A big buzzword in the U.S. for a long time – with masses of literature, research and entire courses of study – entrepreneur describes above all an entrepreneurial spirit, a way of thinking and acting in a world that is constantly changing and thus always full of entrepreneurial opportunities. An entrepreneur is someone who recognizes these opportunities and seizes them in order to pursue them with so much entrepreneurial vision, passion, skill, and stamina that they become successful business models – which may then change the world once again.
This always requires a large portion of curiosity and the willingness to think in new ways, to rethink, and to think further or differently than others. In addition, the ability to act in the midst of great uncertainty, not to lose courage and to deal with risks or setbacks is often required. Entrepreneur is therefore also a spirit of progress that drives change and innovation in our society.
Now, one might quickly think of the big names in the innovation and startup scene – the usual suspects in today's global economy – who have turned our entire culture upside down with their business ideas. This goes from Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos to Mohammad Yunus, who established a new concept of poverty alleviation with microcredit – and of course these are just a few of the famous cases.
Of course, these are impressive stories, but the fact is that anyone with the entrepreneurial spirit described can be an entrepreneur! There are countless such people all over the world, but we will never read about them in the newspaper. An entrepreneur is someone who develops and successfully implements an innovative business model.
What innovative entrepreneurs do for the economy: they are engines of change, creative creators and visionaries, and they often develop sustainable reforms even while governments and international bodies are still struggling to find suitable solutions. In short – they are indispensable for a better world.
Every innovative business model that is developed and successfully implemented belongs to them – even if it is on a very small scale. It is the entrepreneurial spirit behind it that counts in order to be considered an entrepreneur. This also means that you don't need a business degree or an MBA, because as an entrepreneur you don't manage the existing, but rather take care of the creative development of the corporate world
In Ukraine, an air of social credit with the Diia application
If the conflict between Russia and Ukraine has put these two countries at the forefront of the international scene, we have learned that the second city is a digital champion. In a logic of digitizing and centralizing everything, the government launched in 2020 an application called Diia which brings together identity card, passport, license, vaccination record, registrations, insurance, health reimbursements, social benefits, and more. . A model that we only knew so far in China with the famous social credit.
Ukraine is the champion of digital identity with the Diia app
This had been mentioned for a long time, then precipitated by the COVID crisis, governments want to move towards the digitization of everyday life by bringing together almost all services on the telephone. While the European Union had announced a test to digitize the vaccination record (see official PDF), wallet and identities in 2018, Ukraine was very quick to react with a Diia application deployed by the government there almost two years ago. Since then, the platform has continued to evolve.
Ukrainians can download Diia and store a whole lot of official information there as mentioned above, with the aim of being able to easily carry out most of the administrative procedures, which range from paying their taxes to renewing their identity papers, including the payment of his fines or the recovery of his social benefits. In all, nearly 50 services can be reached from the application and 9 official documents which have the same value as their paper counterparts. Eventually, it will soon be impossible to make an official request. Moreover, with COVID-19, the government has even announced that the payment of benefits will be conditional on the presence of a vaccination certificate. In addition, a program soberly named 'cash for vaccines' and launched by Volodimir Zelensky last year, intended 'to encourage people to get vaccinated against Covid-19 and to support the sectors of the economy which have suffered the most. quarantine restrictions. From the age of 14, each person with a full vaccination schedule in the application received 1000 hryvnia (about 30 euros). When reality catches up with Orwell..
Ukraine therefore posed as the champion of digitalization before the war broke out at the end of February. At the start of 2021, it already claimed more than 4.5 million active users. But taking a closer look at what is currently being done, it turns out that Poland has a mobile application similar to that of Ukraine, which was launched at the end of 2019. This Polish app displays seven digital documents and allows users to identify themselves with a digital ID card in places where a paper passport is not legally required.
In the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates, citizens can use electronic passports at airports for check-in and security screening. It's coming soon to the US thanks to Apple Wallet. In China, citizens have access to virtual identity cards integrated into a mobile application. Users can use it to identify themselves when they register in a hotel or to benefit from certain government services, with a points system that allows them to have additional rights in the event of “good behavior”. In Estonia, 70% of the population uses digital ID cards, while 99% of public services are available online.
What do you think of this transition to all-digital? Practical or worrying?
A Step In The Right Direction For The Crypto Industry
The narrative around BTC is constantly changing. First, BTC was seen as a risk-on asset correlated to the stock market. Then BTC was seen as an inflation hedge similar to gold. Now we’re seeing the narrative of BTC as uncensorable money emerge. So which one is it? Or could it be all three?
This week, we saw that long-awaited Executive Order finally issued. This had many people on the edge of their seats about what could be included, especially in the context of what was happening at the time, such as the Russian sanctions.
However, thanks to an initial leak of a statement from the Treasury, we got a glimpse into the tone it would be taking. An executive order would attempt to foster innovation in the space while maintaining investor protection.
When it was finally issued the day after, many in the space not only breathed a sigh of relief but were also pleasantly surprised. That’s because the tone set the previous day by Janet Yellen’s leaked press release was carried through with the Executive Order.
While there were still concerns about crypto being used for illicit purposes without sufficient oversight, Biden did say the rise of cryptocurrencies was “an opportunity to reinforce American leadership in the global financial system and at the technological frontier.”
There was quite a bit to cover in the EO, but here are some of the essential points:
No Bans or Regulations: Contrary to the FUD, there were no bans or knee-jerk reactions to curtail crypto use and adoption. The EO was specific in that more research was required to craft regulations better. Like regulations that could still foster innovation, as well as protect investors.
No new government bodies: Something else that was rumored to be in the works was a specific agency that would craft crypto legislation. This does not appear to be the case. However, there was a directive for federal agencies, such as the Federal Trade Commission, the SEC, and the CFTC, to coordinate their efforts concerning their oversight of the crypto industry.
Research & Development on CBDCs: The EO stated that research on a US CBDC is encouraged with “the highest urgency.” This was on the back of the acknowledgment that over 100 other countries are already looking into CBDCs. More specifically, the EO will ask the Fed and any other relevant agencies or departments within the federal government to look at the possible risks of a CBDC and the potential benefits.
As Kristin Smith of the Blockchain association said in a recent post, this is a major milestone for the industry in the United States.
“If you are bullish on the long-term possibilities for cryptocurrencies to transform many of the foundational services of our lives, then this recognition by the federal government of crypto's fundamental importance can only be viewed as an affirmation of that position.”
Kristen goes on to say that the crypto industry welcomes open dialogue. The debate is no longer whether crypto will survive; the discussion has shifted to encouraging responsible innovation and how the United States can maintain a leadership position in this innovation.
Kristin Smith is the executive director of the Blockchain Association, the Washington D.C.-based trade association representing the most prominent and reputable organizations in the crypto industry.
In the video, she talks with Coindesk about the outcome of the EO.
What is significant about this Executive Order is that it shows how the attitude and thinking have evolved within the administration. Biden has not been the most pro-crypto individual in the White House by any flight of fancy. Still, even he now realizes the importance of crypto innovation is revealing.
Not so long ago, policymakers typically viewed crypto with confusion, disdain, or apathy. Last year, Congress tried to quietly slip misguided Internal Revenue Service requirements on crypto entities into a bill as a pay-for provision to raise cash for the infrastructure bill. Now, the president of the United States is publicly saying that the federal government must do its due diligence before moving forward with new regulations.
