Luis Borges, “The Zahir”
https://longreads.com/2016/06/14/borges-and-money/
—Jorge Luis Borges, “The Zahir”
https://longreads.com/2016/06/14/borges-and-money/
That was an excellent read!
Every time I read about Bitcoin here, I see the "Energy" arguments. Bitcoin was designed to solve a specific problem and it solves that. Even Satoshi himself would not have foreseen the energy requirements for PoW.
If we had argued about energy requirements in late 60s we would have never reached Moon or built the LHC. Technological advancements will always need energy. We should be discussing about how to efficiently harness that big fiery ball in space instead of shutting down technological advancements.
Every time I read about Bitcoin here, I see the "Energy" arguments. Bitcoin was designed to solve a specific problem and it solves that. Even Satoshi himself would not have foreseen the energy requirements for PoW.
If we had argued about energy requirements in late 60s we would have never reached Moon or built the LHC. Technological advancements will always need energy. We should be discussing about how to efficiently harness that big fiery ball in space instead of shutting down technological advancements.
A few questions I need help with -
If bitcoin becomes a store of value / digital gold and people increasingly hold their wealth in Bitcoin countries will lose the ability control and regulate their own economy.
1) Why would any country hand over the reins of its economy to others ? India is already thinking of banning cryptocurrencies, China has similar thoughts too, if many large countries ban it how would Bitcoin sustain ?
2) US has fought wars to retain dollar as the global reserve currency. Why would the US give up this advantage ?
3) Presently, economic sanctions are used to push interests and disincentivize bad behavior. How would this play out in a world of Bitcoin ?
4) If bitcoin exists with fiat and exchange points can be controlled and blocked by governments, what's the point of Bitcoin ?
If bitcoin becomes a store of value / digital gold and people increasingly hold their wealth in Bitcoin countries will lose the ability control and regulate their own economy.
1) Why would any country hand over the reins of its economy to others ? India is already thinking of banning cryptocurrencies, China has similar thoughts too, if many large countries ban it how would Bitcoin sustain ?
2) US has fought wars to retain dollar as the global reserve currency. Why would the US give up this advantage ?
3) Presently, economic sanctions are used to push interests and disincentivize bad behavior. How would this play out in a world of Bitcoin ?
4) If bitcoin exists with fiat and exchange points can be controlled and blocked by governments, what's the point of Bitcoin ?
I always enjoy conversations with cryptocurrency cognoscenti: "Ok. Assume I have some bitcoin (a bitcoin? bitcoins?). How would I exchange it for, say, a carton of milk?"
Don't get me wrong. I'm a math nerd. I think bitcoin is fascinating as a technical achievement, and hope we keep exploring the blockchain idea. However, I also know that bitcoin mania has literally affected global supply chains of computer components and inflicted a measurable exacerbation of global warming. There is a colourable argument about whether bitcoins have value, but it's very clear that bitcoin has a non-trivial cost.
Don't get me wrong. I'm a math nerd. I think bitcoin is fascinating as a technical achievement, and hope we keep exploring the blockchain idea. However, I also know that bitcoin mania has literally affected global supply chains of computer components and inflicted a measurable exacerbation of global warming. There is a colourable argument about whether bitcoins have value, but it's very clear that bitcoin has a non-trivial cost.
Bitcoin is only popular because tech workers get paid a lot and have the ability to speculate, we live in a world of massive asset bubbles created by government fiscal policies and Bitcoin is excellent for buying drugs on-line.
Most people want security in their assets, which is why a majority of folks read articles about bitcoin but never touch one.
All of these articles are great examples of creative writing. I do kind of enjoy them.
Most people want security in their assets, which is why a majority of folks read articles about bitcoin but never touch one.
All of these articles are great examples of creative writing. I do kind of enjoy them.
Thank you for sharing this!
I wrote a much shorter article on why I believe Grin is the closest to "time is money" here https://phyro.github.io/what-is-grin/grin_emission.html
Bitcoin can be thought of as a clock, but the unit that is being transfered can't be thought as time because for it to be mappable to time, you need a linear function and Bitcoin's emission is exponential because of the halvings.
