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Crazy use for Bitcoin: mine Bitcoin in satellites with giant solar arrays, at a capacity that makes it cheaper than terrestrial mining. Since terrestrial mining
by gkfasdfasdf 7y ago
Crazy use for Bitcoin: mine Bitcoin in satellites with giant solar arrays, at a capacity that makes it cheaper than terrestrial mining. Since terrestrial mining no longer economical, it ceases altogether resulting in reduction of energy consumption. I.e. space Bitcoin mining captures solar energy in space and sends it to earth in the form of coin, which is much safer than beaming the energy itself.
I'm sure there are many reasons this wouldn't work, but it's fun to think about.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- AceJohnny2 7y agoI can think of a bunch of reasons this is a terrible idea, but frankly they're no worse than what Bitcoin is currently used for anyhow ;)
- paulmd 7y agoDigital Rai stones: why do you need the actual mining at all, as long as everyone agrees that it's happening up there in space? ;)
- papreclip 7y agoInstalling a solar array in space has a larger carbon footprint than mining those coins with coal on earth. Proof-of-work will be seen as a crime against humanity in retrospect
- ForHackernews 7y ago> sends it to earth in the form of coin You realize this doesn't actually transfer any energy, right? Assuming you're not joking, all you've done is calculate the world's most expensive sha256.
- _Microft 7y agoThis 'idea' of storing energy in cryptocoins is not new in these circles. Follow the retweet and read the comments, it's really crazy. https://twitter.com/XFaure/status/1187329974723891200 https://twitter.com/XFaure/status/1187329974723891200 This subthread in particular: https://twitter.com/gaborgurbacs/status/1187331319937802246 https://twitter.com/gaborgurbacs/status/1187331319937802246
- gkfasdfasdf 7y agoI was serious about that part - computing the hash requires energy, which is acquired in space instead of on land. By using the energy right there in space and shipping the final product (the hash) you don't have to transfer the energy which you would have needed to make the computation on land.
- ForHackernews 7y agoI mean...doesn't that kind of presuppose you have to make the computation to begin with? It feels like circular reasoning to me. You could also just...not compute trillions of random sha256 hashes.
- _Microft 7y agoInstead of launching solar panels into space and getting free energy there, they could be placed on Earth to save the launch costs and get free energy here. Let's ignore that because the following is far more interesting ;) To give you an idea of the scale of the problem that such an enterprise would be dealing with: the ISS has a cooling capacity of less than 100kW and current mining infrastructure has a power consumption in the order of gigawatts. This energy ends up as waste heat that needs to be dumped into space at the same rate. So for every gigawatt, there is 10000 times the cooling capacity of the so-far largest human-made object in space required.
- gkfasdfasdf 7y agoAh didn't think about the cooling. Excellent point!
- gkfasdfasdf 7y ago> Instead of launching solar panels into space and getting free energy there, they could be placed on Earth to save the launch costs and get free energy here. I suppose Solar panels in space can be arranged such that that it's always solar noon, and it's never cloudy. So more efficient at collecting than on the ground, in theory.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]