Jerry Brito of CoinCenter also said that the Executive Order shows that the Federal government recognizes cryptocurrency as a “legitimate, serious, and important part of the economy and society, and I think it’s a good signal to serious people who’ve been holding back from getting involved.”
It’s in no small part thanks to individuals like Kristin and Jerry and their organizations who have been standing up for the industry in Washington. From the big battles over the infrastructure bill provision last year to this relatively positive Executive Order.
There are, of course, also those pro-crypto politicians who have been standing up for the industry since last year. These include the likes of Tom Emmer, Pat Toomey, and Cynthia Lummis, to name but a few.
While this is a victory for the crypto industry, there is still work to be done. There are still anti-crypto zealots who seek to hinder the industry’s progress, and there are still countries that have yet to appreciate this technology's value.
The recent historical events exposed to the mainstream, such as Canada’s tyrannical move to block payments and withhold bank accounts of the people fighting for their rights and crypto donations to war-torn Ukraine, show the world that crypto has a real purpose and really is unstoppable.
One More Positive Outcome For Crypto
Meanwhile, in other parts of the world, it was reported that the EU Parliament committee voted against a ban on the Proof-of-Work mechanism underlying popular cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.
A proposal put forward by the EU’s Economic Monetary Affairs Committee failed to win approval that would have effectively banned the mining and transactions of energy-intensive cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin.
The topic of crypto energy consumption has been a controversial and spirited debate, especially with the growing demand for Bitcoin and other cryptos in this ever-expanding sector. As cited in this report, the crypto industry adopted the move to renewable energy and will continue to do so. Bitcoin will become 100% renewable when all other sectors become 100% renewable.
Some would argue there seems to be no credence to this proposal other than an anti-crypto sentiment by those who voted for it. (Pictured below) A final tally of the committee’s voting showed the proposed clause was defeated with 23 votes in favor, 30 against, and six abstentions.
“Bitcoin won that vote,” said Michael Saylor, chief executive of software company MicroStrategy, during a Monday webinar hosted by the Economic Club of New York. “You need energy to create real property.”
Markus Ferber, a lawmaker and the spokesman for the Europe People’s Party (EPP) in the committee, said the failed proposal sent a “clear signal” that the EU wishes to support the crypto industry as it grows.
Ferber explained,
“Banning ‘proof of work’ would have meant for the EU to become crypto no man’s land,” If we want to foster innovation, we should be open to new technologies, not banning them.”
In the 1990s, a novel technology called the internet was catching on and growing fast, so regulators suddenly had to grapple with how to address it. Ultimately, Congress passed legislation that provided clear rules and necessary protections.
The move gave technology companies the breathing room to create better products, and the evolution of the various systems in technology is something we’ve never seen before. If Congress considers the same for crypto as it did for the internet, then we could see a similar explosion of innovation.
That innovation could have a positive impact on communities. Crypto technology has the power to provide financial services to the unbanked and underbanked, give individuals control over their finances, make data storage secure, private, and autonomous. It can create sovereign ecosystems to uphold freedom, liberty, and financial sovereignty for all the right reasons.
What does human progress mean in times of technical progress? Is human progress still possible at all?
From being at the mercy of nature and its phenomena, we humans have become the rulers of the earth through technological progress. And what do we use this power for? We are destroying our Mother Earth with it. We evaluate the wonders of nature surrounding us solely according to the degree of usefulness for ourselves. Technical progress in itself is neither good nor evil. But we implement too many possibilities of technology without thinking about it. Meanwhile, the consequences of our actions are again turning against humanity. Climate change, with extreme weather patterns and phenomena, shows that the idea of control is an illusion. Pope Paul VI summed this up well back in 1971: "The most extraordinary scientific advances, if they are not accompanied by genuine social and moral progress, ultimately turn against man." It is now time for technical progress to be followed by social and moral progress, developed into a new ethic of solidarity among people and with nature.
SuperMarket
Thousands of inventions have led to the huge range of goods offered in today's supermarkets. Technological progress. But is it also human progress if I have to collect all the goods myself in a clumsy shopping cart? And not speaking a word to a single person? And when I no longer receive my favorite chocolate because a computer has calculated that it doesn't generate enough sales? And what if in the future I pay by reading in the prices with my cell phone, thus putting the cashiers out of work? And what if the wholesaler knows my shopping habits better than I do and thus steers me? And what if global markets are the real beneficiaries of technological progress? Is that why the weekly markets are popular again, because you are greeted and served there, have the vendor right in front of you and even get to know him over time? I think that is only (psycho)logical!
Possibilities
With technology, we can now do almost anything, but there is one thing we cannot do: stop it. It is unrealistic to think that people do not need technology or that they will one day turn away from it. The changes it has already brought about in our lives are too drastic. It's not as if we can't control the extent to which we consume technology. I can choose whether I go for a walk in the woods without my cell phone or whether I watch TV at home. It is a pity that technology is often used to the disadvantage of mankind and not to its benefit. Nevertheless, the advantages it brings us are immense, if we only think of medicine. Thanks to devices like the telephone or an X-ray machine, people can be saved. I am very grateful for technical progress and try to consciously distinguish between addiction and sensible use. It's certainly not always easy to find the right balance, but that's not only the case with technology.
Charity
Technical progress is a fact. Now the question: is there progress in terms of humanity? I state: Either people abolish slavery, put women on an equal footing with men, organize school for all, or they enslave, humiliate and mistreat women, exploit children, wage war. Obviously mankind does not have it easy with us humans! According to Darwin the strongest survive. But what is to happen to the weak? Are they, like the drones in autumn from the beehive, thrown out? It is probably not meant in such a way. Self-love and charity should be connected. But how do I succeed in this as an individual human being? And how does our society achieve this balance? I take a look at the Bible. In Apostle Paul, I read that there is a struggle for the heart of man. Man can only choose good or evil under a certain condition: He must accept his dependence on God and ask him for his help
Back in the fall, the US Treasury warned that cryptocurrencies threaten the effectiveness of sanctions. In fact, Bitcoin & Co. play a central role in the Ukraine war.
States have always financed wars with the help of more or less voluntary donations. With special taxes, for example, or with war bonds with promised interest. In this respect, Ukraine's appeal after Russia's attack is not unusual – if the government did not explicitly ask for cryptocurrencies.
"A shield for people"
"I still wouldn't call it a crypto war, more like a shield for people," says Alex Gladstein of the New York-based Human Rights Foundation. He helped organize the appeal for donations for Ukraine – successfully: so far, the equivalent of almost 60 million US dollars in various cryptocurrencies has been collected for the war chest. "The Ukrainian government has used the money to buy military equipment to defend the country," Gladstein explains.But that's not all: "Crypto is also providing peaceful humanitarian aid to hundreds of thousands of people who have fled, been displaced or are suffering terrible economic conditions." For example, there are special funds to help civilians flee and provide them with food and fuel.
"Blacklisting doesn't help at all"
But the brave new crypto world also has its downsides, says Hanna Halaburda, a professor of economic technology at New York University. "Even before the Ukraine war, crytocurrencies have been used for good and for bad because they bypass government control and regulation," she said. "And in this conflict, it's again very clear: You can do better and worse things with crypto. "That's because cryptocurrencies are also being used in Russia – where they are being used to circumvent drastic sanctions imposed by the West. Thus, with the invasion of Ukraine, more rubles have been exchanged for bitcoin than ever before. "Let's take the oligarchs: They can exchange money into cryptocurrencies to get around sanctions," Halaburda says. It would be hard to prevent that. Because for that you would need, first, the addresses of the virtual wallets of these oligarchs. "Then you would have to – secondly – block them in all trading platforms. And thirdly, there are not only bitcoins; there are cryptocurrencies that are so protected that a blacklist is useless."
