Revisiting Bitcoin: An Evolving Living System

The Proof of Work (PoW) mechanism invented by Satoshi Nakamoto truly solved an important consensus problem that has long plagued humanity—the Byzantine Fault.

This problem can be simplified as follows: In a group of generals from different backgrounds and with varying objectives, only by gaining the support of more than two-thirds of the generals can they successfully conquer Byzantium. How can an effective attack be organized or Consensus be reached in the face of some generals possibly betraying or being unreliable? This is the core of the Byzantine Fault.

From an abstract perspective, this issue actually explores how to reach an agreement among various parties and form order through some mechanism in a state of chaos and disorder. In other words, it is about how to achieve Consensus.

From the perspective of thermodynamic principles, this process is similar to creating order from disorder and is a process of entropy reduction. An increase in entropy means moving toward disorder, while a decrease in entropy means moving toward order.

The PoW mechanism achieves consistency among nodes by incentivizing miners to participate in a competition for computing power to find a specific hash value. This addresses the problem of how to reach consensus among a group of chaotic and disordered nodes, which is the solution to the Byzantine Fault problem. Therefore, the consensus mechanism of the Bitcoin blockchain network is referred to as Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) consensus.

PoW creates a constantly growing and expanding low-entropy system. In the universe, most things follow the law of increasing entropy, ultimately heading towards heat death. However, life is an exception. Life forms order by digesting negative entropy, ultimately achieving entropy reduction.

From this perspective, the Bitcoin system is essentially a living entity, an ever-growing organism. This organism continuously evolves by absorbing global computational power through mechanical Consensus.

To some extent, Bitcoin (BTC) is merely a reward symbol that drives the growth of this organism, and it may have originally been replaced by other symbols. However, it is important to note that BTC is not synonymous with the entire Bitcoin system.

In other words, BTC is a reward mechanism within the Bitcoin system, but it does not represent the entirety of the system. Bitcoin is dynamic; it can direct its energy towards serving things beyond Bitcoin itself. The Bitcoin entity possesses both independence and sociality, just like an independent organism collaborating with other entities in society to exert greater value.

In the past, many people equated BTC with the entire Bitcoin network, which reflected the limitations of their understanding.

After 16 years of development, Bitcoin continues to grow, while most of the so-called blockchain projects that imitate Bitcoin have basically disappeared or are in decline. After transitioning to Proof of Stake (PoS), Ethereum abandoned the evolutionary system that promotes the continuous growth of organisms by absorbing global computing power, instead relying on the ETH staking rate to create Consensus. Both the total supply of ETH and the staking rate have upper limits, which also determines the upper limit of Ethereum's Consensus, and this may be a deep-seated reason for Ethereum gradually lagging behind Bitcoin.

Various signs prompt us to rethink Bitcoin itself — this living entity driven by mechanical Consensus, how can it continue to exert its social value in human civilization or digital civilization? How can we integrate this living entity of Bitcoin with human society to unleash greater life energy?

This may be a more meaningful exploration and entrepreneurial direction for the next stage in the cryptocurrency field.