Hvordan Starlink ændrer Bitcoin-minedrift og forbedrer decentralisering

Dette er en meningsredaktion af El Sultan Bitcoin, tidligere CEO hos Coinspree og nuværende produktmarketingchef i Latinamerika hos Ledn.

Hvordan minedriftsdecentralisering kan stimuleres

Over a year has elapsed since the great bitcoin mining migration began, when the network experienced a 60%-plus reduction in hash rate due to the Chinese Communist Party’s attack on bitcoin mining. The aftermath of China’s mining ban equated to the United States absorbing a greater part of the hash power that used to be located in mainland China. Hash rate recovered and reached all-time highs again. No questions arise regarding Bitcoin’s resilience here. However, one may ask how network and mining decentralization can be fostered to limit the impact of similar attacks on Bitcoin.

Mangel på internetadgang er en hindring på fjerntliggende steder

Selvom minedrift er en aktivitet spredt over hele kloden, strømmer minearbejdere til steder primært baseret på energiomkostninger. Som dækket af Nic Carter, energi er et lokalt fænomen. Highly concentrated energy production sites are typically located in remote areas; Quebec, Canada and Sichuan, China, are both great examples of this. Here, the installed hydro capacity exceeds the demand for electricity, and since energy is not an easily transportable commodity, producers with excess capacity find themselves wishing for alternative buyers or assuming wasted energy from their operations. In essence, this is why wasted energy is miners’ platonic love. Under the form of a jurisdiction-neutral bidder, bitcoin miners can be buyers of last resort to monetize stranded energy.

Hvor bemyndigelse emnet end kan lyde, i praksis indebærer forsøg på at udnytte billige, energirige websteder ofte, at man skal drive minedrift i stor skala, og når man taler om fjerntliggende steder, kan internetforbindelse være et andet problem. For en multimillion-dollar minedrift vil det ikke være et stort problem at få adgang til en virksomheds internetsatellittjeneste, da størrelsen af ​​deres indtægter ville få sådanne tilslutningsomkostninger til at fremstå minimale på deres resultatopgørelser. I modsætning hertil udelader dette sandsynligheden for, at den gennemsnitlige Joe bor tæt på strandede energisteder, ude af ligningen.

How Starlink Would Enable Remote Bitcoin Mining

Individuel tilknytning til internettet har nået 60% af den globale befolkning. Dette indebærer, at der nu er færre end 3 milliarder mennesker "uden forbindelse" til internettet, hvor størstedelen af ​​disse mennesker befinder sig i det sydlige og østlige Asien og i Afrika.

At forbedre kvaliteten og afhængigheden af ​​folks tilslutningsmuligheder er også et uløst problem: enter Starlink. Ledet af SpaceX sigter Starlink mod at levere højhastigheds-, lav-latency bredbåndsinternet på fjerntliggende og landlige steder over hele kloden. Ved at udnytte SpaceX's erfaring med at bygge raketter og rumfartøjer er deres mission at implementere verdens mest avancerede bredbåndsinternetsystem.

The hardware costs to set up a Starlink access point are hovering around $600 in addition to $3,000 per month. Even though the expense can be considered elevated for the average person, envisioning how this can impact Bitcoin brings up interesting theories.

How Bitcoin Mining In Remote Locations Could Accelerate Hyperbitcoinization

Picturing miners subsidizing Starlink costs in rural areas in order to tap into stranded energy while enabling internet connectivity may not be that far away, considering we have a bitcoin miner drivhuse i Holland. If wasted heat generation is subsidized to grow produce and bloom flowers in one place, the same may become true for enabling internet-based services in unconnected areas in exchange for newly minted bitcoin.

Hvordan dette også kan spille en rolle i at reducere internetudbyderens (ISP) centralisering af netværket, kan også være af interesse. Som rapporteret af DARPA's "Er blockchains decentraliserede?" paper, “For at least the past five years, 60% of all Bitcoin traffic has traversed just three ISPs.” Moreover, “As of July 2021, about half of all public Bitcoin nodes were operating from IP addresses in German, French, and U.S. ASes, the top four of which are hosting providers (Hetzner, OVH, Digital Ocean and Amazon AWS).”

On the flip side, community-based approaches seem to be proliferating within the Bitcoin ecosystem to reduce centralization. With projects like Fedimint looking to accelerate custody decentralization and home-mining setups catching interest in recent years, one may ask:

“Is Starlink well on its way to become one of the enablers for last-mile bitcoin mining and network decentralization?”

Det er tilbage at se.

This is a guest post by El Sultan Bitcoin. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.