Bitcoin can be thought of as a clock, but the unit that is being transfered can't be thought as time because for it to be mappable to time, you need a linear function and Bitcoin's emission is exponential because of the halvings.
Good read. Is there a similar take on how proof-of-stake can work (for example current sketch of Ethereum Casper protocol)?
If I ever come to HN and the top comment about Bitcoin is NOT a grumpy “I could build that in a weekend with Aws” style comment I will know the top is finally in. I think the issue is Bitcoin is no longer tech news- its a finance, or social or business topic and for some reason it inspires engineers to try to reanalyze everything from first principles to write angry comments that miss the forest for the trees. I can only imagine how something like NFTs which truly appear to be a baseless speculative mania would go over.
This article was a good dive into the technical feats of bitcoin. But this fact still stands:
== Traditional currency ==
- needs central authority
+ energy efficient
== Bitcoin ==
+ doesn't need central authority
- energy intensive
If there already is a central authority you can trust, it doesn't make sense to go through the song and dance of having a trustless currency system designed to work under adversarial conditions. Bitcoin isn't on the cusp of taking over the world, it fulfills a specific niche.
== Traditional currency ==
- needs central authority
+ energy efficient
== Bitcoin ==
+ doesn't need central authority
- energy intensive
If there already is a central authority you can trust, it doesn't make sense to go through the song and dance of having a trustless currency system designed to work under adversarial conditions. Bitcoin isn't on the cusp of taking over the world, it fulfills a specific niche.
Bitcoin network is constantly readjusting mining complexity, so that every new block will be mined in approximately 10 minutes. Then, they substitute the notion of time with the sequence of Bitcoin blocks. Yeah, well done!
Bitcoin proponents are becoming more and more insane.
Bitcoin proponents are becoming more and more insane.
Proof-of-history using verifiable delay functions (VDF) is a valid consensus mechanism that scales of PoS and PoW networks [1]. Solana is build on top of it and it looks very promising as a fast consensus mechanism.
OP pretty much explains the intuition behind why history as a sequence of events in a blockchain works, but Bitcoin PoW is different from PoH as maintaining order is the main work done and not a side-effect.
1. https://medium.com/solana-labs/proof-of-history-a-clock-for-...
OP pretty much explains the intuition behind why history as a sequence of events in a blockchain works, but Bitcoin PoW is different from PoH as maintaining order is the main work done and not a side-effect.
1. https://medium.com/solana-labs/proof-of-history-a-clock-for-...
Bitcoin is a pump and dump. Pump and dumps have legitimate value as long as people pay for them. This will remain true even if it goes to 200k, or 2m. In fact the higher it goes, the more of a pump and dump scheme it is.
how many people would buy it (or even care about it) if they were gauranteed 100% that it would never increase in price? None. this proves its purely a speculative asset with the hope to dump the bags on some other greater fool. if there was some legitimate use then the focus would all be on stablecoins or people would love bitcoin even if it went down in value.
how many people would buy it (or even care about it) if they were gauranteed 100% that it would never increase in price? None. this proves its purely a speculative asset with the hope to dump the bags on some other greater fool. if there was some legitimate use then the focus would all be on stablecoins or people would love bitcoin even if it went down in value.
It's way more interesting to look at the nuance and downsides of how Bitcoin works than to merely marvel, awe-struck at the concept of a distributed ledger.
It's been a few years since I was reading in-depth about Bitcoin, and I don't have references, but off the top of my head:
* It's bad for the environment, "wasting" so much electricity on more and more literal busywork... or is it? Apparently it depends where your electricity is coming from (it had better be cheap if you want to make money mining!) and whether you are actually causing additional electricity to be generated or just consuming surplus, or so I've heard.
* Control and power over Bitcoin is not all that distributed in practice. Mining a block would take prohibitively long for an individual, so there are mining pools where participants share in the spoils. Mining pools and exchanges have a lot of power. Just as the infrastructure of the Internet is run by big telecommunications companies whose routers talk to each other, there are various major players that make Bitcoin run, and there are occasionally decisions affecting the future and fate of Bitcoin, and Bitcoin politics, like disputes over protocols.
