Energy Efficiency and Security

nixops
The Startup
Published in
6 min readDec 5, 2018

This article’s original text is stored on the blockchain using CloudBurst, it can be obtained from the following CloudBurst ID: CLOUD-9VRC-MB5N-SN6Q-HEEJS.

How every ICO sees it’s beginning as to save the world from fiat!

First World Thinking

Often times we discuss how economic systems get started and things of that nature related to cryptocurrencies. I think it is often misunderstood what exactly is happening in these regions that we are intending to “help” with the introduction of cryptocurrency. I want to first illustrate why this issue is often widely misunderstood in this community and it is more relevant each and every time I go to an event. From this point on, I will be going back to some of the core fundamentals of what cryptocurrencies represent, some may find this unnerving but let’s not put a bow on what is nothing short of the most salacious “fuck you” in history. But let’s not also forget where technology must adapt for the people.

Understanding the problems that lie within the first attempts of a decentralized ledger should, of course, be noticed. I want to point out that the dangers of such things are also a real-world risk to people in these regions that we want to help.

Actual environment in which use of cryptocurrency would benefit the people by not relying on fiat.

Bitcoin

Bitcoin represents a method in which to keep a ledger system built on the backbone of network participation and mining using cryptographic functions. This is key to understanding the core values innate to bitcoin. This represents the first time in history that we, as the people since the inception of currency; have a currency that we can directly contribute to its outcome as well as checks and balance system against institutionalized banking systems. As for some time a large uptick in hashing for a while has now settled down, this would allow for bitcoin mining to become slightly more practical but still very much dangerous in a region such as Venezuela or say in regions of Africa.

However, the introduction into using bitcoin does pose serious concerns for some individuals in these regions. It introduces a heavy reliance on the power system, and for operating any Proof-of-Work coins you will need very large amounts of power. Heavy power usage is usually a red flag to anyone closely monitoring its people. Even in the United States, this happens often with law enforcement, usually in the silly war on indoor marijuana grow homes.

Dangers of Proof of Work

The use of an ASIC or a GPU is a high risk in some of the most underserved areas of the world. You may laugh but you should really consider nations without good power infrastructure or a dictatorship. Electricity isn’t free and is often the first thing that is usually monitored in its’ usage by any good intelligence agency for reconnaissance. This is often how a regime may find counter groups or in some cases mining farms and individual miners in which to raid. Let’s not forget often in these environments the ones in power are also very much so looking to stop those attempting to challenge that authority.

One must really need to understand that high amounts of electricity use at a residence or as a business could compromise their lives and their loved ones. What if there was a way to still use a currency at a local and global level that literally anyone would mine without disclosing that they were mining a cryptocurrency. Thus allowing them to use a coin that is not reliant on a third party and is also usable globally without large power usage that could compromise their safety. Burstcoin allows for low power mining. This opens avenues on changing economic systems without the need for some airdrop. The individuals can mine with the hard drives they already have and begin. We often try to talk about operational security, so let’s really open up the conversation with this understanding at hand.

All hdd, sdd, or any incantation of storage media could be mined.

Proof of Capacity

Burstcoin uses Proof-of-Capacity as a consensus, thus allowing for hard drive space to be used mining. This allows anyone to mine without using significant amounts of electricity and opens up the avenues of using the communication channels provided by the burst wallet. By remaining trustless the network can adapt accordingly with the needs of the people. This allows for flexibility and scaling necessary for economic systems. By using a consensus in which anyone can mine with a hard drive. This lowers the bar to entry and it also does not compromise the user for ordering a drive. I mention that a nod to an incident a few years ago. As intelligence agencies go they typically choke down to what the people are ordering or doing, in this way you can still mine without compromising that you are intending to mine. With this hard drives also do not need to be replaced each time a new model comes out to be competitive in the mining process. Which allows for miners and nodes to continue to operate well into the future with little infrastructure. Thus strengthening the network and providing further nodes to keep the ledger decentralized.

This provides the most benefit to the individual as they too can have a voice in what is needed or not in the evolution of their use of cryptocurrency. In using a public chain they also have the availability of tools such as CloudBurst which allows for the use of actual on chain storage, this could be used in a service to start storing property deeds and other valuable information as to prevent tampering done with paper systems. This can also open for other features of the wallet that can be leveraged in creating economic systems as replacements.

I also want to point out something often overlooked as an added benefit from Burst. Unlike a proof of work algorithm that could browser jack and mine, with Burstcoin they would need to replot the drives. This also applies if your devices were to be stolen. The drives would need to be replotted or if they were mined they would continue to provide rewards to the individual from which drive was taken from. Whereas changing a config, anyone can do. Also in an extreme scenario, the drive can be deleted and would not be a red flag in case of a condition in which it was to be examined. If we want to truly talk about operational dangers and operational security, let’s but please do not be naive in the understanding of how technology works.

Hard Truths

I get asked a lot on how I would envision cryptocurrency adoption in Venezuela, and the above is the exact way it will need to be done in some environments. This is where technology allows itself to be used is with these types of scenarios. We should use the right tool for the job, the aforementioned conditions I wish upon no one and I feel for you and your family. The information provided here is done so in a way that you can begin to explore the views on how you may understand cryptocurrency. Bitcoin was not launched to go backward and create a bunch of ICO’s asking you to KYC yourself to be a part of the future. Which honestly should be the first red flag. It set forth a change that showed the people could operate their financial system. Burstcoin represents a way of doing this in a way that does not compromise what Proof of Work offers but also protects the user from exuberant amounts of power usage.

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