Contra Perfodere: Against Mining
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土法炼铁 (“Backyard Furnace Smelting Iron”)，卢西林 (Lu Xilin)，1958
For perceptions of blockchain to improve, distinguishing between blockwork and mining is not only desirable, but necessary.
[O]f silver no one ever yet possessed so much that he was forced to cry “enough.” On the contrary, if ever anybody does become possessed of an immoderate amount he finds as much pleasure in digging a hole in the ground and hoarding it as in the actual employment of it.
Xenophon, “On Revenues”
The concept of mining is adequate to explain the kind of blockwork[1] undertaken on the Bitcoin blockchain, and the verb to mine remains tolerably apt with reference to how one teases digital wampum out of public chains generally.[2] In the case of Adrealm’s original consensus mechanism (PoVT: Proof of Valid Traffic), however, the very idea of “mining” goes against both the technical and ethical grain of how our CM works, and why it works the way it does. But beyond this miserable fit with PoVT, there is a deeper problem with the currently accepted notion of mining, at least insofar as the word ‘mining’ is often used to refer to all the blockwork upon which consensus-potential depends.[3]
First, the word ‘mining’ and its cognates suggest (wrongly) that the only thing one does on or with a blockchain is “dig” for crypto; and insofar as the concept of mining sustains this assumption, it preempts an analysis of both blockworker and node-operator motivations — viz., their willingness to accept of a share of processing responsibility (ASPER). Finally, it obscures from view the non-trivial differences that exist in respect of how consensus-potential is realized and sustained in the long-term, in non-PoW systems.
Thus I believe it is better for our industry that the wider community stop thinking about blockchain technology primarily and chiefly in terms of Bitcoin mining — or in terms of mining for any crypto. If we in the industry want the wider public to understand how blockchain technology can be used to solve a range of datawork problems (and this might involve helping more people see those problems), then we need to make a distinction between “mining” and all those other activities that do (or could) sustain a blockchain’s consensus-potential.[4]
This, to me, has always been the fattest fly in blockchain’s PR ointment: the very word ‘mining’ conjures images of chthonic darkness, environmental degradation, slavery, self-interested enrichment, black lung, dead canaries, and a greedy centralized cigar-chomping chaebol running it all. Here, Pliny:
We are now about to speak of metals, of actual wealth, the standard of comparative value, objects for which we diligently search, within the earth, in numerous ways. In one place, for instance, we undermine it for the purpose of obtaining riches, to supply the exigencies of life, searching for either gold or silver, electrum or copper. In another place, to satisfy the requirements of luxury, our researches extend to gems and pigments, with which to adorn our fingers and the walls of our houses: while in a third place, we gratify our rash propensities by a search for iron, which, amid wars and carnage, is deemed more acceptable even than gold. We trace out all the veins of the earth, and yet, living upon it, undermined as it is beneath our feet, are astonished that it should occasionally cleave asunder or tremble: as though, forsooth, these signs could be any other than expressions of the indignation felt by our sacred parent! We penetrate into her entrails, and seek for treasures in the abodes even of the Manes, as though each spot we tread upon were not sufficiently bounteous and fertile for us!
Pliny the Elder, Natural History, Book XXIII[5]
Hardly the visual anthem we want for blockchain;[6] and verily, the dimmest notion of “mining” is inimical to the spirit of intelligent optimism that dares ponder (while it punts) whether we may use this technology “to solve the greatest social issues of our generation,” and to less utopiod efforts to use the technology to do good.
Reconceptualising things in a way that consistently observes the distinction between (a) “mining” and (b) “blockwork that realises and sustains a consensus mechanism” will, in time, help us to wash ourselves clean of the soot and grime we have accumulated by habitually brushing against concepts associated with Bitcoin’s nomenclature — or, at least remind us to dress for the occasion. Real R&D into the potentials and the possible value of this still nascent technology, and the distribution and adoption of it, may depend in part upon how quickly blockchain can be contemplated as something other than a scheme for speculative accumulation.
Contra perfodere — It may be the case that some or even many miners contemplate the allocation of their computing resources (and therefore: their electrical resources) in terms of the honor of being an early-adopter. Who knows how many cyber spelunkers are motivated mainly by the adventure of participating in the brave new world of decentralized massive-scale P2P datawork, and the thrill of underwriting this global experiment in cryptocurrency.[7]
But I doubt there are many. For now we are regrettably on-target if we understand the motivations of most people in terms of their pursuit of crypto — and we have “mining for Bitcoin” to thank for that. It may be more accurate technically (and more wholesome ethically) to say that “miners” accept the electrical/computational cost of solving hash-puzzles because they want coin, and that coin is their incentive, and that their incentivized-work sustains the consensus-potential of the blockchain. But in the Bitcoin world, the Bitcoin blockchain is mainly about the coin, not the chain. Motivations appear to be one-dimensional — estrazione brutale.[8]
So before making haste to the punchline, consider: which of the following statements is more accurate?
- Users are rewarded with crypto for their acceptance of a share of the processing responsibility necessary for establishing and maintaining the consensus-potential of the blockchain.
- The consensus-potential of a blockchain — and therefore: its potential utility — is a byproduct of people mining crypto.
Presumably, real miners in the real world do not mine in order to disembowel and disfigure the Earth’s crust. Tunnels, caverns, pits, the dead canaries, the not-yet-dead canaries, and all the detritus of holemaking are the grim byproducts of moiling[9] and not the goals of mining. Conceptually, mining and trustless distributed datawork are grievously misaligned. What’s more, in order to appreciate how non-PoW systems function and why they function at all,[10] we need to distance ourselves from the whole mining metaphor, and from the word ‘mining.’