* In theory, Bitcoin is hard to fraudulently "take over" because you'd have to have more computing power than the rest of the miners combined, but if you control mining pools, or are China or something, I believe you could do it (and no one would necessarily know?).
* The rise of Bitcoin as a currency (not just a ledger/clock) whose value seems to just go up and up raises a lot of questions (IMO) about whether this is a good property of a distributed ledger system.
It's been a few years since I was reading in-depth about Bitcoin, and I don't have references, but off the top of my head:
* It's bad for the environment, "wasting" so much electricity on more and more literal busywork... or is it? Apparently it depends where your electricity is coming from (it had better be cheap if you want to make money mining!) and whether you are actually causing additional electricity to be generated or just consuming surplus, or so I've heard.
* Control and power over Bitcoin is not all that distributed in practice. Mining a block would take prohibitively long for an individual, so there are mining pools where participants share in the spoils. Mining pools and exchanges have a lot of power. Just as the infrastructure of the Internet is run by big telecommunications companies whose routers talk to each other, there are various major players that make Bitcoin run, and there are occasionally decisions affecting the future and fate of Bitcoin, and Bitcoin politics, like disputes over protocols.
* In theory, Bitcoin is hard to fraudulently "take over" because you'd have to have more computing power than the rest of the miners combined, but if you control mining pools, or are China or something, I believe you could do it (and no one would necessarily know?).
* The rise of Bitcoin as a currency (not just a ledger/clock) whose value seems to just go up and up raises a lot of questions (IMO) about whether this is a good property of a distributed ledger system.
With an emission of 1 per second forever, Grin is more like time (I make the case for uncapped supply in [1]).
[1] https://john-tromp.medium.com/a-case-for-using-soft-total-su...
[1] https://john-tromp.medium.com/a-case-for-using-soft-total-su...
>Time is the only thing we will never be able to make more of. It is The Ultimate Resource, as Julian Simon points out. This makes Bitcoin the ultimate form of money because its issuance is directly linked to the ultimate resource of our universe: time.
All things equal, BTC has a limited supply, making it unusable as a currency (but great as a deflationary store of value). I suppose the definition of "money" is less specific than "currency," but this notion of "money" goes contrary to the nomenclature of the human realm. Yes, technically anything that is tradable is "money," but then the term becomes rather meaningless.
Money must be backed by a creative asset, such as an orchard or labor or technology. Time alone a currency does not make.
All things equal, BTC has a limited supply, making it unusable as a currency (but great as a deflationary store of value). I suppose the definition of "money" is less specific than "currency," but this notion of "money" goes contrary to the nomenclature of the human realm. Yes, technically anything that is tradable is "money," but then the term becomes rather meaningless.
Money must be backed by a creative asset, such as an orchard or labor or technology. Time alone a currency does not make.
While I find decentralized digital ledgers interesting and potentially useful, I am always surprised how people think that they need to jump on bitcoin as it somehow must be the best choice for the future of money. At least to me it seems unlikely that the first feasible solution to a difficult problem is already the best. Several problems with bitcoin provide evidence for this idea.
Thus, it seems like the mechanism which keeps bitcoin running is something similar to the sunk cost fallacy or framed differently attachment to a state of the ledger that is perceived as favorable by the invested community. I hope that people will realize soon enough that bitcoin should probably more be treated like a nice art project - not more, not less.
Thus, it seems like the mechanism which keeps bitcoin running is something similar to the sunk cost fallacy or framed differently attachment to a state of the ledger that is perceived as favorable by the invested community. I hope that people will realize soon enough that bitcoin should probably more be treated like a nice art project - not more, not less.
This is the most nonsense article Ive read in a long time. The leap after leap of bias is amazing.
Here's another good one (30 min read): Bitcoin is Venice
https://allenfarrington.medium.com/bitcoin-is-venice-8414dda...
https://allenfarrington.medium.com/bitcoin-is-venice-8414dda...
If you liked this article, you will probably also enjoy "Mysteries of Modern Physics: Time" by Sean Carroll (I listened to it as an audiobook, I don't know what other formats it is available in).
Wouldn't it be great if there was a proof of work mechanism that took time, but very little energy?