Access to cryptocurrencies unregulable?
As early as last October, the U.S. Treasury Department warned that cryptocurrencies posed a threat to the effectiveness of sanctions. Entire departments are now busy tracking down suspicious transactions.Trading platforms are not much help. "We are a private company," Kraken CEO Jesse Powell, for example, clarifies. "It's not our job to freeze the accounts of Russian citizens. That would go too far." Denying someone access to their finances is different "than no longer selling them shoes or camera lenses," Powell says. "We will only take such an extreme measure if we are forced to do so by the government. "Meanwhile, several thousand crypto accounts have been blocked under pressure from Washington, but most Russian oligarchs and Putin supporters likely continued to go unchallenged, says expert Halaburda. "Bitcoin, after all, was invented precisely to circumvent government regulations." The Bitcoin community could theoretically introduce blacklists now. But to do so, it would first have to coordinate, she said. "And then there are all the second-generation cryptocurrencies. So we're pretty much powerless to restrict the use of cryptocurrencies."
Could Solana Be The Answer To Decentralized Social Market Networks?
The Genisis Of The Blockchain Concept
The Blockchain concept was brought to light over 30 years ago by Stuart Haber and W. Scott Stornetta. They worked at Bell Communications Research (Bellcore), specializing in Telecoms research and development. As research scientists, they wrote a series of papers on cryptography, focusing on timestamping digital documents, and ended up creating a distributed immutable ledger. Some of their published materials and concept were adopted heavily by Satoshi Nakamoto in the 2008 Bitcoin whitepaper.
Image courtesy of Coingeeks Stuart Haber and W.Scott Stornetta
Haber and Stornetta were very influential and foundational in the development of the Blockchain we know today; however, almost every cryptocurrency blockchain today records transactions without reference to time. It took a few years, but someone eventually noticed that nobody was effectively keeping time in crypto and decided to do something about it.
Solana is the first blockchain crypto ecosystem to implement a timestamp mechanism by building a decentralized clock into its own native blockchain. Why is this important? Because Solana proves that it’s possible to be decentralized, secure, and scalable and shows that this can be done without using any layer two solutions like Ethereum 2.0’s Sharding protocol or Bitcoin’s Lightning Network.
Solana is named after a beach slightly North of San Diego, in the US, where Solana cryptocurrency founder Anatoly Yakovenko worked for nearly 13 years as a software engineer at Qualcomm and was instrumental in developing the technology used in Andriod phones. Qualcomm is a Fortune 500 company specializing in software, hardware, and wireless technologies for mobile phones.
Initially, Anatoly was not a very big fan of cryptocurrency, and he wasn’t impressed with Bitcoin and was only slightly interested in Ethereum. That was until one strange night in 2017, with what he described as a “caffeine-induced fever dream,” Anatoly figured out how to improve cryptocurrency blockchains by time-stamping transactions. The analogy Anatoly uses to explain this process will help you understand how.
Anatoly Yakovenko’s Analogy
In time past, if two radio towers sent out a signal on the same frequency simultaneously, those signals would collide, and the result would be white noise. So, to combat this, radio towers began operating on a time schedule.
For example, the first radio tower would send out a signal on the 1st second, and the second radio tower would send out a signal on the 2nd second. Then the first tower would send out a signal again and so on. Cryptocurrency blockchains, such as Bitcoin, are currently operating like those old radio towers.
Sometimes, two different miners will produce a new Bitcoin block at the same time. The blockchain splits, and the longest of the two blockchains wins. Whichever of the two new chains produces a block first becomes the actual Bitcoin blockchain. The other one gets ditched by Bitcoin Miners, and all transactions on that chain get shafted.
This is where the terminology, “the longest chain,” comes in and is used for this temporary situation where you have two blockchains. As with the radio towers, this inefficiency could be fixed if everyone on the Bitcoin network worked in sync with a clock where each transaction could be timestamped.
While companies such as Google and Intel can timestamp data using a regular clock in their centralized servers, building a decentralized clock is not easy. Who would be the timekeeper on a decentralized blockchain? And what would happen if two or more parties had different timestamps for the same transaction?
Anatoly figured out that the same SHA256 mining algorithm used by Bitcoin could be tweaked to function as a decentralized clock. Combining this with an optimized proof of stake consensus would make it possible to process an insane amount of transactions per second while maintaining network security and decentralization.
Solana. Unique Technology In Current Blockchain Systems
So in November of 2017, Solana was born with the release of the Solana platform testnet in February 2018. The core Solana innovation is Proof of History (POH), a globally-available, permissionless source of time in the network that works before consensus. POH is not a consensus protocol or anti-Sybilmechanism but a solution to the clock problem.
Solana uses the Proof of Stake consensus mechanism to validate transactions, with Proof of History incorporated, and is a critical component of the proof of stake consensus. This protocol is a verifiable delay function that is repetitively outputted by the SHA256 algorithm.
This repetitive output functions as the ticking of Solana’s decentralized clock, which is used to timestamp transactions. Validator nodes take turns performing tasks on the Solana blockchain, including producing blocks.
Proof Of History Explained
The Solano Foundation is a non-profit organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, and maintains the open-source project. Solana's scalability ensures transactions remain less than $0.01 for both developers and users.
Solana is all about speed, with 400 millisecond block times, and as hardware gets faster, so does the network. Solana is also censorship-resistant, meaning the network will remain open for applications to run freely and will never stop transactions.
Time Is Money In Your Pocket
The Solana project is highly complicated. So complicated that even crypto veterans hosting the Epicenter podcast had trouble wrapping their heads around it when they interviewed Anatoly.
At a glance, Solana is a high-performance Layer 1 Proof of Stake Blockchain. This means it does not need to use additional layer 2 Chains or solutions to handle transactions. Solana can process 50k to 65k transactions per second, making it the fastest Layer 1 cryptocurrency blockchain out there right now.
Like Ethereum, Solana is Smart contract compatible, meaning that developers can create new cryptocurrency tokens and decentralized applications on it. Solana already has over 250 projects and partners, including FTX, Tether USDT, USDC, Chainlink, BSN, and Serum.
At only 1000th of a cent to send a transaction, costing you just US$10 to send 1 million transactions on Solana’s blockchain, it’s no wonder many projects and applications are turning to the Solana ecosystem.
To put this in perspective, 1 million transactions on Ethereum today would cost you over US$300,000 worth of Eth, and that’s with the cheapest and slowest gas option possible. Solana's cheap transactions secret is in the POH and its verifiable delay function to the SHA256 mining algorithm, making it possible for all transactions to be timestamped.
This makes it possible for validator nodes on the network to organize transaction records after the fact without waiting for other validator nodes to check their records. On the Solana Blockchain, each new block produced is treated as a “tick” on this decentralized clock, and Solana’s clock ticks every 400 milliseconds.
The Secret To Fast Secure Transactions
So now we know how Solana organizes its data, but how can it generate so many transactions per second? A large part of this is due to Solana’s low barrier to entry to participate as a validator node on the network. To be a validator node on Solana, you need to stake their native SOL token. Here's the twist, though. There is no minimum stake required to be a validator node on Solana.
