It is no accident that the 2nd law of thermodynamics is the only equation of fundamental physics that knows any difference between past and future.
Because of this, I am convinced that proof-of-work is the only way to introduce time into the timeless digital realm.
Everything else relies on external factors and is bound to collapse once these external factors provide false inputs.
It goes even deeper than that: The problem of synchronizing clocks is ultimately an insoluble one. Bitcoin offers a practical solution to this impossible problem.
You can not solve this problem without introducing a new arrow of time, a distinction between past and future.
The link between time and heat is fundamental: without heat, a distinction between past and future is impossible.
Without a distinction between past and future, a ledger - something that keeps track of things - is impossible.
Once you understand the profundity of the problem, the beauty of Bitcoin's probabilistic solution becomes obvious.
Synchronization via a difficulty-adjusted proof-of-work is the innovation.
A failure to understand proof of work is a failure to understand #Bitcoin.
A thread. 🧵👇
Decentralized systems, by definition, do not have a single source of truth.
Satoshi's breakthrough was to build a system that allows all participants to zero in on the same truth independently. Proof of work is what allows this to happen.
The point of proof of work is to create an irrefutable history. If two histories compete, the one with the most work embedded in it wins.
The chain with the most work is the truth, by definition. This is what we call Nakamoto consensus.
#Bitcoin works in a very peculiar way. Our everyday experience doesn't map onto it nicely. Which is one of the reasons why I believe that trying to shoehorn it into concepts we are familiar with is a fool's errand. 🧵👇
First of all: public keys, private keys, addresses - even the software it self - it's all just numbers, which is to say information. Outlawing information gets very weird very quickly.
Second of all: on a technical level, every bitcoin transaction is a smelting process. Multiple inputs go in, multiple inputs go out. You can only connect inputs to outputs *heuristically*, never definitely.
Dear @MikhailaAleksis,
It was a pleasure meeting you in cyberspace today to talk #Bitcoin. For your convenience, I have collected some follow-up resources below. I am sharing them publicly so others might benefit from this list as well.
I predict 3 prevailing FUD narratives going forward. In order of intensity:
1) Energy FUD 2) Inequality FUD 3) Bitcoiner FUD
Re 1:
a) Bitcoin uses too much energy.
b) Bitcoin uses the wrong kind of energy.
c) Bitcoin does "useless" computations, it should rather fold proteins or solve cancer.
d) Bitcoin is bad for the environment regardless of energy use or source; waste of time and precious metals.
Re 2:
a) It is unfair that early adopters get rich.
b) It is unfair that rich people can buy a lot of bitcoin.
c) There has to be a better way to do fair distribution.
d) Poor people will never be able to afford bitcoin.
2/ Among other things, money solves a coordination problem. Trading a single good against others solves the combinatorial explosion of a barter economy. It is a scalability solution that allows coordination across large groups of people.
3/ The two basic forms of money are ledgers (made of information) and physical tokens (made of atoms). Physical tokens keep track of themselves. Ledgers need someone who is in charge.