"Proof of Work" has invoked dissonance in me since I first read the bitcoin white paper. I spent the 2000's and 2010's working on software in the oil industry processing seismic data. There were tens of thousands of GPUs and/or CPUs where the software engineers' jobs were to eliminate every possible CPU cycle that did not contribute to the final answer. PoW, by contrast, reminds me of the description of electron tunneling where you throw millions of ping-pong balls against a brick wall knowing only that the quantum reality is that, on occasion, a few of them will materialize on the other side. I can't get past the thought that those are the winners of the bitcoin block mining and everyone else just wasted energy beating their heads against a brick wall.
Jul 20, 2022·edited Jul 20, 2022Liked by Mathew Crawford
"Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) are different from Bitcoin" - yep. Sometimes I feel like saying something snarky like: you mean, even if you call it by the same name it doesn't mean it's the same thing?
Btw, Matthew, in one of our articles in the past few months you said something to the effect: let's just call AI what it is, a series of algorithms etc..... I cannot seem to find the quote. Do you remember?
I don't really have time to watch videos. Looking forward to a future post where you explain concisely why you're still bullish on BTC. If that's convincing I may come back to watch these fine points.
WTF?!?! YouTube hasn't banned you for life? How is that possible. I must be reading this in my dreams.
Either that or you aren't over the target :)
"Proof of Work" has invoked dissonance in me since I first read the bitcoin white paper. I spent the 2000's and 2010's working on software in the oil industry processing seismic data. There were tens of thousands of GPUs and/or CPUs where the software engineers' jobs were to eliminate every possible CPU cycle that did not contribute to the final answer. PoW, by contrast, reminds me of the description of electron tunneling where you throw millions of ping-pong balls against a brick wall knowing only that the quantum reality is that, on occasion, a few of them will materialize on the other side. I can't get past the thought that those are the winners of the bitcoin block mining and everyone else just wasted energy beating their heads against a brick wall.
"Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) are different from Bitcoin" - yep. Sometimes I feel like saying something snarky like: you mean, even if you call it by the same name it doesn't mean it's the same thing?
Btw, Matthew, in one of our articles in the past few months you said something to the effect: let's just call AI what it is, a series of algorithms etc..... I cannot seem to find the quote. Do you remember?
I don't really have time to watch videos. Looking forward to a future post where you explain concisely why you're still bullish on BTC. If that's convincing I may come back to watch these fine points.