Compare this to the $70k you have to shell out to be a master node on Dash or the nearly $11k you need to become a validator node on Ethereum 2.0. Moreover, validator nodes on Solana fulfill all roles on the blockchain, and they are responsible for verifying transactions, storing transaction records, and generating new blocks.
For example, each validator node takes turns being the leader, which produces Solana blocks. Each turn lasts for four blocks, which is just 1.6 seconds, and the likelihood of being chosen to be a leader is proportional to the amount of SOL tokens you have staked. The fact that leaders change every 1.6 seconds makes it hard for a single validator node or even a group of validators to collude, attack or corrupt the network.
According to Coingecko, Solana has a total supply of 508 Million SOL tokens and a circulating supply of 320 Million.
Revealed in the Solana Climate FootprintAnalysis, Solana is already highly energy efficient. The most recent analysis from the Solana Foundation estimates that a single Solana transaction uses only 1,939 Joules, which is less than the amount of energy required to complete two Google Searches. That is the equivalent of leaving an LED lightbulb on (36,000 J per hour) for a little more than 3 minutes or running your refrigerator (810,000 J per hour) for about 11 seconds.
It is also notably much less energy than transactions on other Blockchains, such as an Eth 2 transaction (126,000 J), an Ethereum transaction (777,600,000 J), or a Bitcoin transaction (7,412,400,000 J) as researched by Digiconomist. However, I have another recent report that analyzes Bitcoin’s carbon footprint contrary to what some headlines purport.
2021 – A Big Year For Solana
As mentioned in Solana’s community update, in January 2021, when Solana was less than a year old, it had 10 billion total transactions, $100 million total value locked, (TVL) 360 global validators, and 70 total projects.
By December 2021, those numbers had taken off: 45.5 billion transactions, $11.4 billion (TVL), 1,328 global validators, and 5,145 total projects in the ecosystem, plus more than 1 million NFTs minted, 5,985 total public repos, and many more highlights.
The Solana blockchain can already host something as demanding as the Serum DEX, and Tether”s integration with Solana, along with many other high-profile major projects, is also a massive vote of confidence for Solana.
This is all thanks to Solana’s unique design. Its Proof of History mechanism takes its Proof of Stake consensus mechanism to the next level by timestamping transactions. The low entry barrier to becoming a staking validator node on the network is a huge selling point.
Combine these two elements with the fact that the validator nodes frequently take turns producing blocks and fulfilling other roles on the Solana Blockchain, and you have a recipe for scalability, decentralization, and security for all types of projects.
The company had a humble beginning; it was not propped up by hundreds of millions of dollars of venture capital investors who wanted to turn a quick profit. It’s good to see that Solana does not appear to be heavily influenced by venture capital funding, which has been a significant issue for many other crypto projects.
It Takes A Special Blockchain To Cater To Social Media
Some blockchains have shied away from integrating social media platforms for several reasons. One is the amount of data and content generated on a platform, and many are not technologically able to cope with such a vast application or protocol.
Charles Hoskinson, CEO of Cardano, had an interesting conversation with SingularityNET CEO Ben Goertzel on decentralized social media. Although they are not ready for a platform like Markethive or even recognize it yet, they describe Markethive!
They speak of the dynamics and what’s needed to integrate a decentralized platform on a Blockchain. They analyze the shortcomings of Minds and Steemit, Facebook, and Twitter, stating that incentives are crucial, and it's always been an incentives problem.
“If you show that in a free market system you can achieve great wealth, or at least the prospect of great wealth by building a system of a certain design, then you'll end up getting a lot of it. The incentives models being aligned so that people can actually make money and produce money and do useful things with the system.”
The solving of top-level control issues by introducing a decentralized, AI-guided rating and reputation system that is self-policing and fosters a healthy level of interaction. It would also create a breeding ground for positive, creative, and beneficial content in which people's minds are being nudged toward positive growth.
Charles stated,
“You have to solve all three of those with one protocol design and one incentives design. And if you do that, then it's going to be this massive beacon that will attract tons of people to come in and start working on an augmented system and evolve it.
And it doesn't matter if it starts very small. It'll go very viral and eventually get to that Tesla-style hockey stick when Tesla figured out the entire model. Plenty of battery-powered cars before, but their particular model was the one that everything came together and then it had exponential growth.”
Because of Solana’s POH method, it can horizontally scale the rest of the blockchain, the same way that operating systems and databases scale their software. Each Solana team member has over a decade of experience working in operating systems GPU acceleration. Compilers, networks, etc., giving them extensive and deep experience optimizing software.
Solana is based on scaling software with hardware, with the vision of building the world's largest decentralized, single chart blockchain. The only way to do that is by scaling all the core technologies with hardware.
Scaling the Blockchain in this way delivers a cheap cryptographic base for financial transfers and, more importantly, outside of finance. It is a way for Solana to build a better web experience for social media communities regarding micropayments.
Also, advertising-based revenues can be relinquished for social networks, leading communities to generate value by self-expression, creating their own content, and growing the network and the connections within the community, creating a better world for all.
Listen to Anatoly Yakovenko, co-founder and architect of Solana, explain its submission to the Reddit Scaling Bake-Off.
Anatoly explains the team will work tirelessly to make sure that they can roll out the features Reddit wants for the entire 430 million Reddit user base. They aim to build the best possible experience for their communities to issue cryptocurrencies and have an open Smart contracts platform that is fully programmable.
Anatoly believes that technology can handle large crypto-based communities, and they’re just getting started. There is so much more to the Solana project. It’s all laid out in the Solana Documentation on its Website. https://docs.solana.com/introduction
Markethive is also working tirelessly to bring a beacon of light in these relentless dark times of the world. It is a monolithic project arming itself with complete autonomy on every level, rendering it impervious to the wicked tyranny that currently assails civilization globally.
There are various aspects of Markethive’s arsenal being forged simultaneously and will be ready for the millions seeking refuge and reclaiming their sovereignty. We now have our sovereign merchant account and preparing for our crypto wallet.
Solana and its technology look favorable as the conduit to assist in making Markethive the go-to for an alternative and autonomous, a censorship-free platform providing all components of social media, marketing, broadcasting, publishing, eCommerce, and business facilitation. A cottage industry economy for people from all walks of life to thrive.
Markethive also had a humble beginning and no prominent venture capitalists. It is built by the people, of and for the people. It is an ecosystem for entrepreneurs, and it’s the rank and file, the community that will profit, sharing the prosperity and abundance of every level of humanity.
Stay informed of Markethive’s progress as we make headway with the rollout of our new advanced system. A Divine fortress where evil cannot penetrate. Come to the weekly meetings every Sunday at 10 am Mountain Time, and you will find the invite link in the Markethive calendar.
This content is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
What is a battery?' I think Nicholas Tesla said it best when he called it an Energy Storage System. That's an important distinction.
They do not make electricity – they store electricity produced elsewhere, primarily by coal, uranium, natural gas-powered plants, or diesel-fueled generators. So, to say an EV is a zero-emission vehicle is not at all valid.
Also, since forty percent of the electricity generated in the U.S. is from coal-fired plants, it follows that forty percent of the EVs on the road are coal-powered, do you see?