In some chains, it is this sort of estrazione brutale that creates and sustains consensus-potential. Mining remains necessary for the Bitcoin blockchain. But with blockchains generally, the necessity of having a consensus mechanism and the need to sustain the chain’s consensus-potential does not lead to a necessity for “miners” and “mining.” All that is necessary is some reward or benefit that incentivizes blockwork and justifies (inter alia) the electro-computational costs.
To that end, the AEIOU has created the initialism WASPR (willingness to accept a share of processing responsibility), based on the idea of “willingness to pay” (WTP), a concept which has been used to great effect in healthcare economics.[11] We believe that WASPR points to an important concept necessary to any robust economic analysis of blockchain, and of the ideology of decentralized datawork.
As for scrapping the concept of mining, I do not have the highest of hopes. The successful IPO of Argo suggests that crypto mining will be with us for a while yet. Xenophon, again:
[I]n spite of the fact that the silver ore has been dug and carried out for so long a time, I would ask you to note that the mounds of rubbish so shovelled out are but a fractional portion of the series of hillocks containing veins of silver, and as yet unquarried. Nor is the silver-bearing region gradually becoming circumscribed. On the contrary it is evidently extending in wider area from year to year.
Xenophon, “On Revenues”
“More than 90 percent of crypto mining is done by elites on industrial scale because it is technically very difficult to do,” observes Argo CEO Jonathan Bixby. “It is incredibly expensive to buy, up front, the hardware you need at $5,000 a machine.” Argonauts, ahoy.[12]
Quo vadis? Perhaps new forms of e-helotry to spring from the earth, as did the Spartoi from the dragon’s teeth sown by Cadmus. But miners we shall have — for a while, at least. I will not be surprised if, ere long, the concept of 土法 again shares a place in the noosphere with 挖矿.[13]
J Ellis Cameron-Perry, PhD — Executive Director
The Adrealm Editorial and Intelligence Operations Unit
AEIOU: And Always “Why?”! ©
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Notes:
[1] Blockwork: the willingness to accept and the actual acceptance of a share of the processing responsibility upon which distributed P2P trustless encrypted data-authentication (etc.) depend. Since decentralized, secure, “transparent” datawork is touted as the main value-proposition of a blockchain, I’m going to refer to what one is doing (functionally) by accepting a share of processing responsibility as blockwork — see infra. It has been well-observed that a blockchain can exist without mining — see this 2017 article by Credits in Medium.
[2] In Chinese, the verb is 挖 wa, to dig or mine — cf. 挖矿 (wa kuang), dig+pit = mining. If you’re serious about blockchain, it’s about time you start learning Chinese terms like these; hence: to wa: I wa, you wa, he/she/it was, etc.
[3] “What distinguishes blockchains from traditional distributed databases is the ability to operate in a decentralized setting without relying on a trusted third party. As such, their core technical components is consensus…” Bano S et al. (2017) “SoK: Consensus in the Age of Blockchains.” If this is terra incognita to you, we recommend Turner Schuman’s article “Consensus Mechanisms Explained,” on Hackermoon.
Obiter: I have no evidence that the phrase “consensus potential” has been used in our industry, in the way I am using it now; but, whatever. I’m partial to the Aristotelian/Thomistic ring it has. The one use-instance of this phrase I have found is as follows: “In this context Astana offers to focus joint efforts for issues where consensus potential is enough high.” Source: ASTANA FOCUSES ITS EFFORTS ON CONSENSUS POTENTIAL OF THE OSCE.
[4] I acknowledge the distinction between nodes-operators and miners (and: full-nodes, pruning nodes, etc.). I focus herein on the matter of incentivization, which applies (albeit in nonidentical ways) to blockworkers and to node-operators. See Cawry (2014) “What are Bitcoin nodes and why do we need them?”
[5] See the first three chapters of Waswo (1997) The Founding Legend of Western Civilization: From Virgil to Vietnam, on the connection between civilization and cultivation.
[6] We will eventually outgrow, too, the word ‘blockchain’ — it hardly sounds like technology meant to liberate us from hegemons. I am partial to the term Aeden: autonomic encrypted distributed ecological network. ©®
[7] Viglione (2018) “The benefits of incentivising node operators in public blockchains,” BitcoinMagazine.com
[8] Italian, “brutal extraction [mining]”. I have no evidence that this phrase has ever been used by an Italian. Or would be. I hope in due course to ask MIT’s Silvio Micali what he thinks of it.
[9] ll blockwork might be a form of moiling, but not all blockwork is mining — (v) to moil, moiling: a kind toiling achieved by Service:
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
Robert Service, “The Cremation of Sam McGee” (1907)
[10] Vide Wang et al. (2018) “A Survey on Consensus Mechanisms and Mining Management in Blockchain Networks;” Baliga (2017) “Understanding Blockchain Consensus Models.” We enjoyed the tight run-down in colloquial English provided by Tyler Jenks (2018) “Pros and Cons of Different Blockchain Consensus Protocols.”
[11] See the work of Phil Shackley, e.g., Shackley et al. (2004) “Willingness to pay for public health care: a comparison of two approaches,” Health Policy 70:2, 217–28
[12] “Sailing forth for digital specie,
I want Jason’s golden fleecie.”
[13] 土法 tu fa, ‘earth’ + ‘law,’ used to refer to the backyard furnaces which appeared in China during The Great Leap Forward.
“Abandoning the fertile crust
They melted all the things that rust
And with such patriotic lust
They brought forth cinders,
death, and dust.”