philosophyofmetrics | The cryptocurrency craze is built upon the blockchain technology.
Blockchain was created in mystery, with the assumed inventor
disappearing into obscurity. Some have made the case that blockchain was
in fact created by AI for the purpose of building a de-centralized AI
economy. That could be the case, but regardless, the technology is here
to stay, and will infiltrate and transform all aspects of human
existence and interaction.
The best way I’ve found to understand blockchain is to compare it to
the human brain. The brain has synapses which serve the function of
allowing neurons to transfer electrical and chemical signals to other
neurons. Like the neurons in the human brain, the blockchain technology
has nodes which serve the same purpose of transferring information and
data. Once the data exists on the blockchain, it can never be destroyed
or altered. There will always be an accurate record of all transactions.
This is being likened to an artificial intelligence hive mind which
will eventually connect everything in the world, including SMART
appliances, SMART watches, SMART cities, and eventually SMART human
beings. But I would like to take it a step further and suggest that
blockchain technology, and Ethereum specifically, is more comparable to
the whole human body and DNA in particular. The complex interactions and
transactions which take place within the body and our DNA are being
replicated on the blockchain and Ethereum platforms.
This has explosive repercussions on our understanding and acceptance
of the de-centralized world which is now emerging in our midst. One of
the big esoteric questions we’ve always asked ourselves regarding our
individual material, spiritual, and mental fragmentation, was how do we
complete a process of de-fragmentation without surrendering to a
material centralization which would dominate the totality of our lives?
We can see with blockchain and Ethereum, that a massive
de-centralization, or de-fragmentation, of processing and functionality,
will allow each individual component to maintain individuality, while
the art of de-fragmenting our human inefficiencies can proceed without
corrupting into ideological disasters, such as Communism and other
externalizations of human weakness.
The recent explosion in the value of Bitcoin is indicative of the
growing interest in the blockchain technology. But in some regards
Bitcoin is already obsolete. There are some fundamental differences
between Bitcoin and Ethereum. Here is a list of just seven which have
been complied by Cryptocompare.com:
- In Ethereum the block time is set to 14 to 15 seconds compared to Bitcoins 10 minutes. This allows for faster transaction times. Ethereum does this by using the Ghost protocol.
- Ethereum has a slightly different economic model than Bitcoin – Bitcoin block rewards halve every 4 years whilst Ethereum releases the same amount of Ether each year ad infinitum.
- Ethereum has a different method for costing transactions depending on their computational complexity, bandwidth use and storage needs. Bitcoin transactions compete equally with each other. This is called Gas in Ethereum and is limited per block whilst in Bitcoin, it is limited by the block size.
- Ethereum has its own Turing complete internal code… a Turing-complete code means that given enough computing power and enough time… anything can be calculated. With Bitcoin, there is not this form of flexibility.
- Ethereum was crowd funded whilst Bitcoin was released and early miners own most of the coins that will ever be mined. With Ethereum 50% of the coins will be owned by miners in year five.
- Ethereum discourages centralised pool mining through its Ghost protocol rewarding stale blocks. There is no advantage to being in a pool in terms of block propagation.
- Ethereum uses a memory hard hashing algorithm called Ethash that mitigates against the use of ASICS and encourages decentralised mining by individuals using their GPU’s.
The information in that list represents the core areas in which our
world is transforming. This cannot be stopped. Though Bitcoin may
explode even higher, and some nations and institutions may attempt to
regulate and slow the onset of the blockchain and Ethereum, the genie is
now out of the lamp and nothing can put it back. Blockchain is not just
for cryptocurrency and economics. It will build the foundation and
framework of everything in the world of tomorrow.