Einstein's formula, E=MC2, tells us it takes the same amount of energy to move a five-thousand-pound gasoline-driven automobile a mile as it does an electric one. The only question again is what produces the power? To reiterate, it does not come from the battery; the battery is only the storage device, like a gas tank in a car.
There are two orders of batteries, rechargeable, and single-use. The most common single-use batteries are A, AA, AAA, C, D. 9V, and lantern types. Those dry-cell species use zinc, manganese, lithium, silver oxide, or zinc and carbon to store electricity chemically. Please note they all contain toxic, heavy metals.
Rechargeable batteries only differ in their internal materials, usually lithium-ion, nickel-metal oxide, and nickel-cadmium. The United States uses three billion of these two battery types a year, and most are not recycled; they end up in landfills. California is the only state which requires all batteries be recycled. If you throw your small, used batteries in the trash, here is what happens to them.
All batteries are self-discharging. That means even when not in use, they leak tiny amounts of energy. You have likely ruined a flashlight or two from an old, ruptured battery. When a battery runs down and can no longer power a toy or light, you think of it as dead; well, it is not. It continues to leak small amounts of electricity. As the chemicals inside it run out, pressure builds inside the battery's metal casing, and eventually, it cracks. The metals left inside then ooze out. The ooze in your ruined flashlight is toxic, and so is the ooze that will inevitably leak from every battery in a landfill. All batteries eventually rupture; it just takes rechargeable batteries longer to end up in the landfill.
In addition to dry cell batteries, there are also wet cell ones used in automobiles, boats, and motorcycles. The good thing about those is, ninety percent of them are recycled. Unfortunately, we do not yet know how to recycle single-use ones properly.
But that is not half of it. For those of you excited about electric cars and a green revolution, I want you to take a closer look at batteries and also windmills and solar panels. These three technologies share what we call environmentally destructive embedded costs.
Everything manufactured has two costs associated with it, embedded costs and operating costs. I will explain embedded costs using a can of baked beans as my subject.
In this scenario, baked beans are on sale, so you jump in your car and head for the grocery store. Sure enough, there they are on the shelf for $1.75 a can. As you head to the checkout, you begin to think about the embedded costs in the can of beans.
The first cost is the diesel fuel the farmer used to plow the field, till the ground, harvest the beans, and transport them to the food processor. Not only is his diesel fuel an embedded cost, so are the costs to build the tractors, combines, and trucks. In addition, the farmer might use a nitrogen fertilizer made from natural gas.
Next is the energy costs of cooking the beans, heating the building, transporting the workers, and paying for the vast amounts of electricity used to run the plant. The steel can holding the beans is also an embedded cost. Making the steel can requires mining taconite, shipping it by boat, extracting the iron, placing it in a coal-fired blast furnace, and adding carbon. Then it's back on another truck to take the beans to the grocery store. Finally, add in the cost of the gasoline for your car.
A typical EV battery weighs one thousand pounds, about the size of a travel trunk. It contains twenty-five pounds of lithium, sixty pounds of nickel, 44 pounds of manganese, 30 pounds cobalt, 200 pounds of copper, and 400 pounds of aluminum, steel, and plastic. Inside are over 6,000 individual lithium-ion cells.
It should concern you that all those toxic components come from mining. For instance, to manufacture each EV auto battery, you must process 25,000 pounds of brine for the lithium, 30,000 pounds of ore for the cobalt, 5,000 pounds of ore for the nickel, and 25,000 pounds of ore for copper. All told, you dig up 500,000 pounds of the earth's crust for just one battery."
Sixty-eight percent of the world's cobalt, a significant part of a battery, comes from the Congo. Their mines have no pollution controls, and they employ children who die from handling this toxic material. Should we factor in these diseased kids as part of the cost of driving an electric car?"
I'd like to leave you with these thoughts. California is building the largest battery in the world near San Francisco, and they intend to power it from solar panels and windmills. They claim this is the ultimate in being 'green,' but it is not! This construction project is creating an environmental disaster. Let me tell you why.
The main problem with solar arrays is the chemicals needed to process silicate into the silicon used in the panels. To make pure enough silicon requires processing it with hydrochloric acid, sulfuric acid, nitric acid, hydrogen fluoride, trichloroethane, and acetone. In addition, they also need gallium, arsenide, copper-indium-gallium- diselenide, and cadmium-telluride, which also are highly toxic. Silicone dust is a hazard to the workers, and the panels cannot be recycled.
Windmills are the ultimate in embedded costs and environmental destruction. Each weighs 1688 tons (the equivalent of 23 houses) and contains 1300 tons of concrete, 295 tons of steel, 48 tons of iron, 24 tons of fiberglass, and the hard to extract rare earths neodymium, praseodymium, and dysprosium. Each blade weighs 81,000 pounds and will last 15 to 20 years, at which time it must be replaced. We cannot recycle used blades. Sadly, both solar arrays and windmills kill birds, bats, sea life, and migratory insects.
There may be a place for these technologies, but you must look beyond the myth of zero emissions. I predict EVs and windmills will be abandoned once the embedded environmental costs of making and replacing them become apparent. "Going Green" may sound like the Utopian ideal and are easily espoused, catchy buzzwords, but when you look at the hidden and embedded costs realistically with an open mind, you can see that Going Green is more destructive to the Earth's environment than meets the eye, for sure.
If this had been titled : "The Embedded Costs of Going Green," would you have read it?
Crypto’s Sanction-Slipping Power: Why Bitcoin’s Neutrality Is Its Greatest Humanitarian Asset
Decentralized networks such as Bitcoin’s don’t know national allegiance, they only know math. And when you’re trying to get your savings out of an ATM, or send a payment to relatives in a war-torn environment, someone else’s politics is the last thing you want standing in the way of you and your loved ones’ well-being — regardless of what colors may be on the flag waving above your head.
The Human Cost of Sanctions
There are no winners in war. Bankers and politicians start them, and everyday individuals like you and I are told to suffer, fight, kill one another, and die.
Picture this: You live in Russia. The value of your money — the ruble — is tumbling. What’s more frightening are the long lines forming in front of ATMs and banks, and the confusion at public transportation hubs as major corporations like Google and Apple are restricting services, while major banks are cut off from the SWIFT payments network.
While you are completely against war, and even have relatives in the Ukraine, according to many media reports you are their sworn enemy. Even the institutions you somewhat trust, such as forward-thinking cryptocurrency exchanges, are being pressured to “sabotage ordinary users” by top-ranking government officials. This is the nature of sanctions.
Luckily, true, decentralized crypto is still available as an option to move and preserve value. Just have a look at all the honking for peace that recently went on in Ottawa, Canada. In the Ukraine, too, as your relatives seek shelter in the midst of a conflict they never asked for, they are being aided by crypto donations that aren’t subject to arbitrary borders drawn by politicians. Heck, the government itself is asking. Crypto is a tool. It can be used by anyone, for better or for worse.
No matter what the major news outlets are shouting about, or which side is viewed as right or wrong, you can continue to control your money.
Sanctioned Areas Globally See Individuals Turn to Crypto
The ripple effect of the new wave of so-called western sanctions against the people in Russia is already being braced for. As Bitcoin.com news reported just this week, some economists in Venezuela are already predicting trouble for Venezuela’s banking system (and in effect, of course, people), as major Russian banks are now being banned from accessing SWIFT. Venezuelan economist Jose Guerra took to Twitter to explain:
Any country with significant financial ties to Russia will likely feel the sting of restrictions on trade.
