HackMD - Collaborative Markdown Knowledge Base

*order of events in final podcast:* ### POW vs POS *begin podcast with this section* *lead in with some mention of pow/pos distinction* (first appears at [00:19:51](x-devonthink-item://3BA6A9F1-EDED-4E7E-8F60-99020B1EBB78?time=1191)) - Proof of Work - permissionless entry - miners can join POW network without needing permission from the miners already in the network - but you still need to buy the mining rig from someone - when coins are created, you have to get the coins. - specialized computing complicate the concept of permissionless - Proof of Stake - not permissionless (someone in the network must sell coins to new members) - mining pools/staking pools - like cooperatives, “many fish come together and make a whale” ### MEV - [00:51:30](x-devonthink-item://3BA6A9F1-EDED-4E7E-8F60-99020B1EBB78?time=3090) Block withholding and MEV are unfair - its when the miner is trying to extract value from the network in ways beyond just mining - miners can insert their own transactions before the transactions of others. - MEV threatens the promise of the blockchain: that miners will execute transactions regardless of their content - the threat that a mining bot will execute a transaction before the person who sent the transaction incentives users to …… - [00:55:55](x-devonthink-item://3BA6A9F1-EDED-4E7E-8F60-99020B1EBB78?time=3355) regulatory implications of MEV - Are miners financial intermediaries? MEV makes them look more like intermediaries. - Incentives for MEV? - [00:56:51](x-devonthink-item://3BA6A9F1-EDED-4E7E-8F60-99020B1EBB78?time=3411) DeFi made higher transaction fees to incentivise MEV. - the planned switch to POS incentivises miners to seek other revenue streams + EIP-1559 reduces miner fees - mining fees are determined by how complex the transactions are (how much precious block space they take up) - The hacking of Binance - discussing the possibility of reorging the chain to reclaim lost funds asap - [01:00:08](x-devonthink-item://3BA6A9F1-EDED-4E7E-8F60-99020B1EBB78?time=3608) a reorg after 100 blocks rescindes the coinbase block reward given to miners - reorging the chain would demonstrate the instability of the fantasy of immutability grounding bitcoin - [01:00:52](x-devonthink-item://3BA6A9F1-EDED-4E7E-8F60-99020B1EBB78?time=3652) does the instability of the ethereum blockchain open up the possibility of using it for non-wealth applications? - use cases for blocks outside of finance? - timestampping - used by #MeToo movement in China - [01:45:16](x-devonthink-item://3BA6A9F1-EDED-4E7E-8F60-99020B1EBB78?time=6316) EPI 1559 ### blockchain time quirks *insert later* ### Clock Glitches (dedicated hardware) - Bitcoins POS accomplishes several functions: - coin distrib - randomness - security ### Calendars - UK lost 45 days when switching to Gregorian calendar. - People protested - 2 dates for every time in Russian calendar. - Islamic calendar is on year 149X - There are about 40 different calendars - [List of calendars - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_calendars) - do universal way of tracking time - Calendars systems seem to be tied to spirituality. Different value systems lend themselves to different types of calendars. - Astrology - Foucault: Aesthetically, the stars and precious metals reflect each other. > “[This celestial and exhaustive calculation] makes those things that are brought into being by the hands of men correspond with the treasures buried in the earth since the creation of the world. The marks of similitude, because they are a guide to knowledge, are addressed to the perfection of heaven; the signs of exchange, because they satisfy desire, are sustained by the dark, dangerous, and accursed glitter of metal. An equivocal glitter, for it reproduces in the depths of the earth that other glitter that sings at the far end of the night: it resides there like an inverted promise of happiness, and, because metal resembles the stars, the knowledge of all these perilous treasures is at the same time knowledge of the world. And thus reflection upon wealth has its pivot in the broadest speculation upon the cosmos, just as, inversely, profound knowledge of the order of the world must lead to the secret of metals and the possession of wealth. … What the *soothsayers* were to the undefined interplay of resemblances and signs, the *merchants* are to the interplay, also forever open, of exchange and money.” > Foucault, The Order of Things pg. 176 Chapter 6 Exchanging - Section II Money and Prices - Do we see a perverse beauty in Bitcoin because it alludes to environmental destruction? - Potlatch, by way of Georges Bataille - Societies may cycles from periods of debt to periods of surplus resources. During potlatch, the surplus resources are spent and the debts are forgiven. - Some instances of Bitcoin mining seems to adhere to the logic of potlatch. These miners set up their mining rigs as close as possible to sources of energy extraction like coal plants in order to capture energy that would otherwise be too difficult to physically store or transport. ### Potlatch/climate - BTC mining captures energy that is otherwise wasted when its extracted from fracking etc. ### Genesis Block - intentional art performance demonstrated by delay in finding blocks, and the text encoded into the genesis block. - London times “[Banks of brink of second bailout]” - or, perhaps a reflection of Satoshi's stewardship of the network in its early days. - Bitcoin as immaculate (mis)conception - there is no founder ### Personalities and Founders - Craig S. Wright ### Sovereign ### Space & Time - Satoshi created time, not space - What other dimensions exist in a blockchain? - Latency adds a space-like dimension to the Bitcoin network - Disk space is … - Looking into the future of BTC - Experiment simulating a possible future of BTC in which very few coins are left to be mined. > “the price of the coins very low, nobody wants to mine it and therefore attacking the network is trivial.” - BTC’s progress narrative is programmed on the premise that token price will eventually drop to 0 or increase to infinity. - Every 4 years, the coins that go to miners decreases by 50%. - BTC’s future: > “right now, 6.25 Bitcoins in every block [are mined] from the network” - After a couple block reward decreases, miners would only continue defending the network if they’re receiving high fees - BTC may become unaffordable to spend if transaction fees are too high. ### Climate migration (MOVED) > “climate patterns inform where energy is cheap” - climate and governmental regulation can both affect the cost of energy. These factors attract or expel Bitcoin miners to move around the globe. - — Different calendars in history Astrology aesthetic value climate potlatch bitcoin art/genesis block -- *NOTE TO SELF:* - possibly remove the discussion of calendars [01:10:51](x-devonthink-item://3BA6A9F1-EDED-4E7E-8F60-99020B1EBB78?time=4251)