I think there will be a low power processor that can perform unique instructions that are expensive to simulate on CPUs and GPUs, but is amenable to hashing, and is not too expensive to buy. My guess is something neuromorphic.
The first mWpowcoin could then be born.
I do see a downside that people will have to buy a special chip that has little general utility, but from the rise of ASICs that must be ok.
I know proof of stake exists, but clearly it isn't as popular. People like mining?
I think there will be a low power processor that can perform unique instructions that are expensive to simulate on CPUs and GPUs, but is amenable to hashing, and is not too expensive to buy. My guess is something neuromorphic.
The first mWpowcoin could then be born.
I do see a downside that people will have to buy a special chip that has little general utility, but from the rise of ASICs that must be ok.
I know proof of stake exists, but clearly it isn't as popular. People like mining?
Honestly, what kind of bullshit is this?
Did you mean: bitcoin is _timestamped_? ;)
If I might chip in with my freshly minted 1 karma account.. Bitcoin/"Satoshi" was an incubator of sorts. It brought the brightest minds together to build a new internet that is resistant to tampering by your neighbour or the government. It will in due time make way for the rising stars in that sector (IOHK I'm looking at you!) that will incrementally work toward perfect balance, until it itself is superseded some day.
If I might chip in with my freshly minted 1 karma account.. Bitcoin/"Satoshi" was an incubator of sorts. It brought the brightest minds together to build a new internet that is resistant to tampering by your neighbour or the government. It will in due time make way for the rising stars in that sector (IOHK I'm looking at you!) that will incrementally work toward perfect balance, until it itself is superseded some day.
For those who already know about Bitcoin's timestamping really well, it's worth reading about the time-warp attack. David Harding wrote a great answer about it on StackExchange ages ago: https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/75831/what-is-ti...
I'm ready to be downvoted but... nah just following the stupid memes.
The article made thing an interesting point regarding how information cannot be "moved" itself but only copied and then the previous copy destroyed.
I think RIAA, MPAA and other virtual goods creators could benefit from the non-fungible tokens things that are just raising as a use of the blockchain.
The article made thing an interesting point regarding how information cannot be "moved" itself but only copied and then the previous copy destroyed.
I think RIAA, MPAA and other virtual goods creators could benefit from the non-fungible tokens things that are just raising as a use of the blockchain.
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The earlier points in the piece about the distinction between information and physical matter got me thinking. I only have a bachelor's in computer science and not much cryptography knowledge, so please excuse if this question has a simple answer: What fundamentally prevents us from creating a digital analog of gold? Gold (partially) has value because it is scarce, and it's scarce because it's difficult to create--nuclear fusion takes a ton of energy, and gold is one of the heavier naturally occurring elements. As the article mentions, all physical assets can retain value because they're impossible to copy. If I give you my gold, the transfer of value is being held up by the laws of physics. You now have it, and I don't. There's no ledger keeping track of all the gold atoms in the universe, therefore it's trivial to transfer it from one part of space to another. What keeps us from having some cryptographic primitive that enforces the same thing?
Bitcoin got the part of "requiring some difficulty to create", but I feel like the killer cryptocurrency would be the one where no ledger is needed.
Bitcoin got the part of "requiring some difficulty to create", but I feel like the killer cryptocurrency would be the one where no ledger is needed.
Reminder: Bitcon is a ponzi. Learn how the investment fraud works. [1]
[1]: https://github.com/openblockchains/bitcoin-ponzi
[1]: https://github.com/openblockchains/bitcoin-ponzi
"Bitcoin Is A Waste of Time (and Resources)"
What Bitcoin has done is that it taught people they can come together in a sustained flash mob (like an on-the-fly hedge fund operation) and manipulate the price of speculative assets by creating artificial short-term pump-n-dump type demand. Bitcoin has trained our collective neural network to do this.
The huddled masses can take their new superpower and apply it to stock, crypto, commodities on the commodity exchange, and all kinds of speculative assets, especially the virtual kind.
It's taken a gambling-friendly society with feverish lust for winning (think for-profit fantasy sports, online poker, day trading, Vegas et al) and turned us into a giant decentralized casino.