Moving up to Cuba, a country whose residents have had to deal with U.S. trade embargoes for decades, one can also see the impact of restrictions on free trade. And because of this, crypto has historically been a valuable tool here as well.
A Reuters report from back in 2019 notes that the “roll-out of mobile internet nearly a year ago has opened the way for cryptocurrency transactions, and enthusiasts have multiplied as the currency helps overcome obstacles created by U.S. sanctions on Cuba.”
The report tells of a small business owner who was able to purchase parts for his mobile phone repair shop online with crypto, which were unavailable in the local economy. Computer scientist Adrian C. Leon also emphasized in the same article:
For foreigners, cryptocurrencies is just another option, but for Cubans it is a necessity and can be a solution to their exclusion from the global financial community.
The nation of Iran has become a hot topic as well, when it comes to the heated debate about sanctions and crypto. A 2021 report by the Iranian think tank Presidential Center for Strategic Studies suggested that newly-minted bitcoins could be leveraged for the purpose of trade beyond geopolitical restrictions. The report detailed:
“As the newly-extracted bitcoins are not easily traceable, despite the pressure of sanctions on the country, domestic economic actors can use newly-extracted cryptocurrencies, which are preferable to existing bitcoins, on international exchanges.”
Draconian Calls to Stifle Crypto Freedom Increase
Of course, countries typically viewed in western media as terroristic using cryptocurrencies to slip sanctions is seen as a major problem.
“You either need to regulate them or ban them. I don’t think there is a middle ground,” Informed Choice chartered financial planner Martin Bamford stated in an Express interview from May 2021, speaking about potential cryptocurrency tax havens. He further noted: “A global crypto currency tax or a global crypto currency regulation ban would be the most effective way of doing it, but only if you can get all the countries on board.”
When Bamford was asked which governments might not cooperate, he answered: “Russia, China, or Iran.”
Bamford’s prescription seems to be taking shape and gaining currency (no pun). Just last month, global investment bank JPMorgan’s managing director and head of Regulatory Affairs, Debbie Toennies, declared: “I do think we need a globally consistent regulatory framework. It’s important that we get to a solution as quickly as possible.”
Other notable forces calling for global regulation are European Central Bank Chief Christine Lagarde and leading centralized cryptocurrency exchange Binance. For her part, Lagarde retreated to the tired trope of crypto being the money of criminals, stating:
“It’s a highly speculative asset, which has conducted some funny business and some interesting and totally reprehensible money laundering activity.”
Of course, these arguments have been laid to rest by statistics several times over, with fiat’s financing of illicit activity massively dwarfing Satoshi’s supposed contribution to crime. And this crime itself is all too often defined by corrupt lawmakers, and not any logical, ethical compass.
When we’re dealing with the caliber of folks who proudly state that literally starving 500,000 children to death is “worth it” for sanctions’ sake, we’d do well to take giant step back and reevaluate.
Thus Spoke Satoshi: for Humanity’s Sake
The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche famously said of governments:
A state, is called the coldest of all cold monsters. Coldly lieth it also; and this lie creepeth from its mouth: ‘I, the state, am the people.’ It is a lie! Creators were they who created peoples, and hung a faith and a love over them: thus they served life. Destroyers, are they who lay snares for many, and call it the state: they hang a sword and a hundred cravings over them.
That sword, those snares — just look at the SEC. Look at the IRS. Look at the central banks of the world and the governments and money they weaponize. These are not the creators Nietzsche is speaking of. These creators are the innovators, the dreamers, and the developers of protocols and code that allow for free worldwide trade regardless of political affiliation or lack thereof.
If the goal of regulators is truly “financial inclusion” and the fostering of innovation while protecting investors, why do they seek so desperately to cut the one promising economic lifeline the poor and struggling of the world have right now, and strangle it with red tape? I think we all know the answer.
Crypto uses math, not fear-mongering. And thus, it is a threat. It’s a neutral tool like any other. It can be leveraged for both good and ill. There are numerous non-violent ways for communities to choose how they do or do not wish to leverage and/or regulate these technologies, without state laws or other such arbitrary, violence-backed decrees.
Our mission is better served by focusing on individual needs above those of any government or political faction. The People’s Money is an exit strategy for humans, a weapon for peace, not for war.
So please, donate to those who need it. In Russia, in Ukraine. Anywhere. Even where someone with political-fueled ignorance tells you not to. Nobody can stop the movement of peer-to-peer electronic cash, short of shutting down the internet or violently wresting your keys from your possession. And at that point, we’ll need to finally address some very fundamental elephants in the room, anyway.
What are your thoughts on economic freedom in the context of the current global situation? Let us know in the comments section below.
Graham Smith is an American expat living in Japan, and the founder of Voluntary Japan—an initiative dedicated to spreading the philosophies of unschooling, individual self-ownership, and economic freedom in the land of the rising sun.
Time To Move Out From Under The Oppressive Overreach Of Bureaucrats and Technocrats
They can be outsmarted. Good will always reign over evil, just like light cancels out the darkness.
If you consider yourself a sovereign being created and given life by a Universal Divine Consciousness, our God of perfect love, then you would be moved by the rallies and protests happening worldwide. Standing up for their rights and freedoms that have been brutally stripped away, with ongoing mandates and enforcements that have people living in fear of the pandemic narrative.
We have been living under this medical tyranny for two years now, and people are increasingly waking up to the real reasons behind this pandemic that has been in the planning phase for decades. If lockdowns, forced jabs, masks, and job losses due to mandates weren’t enough, the authorities now are trying to control the protests by freezing the protesters’ bank accounts, along with the people that donated to the cause.
The truckers rally or Freedom Convoy in Canada was the protest to start all protests globally. In late January, the organizers of the trucker protest started a GoFundMe page to crowdfund everything the truckers would need. After raising $10 million, GoFundMe pulled the page under pressure from Canadian politicians.
When the GoFundMe page was taken down, another crowdfunding website called GiveSendGo set up a few campaigns for the truckers, vowing not to bow to any political pressure. After raising almost another $10 million, Canadian courts issued an order to block payments from the platform.
Around this time, a crypto crowdfunding website called Tallycoin started accepting BTC donations on behalf of the truckers. It raised nearly $1 million, which included contributions from high profile people in the crypto community such as Kraken CEO Jesse Powell who sent a whole Bitcoin, and Elon Musk tweeting “Canadian truckers rule.”
Crypto Community Outraged
However, it came as a shock to the crypto community when an Ontario Supreme Court Justice ordered to freeze all digital assets and bank accounts associated with the Freedom Convoy. Under Prime Minister Trudeau’s authoritarian orders, the RCMP blocklisted 34 cryptocurrency wallets.
Brought about by invoking the Emergencies Act and amending it to include crowdfunding platforms and the service providers they use. Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland announced,
“We are broadening the scope of Canada’s anti-money laundering and terrorist financing rules so that they cover crowdfunding platforms and the payments service providers they use. These changes cover all forms of transactions––including digital assets such as cryptocurrencies… As of today, a bank or other financial service provider will be able to immediately freeze or suspend an account without a court order.”
As mentioned in this report, it demanded that all FINTRAC regulated companies in Canada cease transacting with these wallets that affected over 25 BTC, worth approximately $1.4 million. However, the report stated that, while the police are eager to freeze any funds related to the Freedom Convoy, in all likelihood, this digital cash is far beyond the reach of the Government of Canada.
That may be the case for self-hosted or private wallets; however, centralized 3rd party wallets are at risk from a self-serving, overreaching authoritarian government with little regard for people and their civil liberties.
Upon hearing the news, Jesse Powell retaliated by tweeting,
“Yes. There's the risk of government retaliation. I'm less worried about the US government because US residents are heavily armed. You will never see widespread pet confiscation in the US, for example. I stand for human rights and believe that evil prevails when good men do nothing.”
When faced with the possibility that Kraken would be put in a position where they were ordered to freeze assets without judicial consent, Jesse replied that they would be forced to comply and could not protect you. He recommended not to keep funds in a centralized, regulated custodian wallet and to get your coins and cash out and only trade peer to peer.
The Ontario Superior Court of Justice sent a Mareva Injunction, ordering Nunchuk (a multisig wallet) to freeze and disclose information about the assets involved in the Freedom Convoy. Here is Nunchuk’s official response;
On the US front, Congressman Warren Davidson has introduced the “Keep Your Coins” bill in the House of Representatives to protect individuals’ self-custodied crypto wallets from United States government agency control. The introduction comes just a day after the Canadian government invoked the Emergencies Act.
Congressman Davidson has been working on the bill since 2016 and has the support of crypto colleagues such as Cynthia Lummis. However, he says that he finds it unbelievable that Congress won’t unite to end the unjust, immoral, and unconstitutional practice of civil asset forfeiture, calling it government theft.
As stated in an article by the CATO Institute, Many Americans may not realize it, but the same principles that make this attack on Canadians’ financial freedom possible are ingrained in U.S. law. Specifically, they are featured in both the Bank Secrecy Act and the ever-expanding use of the third-party doctrine.
Holding cryptocurrency in a “self-hosted” wallet is the digital equivalent of holding physical cash in a traditional wallet. It gives the owner complete control over what’s contained inside it and the extent that they want to maintain their privacy. The same cannot be said of cryptocurrencies held in wallets or accounts maintained by third parties because, in the eyes of the federal government, relying on such third parties effectively waives an individual’s right to financial privacy.
So, it seems that financial censorship is a powerful force and even though crypto itself is uncensorable, the infrastructure used to interact with it is not. It means that it’s more important than ever for the cryptocurrency industry to create its own financial infrastructure.
What happened in Canada is a warning for why money needs to be money, and under complete control of the sovereign individual. Not an instrument of surveillance or an attempt to censor the public where a governmental Emergency Act can be changed on a whim to suit the dictators.
"We The People" Will Win In The End
Due to the fascism of governments the world is experiencing and the recent events, Markethive will have its own merchant account with its exchange to ensure complete privacy and anonymity. It also eliminates the threat of having your account closed or confiscated by authorities who feel the need to censor you and withdraw your liberties for whatever reason.
Markethive is building a fortress of an ecosystem to propagate the earth completely free from tyrannical forces and oppressors. This is a place for social interaction, with a sense of belonging, free from censorship and bias. It is a place to facilitate businesses with Storefronts and eCommerce, marketing, and broadcasting to disseminate your uncensored messages worldwide.
Markethive is a home for all commercial artists where their creative content can reach billions and accumulate followers. There's so much more to Markethive, including the ability to earn an income just by using the platform. A sovereign income that cannot be touched by the evil forces upon us.
As you may be aware, centralized servers can and do withdraw their internet access to any company or individual that doesn’t maintain their narrative. Markethive is perpetually working on a solution to bypass the centralized entities with a blockchain-driven distributed database capable of minting cryptocurrency, thereby creating an ecosystem for the community.
Empowering users with their own data and ways to earn crypto with applications built upon decentralized data networks increases trust between the individual and the platform. Blockchain technology is the underlying infrastructure of cryptocurrencies and distributed data systems, and the technology makes it possible to achieve a sovereign and autonomous environment and decentralized identity.
With its Maiar Wallet headed by Lucian Todea, the Elrond Blockchain Network is also ahead of the curve, committed to bringing a new wave of applications focusing on empowering privacy and agency by default for every individual. Maiar and Elrond stand as foundational layers to accelerate the transition and be an active part of the solution.
Both Elrond, as an internet-scale Blockchain and Markethive, the blockchain-driven social media, market, and broadcasting network, is concerned for those who suffer the economic and social harms from leaked data and lack of ownership of proprietary content. Plus, now the threat of having your livelihood confiscated (more to the point, stolen) by the so-called powers of illegitimate, marionette governments and the elites that pull their strings.
This is a spiritual war between good and evil and affects everyone on the planet. By the power of the collective, universal consciousness, people are now seeing the evil in the world. Markethive is God’s terrain and built with Divine inspiration and guidance for the awakened who seek refuge from the tyranny of the oligarchs and technocracy. Markethive is anend-times project.
A Critical Report On Bitcoin Mining And Its Carbon Footprint
Finally, FACTS That Counter The FUD
Cryptocurrency is more popular than ever as the mainstream populace realizes its potential as a new monetary system, especially in light of hyperinflation in our legacy financial system. The control that the “powers that be” already have over our sovereignty and the introduction of Central Bank CBDCs will only result in a more oppressive regime for sovereign citizens.
There are factions of people intent on discrediting crypto to minimize adoption, particularly Bitcoin or any Proof of Work protocol that relies on mining. Their primary focus is on damage to the climate due to fossil fuel emissions, even though the statistics for their claims have been negligible and inconclusive at best.
China’s recent ban of all crypto-mining is purported to be for the concern of excess carbon emissions. Arguably, the real reason for the ban was to push the Yuan CBDC already in circulation. Central Bank Digital Currencies are not a cryptocurrency but a financial system to exercise total control of its people. This ties in with China’s Social Credit System and publicized scoreboard pictured below.
The highly reputable firm, Coinshares, has published a recent report to counter this argument of concern ramped up last year, under the guise of ESG. The report illustrates how much of an effect Bitcoin mining has on the climate relative to other industries, including printing fiat currency, and what it means for Bitcoin.
Bitcoin Mining report begins with a brief history of the concerns about the energy used by Bitcoin mining. This includes a famous response from Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto, who already dealt with energy critics way back in 2010.
“The utility of the exchanges made possible by Bitcoin will far exceed the cost of electricity used, therefore not having Bitcoin would be the net waste.”
The authors of the report agree with Satoshi because the economic incentive to spend caused by the constant inflation of fiat is wasting a lot more energy than Bitcoin mining and destroying the environment.
The report also points out that concerns about Bitcoin mining are recurring subjects that tend to get resurrected in full force with each successive market cycle. In other words, when Bitcoin is on the rise and sensationalist commentators have not been shy about offering their (often poorly supported) opinions. However, many Bitcoin-fluent commentators have conveyed retorts to the contrary.
The authors also mentioned that they would be open-sourcing the model and the data they used. So that crypto critics and supporters alike can play around to see what it says about Bitcoin mining.
The second part of the Bitcoin mining report lays out the methodology the authors used to measure the carbon emissions created by Bitcoin mining. They start by making an essential point that “Bitcoin, like electric cars, is as green as the electricity you feed it, meaning that in a 100% renewable energy environment, Bitcoin would be 100% renewables driven.”
The report then breaks down the three components in their methodology. These are; calculating network efficiency, carbon emissions, and a variety of assumptions in terms of network efficiency.
The authors then estimated the total energy use by looking at the total Bitcoin Blockchain hash rate. When calculating carbon emissions, they looked at the different regions where Bitcoin miners are based and how those regions get their power logically. If a territory is getting 100% of its power from fossil fuels, it's safe to assume that any Bitcoin mining operations in that region use those same energy sources.
One of the most important results is Bitcoin's total energy use, a highly sought-after statistic by interest on both sides of the debate. It quotes that
“The Bitcoin mining Network uses approximately 0.05% of the total energy consumed globally. This strikes us as a small cost for a global monetary system, and on the global energy balance sheet, it amounts to a rounding error.”
The report unpacks how Bitcoins energy use is distributed across different regions, with the United States leading in crypto mining, since the China ban. Currently, it accounts for the most significant slice of the energy pie at around 42%. Kazakhstan comes in second place at 22%, and Canada is third with 11.5%. After crunching the numbers, the authors also found that China currently generates about 7% of Bitcoin’s hash rate, despite the country's crypto ban.
Another set of results relates to the carbon emissions associated with Bitcoin mining, and it starts with the statistic that made crypto news headlines. According to the author's analysis, the carbon emissions related to Bitcoin mining account for “less than 0.08% or less than 1/1000th of the global total.”
To put things into context, this is only around 4X more than the carbon emitted to just create fiat currencies. It's less than a third of the carbon emitted by the gold industry, almost less than a third of the carbon emitted by the global banking system, and slightly less than the carbon emissions of dryers each year.
Now, these comparisons are in stark contrast to the comparisons you see in clickbait headlines about crypto mining and the climate. Coin Bureau explains the FUD and false claims that crypto is bad for the environment in the video below.
Carbon Emissions On The Decline
The report indicates the decline in carbon emissions will be more aggressive in the Bitcoin mining industry due to the mobility of miners and their incentive to seek out the cheapest energy sources, which are almost always renewable. It allows miners to take advantage of cheap, newly constructed renewable energy generation faster than other industries.
“As of December 2021, we estimate the relative contributions of coal, gas, hydro, nuclear, and wind at 35%, 24%, 21%, 11%, and 4%, respectively. The remaining generation of 5% is a mixture of small amounts of oil, solar and other renewables, mainly geothermal.”
This means that more than 1/3 of Bitcoin's energy comes from renewable energy sources.
The US currently dominates the global Bitcoin hashrate, and in places like North Dakota, mining is solving flare gas emissions. In Wyoming, they focus on wind farms as an abundant renewable energy source. Solar panels are a prolific innovation to homes that reward homeowners and supplement veterans’ incomes.
As cited in the Bitcoin Mining Report, they expect Bitcoin miners to start consuming large amounts of wasted flare gas. If this becomes a large enough share of the mining energy input, the mining network could become carbon negative.
The authors point out that the best way to minimize Bitcoin mining emissions is for western governments to create a policy that attracts them to regions that use more renewable energy. Outright banning Bitcoin mining, punitive taxation, or oppressive regulation would just result in mining operations relocating to areas that use fossil fuels as their primary energy source.
The only reason why Bitcoin miners are in those regions right now is that the governments provide massive subsidies to fossil fuel companies, which makes dirty energy artificially cheaper than clean energy. While western countries are not entirely free from fossil-fuel subsidies, they are much smaller than in countries such as China, Kazakhstan, and Iran, where coal, oil, and gas are all heavily subsidized by the state.
The authors then pivot to an interesting possibility of whether it would be financially feasible to offset bitcoin’s existing carbon emissions through the purchase of carbon credits. Carbon credits are essentially certificates given to companies by government authorities when they do something green, such as adding a solar panel to their facilities.
Furthermore, the holders of the carbon credits can be traded. They're often purchased by companies that produce emissions to avoid emission sanctions, as one carbon credit gives its holder the right to emit one ton of carbon dioxide. Interestingly, Tesla makes most of its money from selling carbon credits it receives.
Ironically, Tesla banned Bitcoin from being used to purchase its cars for being classed as environmentally unfriendly by erroneous sources, which up till now was speculative and arguably fear-mongering and profiteering. Think Al Gore.
Carbon credits are an interesting idea; however, the authors calculated and determined that the carbon output of Bitcoin mining could be offset at the cost of USD 200 per BTC. This works out to less than ½% of Bitcoin mining revenue, assuming an average price of $42K per Bitcoin.
As stated in the report,
Another interesting takeaway from the emissions figures is that they can be used to calculate the carbon offsetting cost of holding one bitcoin for one year. Assuming the cost of emissions is shared equally among all holders of bitcoin, at 18.9 million bitcoin outstanding, each bitcoin would require offsetting 2.2 tonnes of CO2 per year, or roughly the same as one return flight on Business class between New York to Tokyo.
The authors of The Bitcoin Mining Report conclude by emphatically stating,
In the grand scheme of things, the carbon emissions emitted by electricity providers supplying the Bitcoin mining network are inconsequential. At 0.08 % of global CO2e emissions, removing the entire mining network from global demand—and thereby depriving hundreds of millions of people of their only hope for a fair and accessible form of money—would not amount to anything more than a rounding error.
They say that to provide its combined services of open peer-to-peer, objective, censorship-resistant, and trust minimized participation in a global monetary network, Bitcoin strictly requires a non-zero amount of input energy in perpetuity. The future magnitude of this requirement is unknown. In other words, the authors acknowledge that the energy needed to maintain the Bitcoin blockchain will continue to increase indefinitely until the last Bitcoin is mined.
The authors also note that Bitcoin’s future energy use is irrelevant because almost every other industry will require more energy in the future as well. What's important is that this energy use doesn't involve any fossil fuels, to which the authors say, “Bitcoin will be 100% renewable, as soon as our electricity generation is 100% renewable.”
Currently, the vast majority of energy is used for mining new coins, but mining is programmatically preset to decay to zero over the next 100 years geometrically. Already by the decade of 2040, more than 99% of all bitcoins will have been mined. Once mining is effectively over, the vast majority of the energy requirement will result directly from market demand for Bitcoin transaction settlement through transaction fees offered to miners by consumers.
They then conclude the report with,
“Our focus should be on building out renewable power generation, not on stifling the development of monetary technology. When analyzed over the long term and in the proper context, we believe that the emission costs of Bitcoin are dwarfed by its benefits. ”
Bitcoin is more than a cryptocurrency. It's decentralized and the most secure payment network. Its security is made possible by the proof of work (POW) consensus mechanism. Also, it’s the most battle-tested Blockchain and considered the digital gold or store of value in which all cryptocurrencies are based, so Bitcoin is the ideal currency to hold.
The Bitcoin Blockchain has its share of performance issues compared to the emerging Proof of Stake (POS) protocols, like Elrond and Cardano Blockchain Networks. However, going forward, some crypto projects such as Stacks are building a Smart Contract compatible layer for the Bitcoin Blockchain, and others like the Lightning Network are building seriously scalable payment systems.
As it happens, institutional investors value security more than anything else. And one of the only things standing in the way of them and BTC are their environmental concerns, which will hopefully subdue as this groundbreaking report circulates.
There are decentralized ecosystems emerging in the cryptocurrency space in various industries including the social media and marketing spectrum that rely on credible, infallible Blockchain systems, be it POW or POS. As technologies advance, both protocols will offer an alternative financial system delivering financial freedom and sovereignty at minimal cost to the climate and surrounding environments.
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