Buddha and Bitcoin - Digital money for the modern world
If Buddha were alive today, how would he see the digital currency revolution
He uncrosses his legs and blissfully departs his meditation cave after a full morning immersed in the idea of impermanence. Deep within his mind, he can still hear the subtle mental sub-vocalisation of the words “Annica….Annica”, EVERYTHING changes.
He is aware of the gentle movement of the breath, and notices the slightly warmer temperature change in the air passing over the upper lip on the out breath. He notes the air appears more forceful in the left nostril. With no judgement, he just recognises what is happening in that moment.
As he walks, he is aware of his feet and toes touching the earth, the subtle weight variances on the plantar surfaces of the skin. He shifts his attention to the rammed earth and straw building a few hundred meters down, filled with eager students who refer to him as “the enlightened one”.
Although slightly baffled by their apparent eagerness to listen to him, he also understands that these meditative practices have brought him so much peace and happiness, benefits he wishes other people to experience. He feels a sense of mission and duty to help people experience liberation from emotional and mental suffering….and he knows Vipassana is a powerful tool to get them there.
This is how I imagine the life of Gautama (Gotama) the Buddha back then, at least some of it.
But if he were alive today, how would he have managed what some people today term, “the modern world”?
In an age where the model of electric vehicle you drive and the amount of followers you have on your Twitter dictates your social status.
In a time where your “clickability” is used to sell products to your tweeting friends, would the Buddha have been an evangelist that subscribed to Edward Snowdens substack Newsletter?
The modern world is a broad context, since life is initially dictated by where you were born, with different countries experiencing various levels of economic and social structures.
The modern world also includes the advancement of technology and the deepening grips which the financial system has on our everyday lives, along with its control and manipulation by social media.
Imagine the Buddha reaching for the Apple iPhone in the pocket of his earthy coloured robes, signing into his Twitter account, only to notice a “Follow” by @jack (Jack Dorsey, CEO of Square and Co Founder of Twitter).
“Who is this?”
On investigation, scrolling through the strangers twitter feed, he notices a slight obsessive compulsion to share information about something called Bitcoin...he reads on….and the question comes to mind “What is Bitcoin?”
Curious, he does some research, finding the original source of the idea…. in a Whitepaper called:
“Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System” by Satoshi Nakamoto.
He reads through intently and mentally notes interesting points…..“What is needed is an electronic payment system based on cryptographic proof”........“The incentive can also be funded with transaction fees”......“In our case, it is CPU time and electricity that is expended.”
One quote immediately stood out:
“The cost of mediation increases transaction costs, limiting the minimum practical transaction size and cutting off the possibility for small casual transactions”
The word mediation sounded like meditation which led to the thought:
“the cost of meditation increases attention and mental/emotional freedom from suffering”.
He felt very noble for a moment…..and then remembered he was in the “modern world”, where people were more advanced and tuned in to essential human desires and behaviour.
He pondered that quote in the form of a question:
“How does Bitcoin make “small casual transactions” possible for the real economy?” & “What does “the cost of mediation increases transaction cost” mean?
He knew that countries were all in various stages of development. Some countries don’t have access to banks and some don’t have access to clean water…..how is Bitcoin going to help these people? And further he wondered, how does Bitcoin meet the purposes of “an electronic payment system based on cryptographic proof” right now?
After some time rifling through Twitter, the awareness of tingling sensations rose to the surface of the body and crept into his psych… potentially from social media emotional dependance…. “Ahhh, Craving” he thought to himself. He decided he was tweeted out and shifted into Airplane mode for a WIFI break.
And then immediately fell into a deep transcendental contemplation about this “modern world decentralised revolution”.
What felt like years passed by….he felt himself morphing into the blockchain and calculating cryptographic puzzles to win Bitcoin blocks, within a chain of digital data, secured by a worldwide computational hashing power, driven by thousands of nuclear power plants....His DNA merged with the earth's core frequency which he transmuted into a conscious understanding of how it supports human civilisation and behaviour.
When he finally snapped back into the present moment, he had a deep all-knowing of the forces at play and how they were manifesting in the modern world. Startling realisations and questions fell heavy onto his consciousness and he began deep reflection.
“How will the environment cope with the compounding increases in energy use required to secure the Blockchain, given the radical changes and challenges that the earth is facing, like global warming and financial inequality?
He balanced that idea with the increasing use of renewables and recent geothermal energy from volcanoes to power the growing infrastructure centred around POW (Proof of Work) mining.
He considered in his own mind the idea that if another option met the challenges and functioned perfectly well, providing what they labelled “censorship resistance”, that solution might solve the “peer to peer electronic cash” problem, whilst also respecting the needs of the environment.
Another realisation came:
How does it make sense to expend so much energy, resources, hardware and time on such a small amount of data?
According to the Bitcoin whitepaper, “The cost of mediation” that increases transaction costs that is “cutting off the possibility for small casual transactions” seems to lend a good hint into Bitcoin mining resource use and it’s inability to provide great support for small casual transactions.
And, it doesn't really make sense if the amount of energy required to verify the transaction is more than the amount of digital value being sent…….Spending $1000 worth of energy to send a transaction doesn't make sense if someone is sending $1.
He saw the “mediation” as essentially the miners needed to secure the network and that they were both solving a problem and creating one.
He saw multiple factors affecting its perceived value... that large investment companies were spending billions securing this “crypto asset”, retail traders in emotional gambling stupor were buying and selling to accumulate FIAT….and that HODLers with libertarian mindsets viewed it as the financial future, elevating people to freedom and transferring money from the “over wealthy”, into the deserving hands of the middle class.
He saw the forces in the market, attempting to influence behavior on social media, some with good intentions, some with the idea of profiting from misfortune.
Although something about the idea of bitcoin still resonated deeply with him. The idea of censorship resistant money outside the power and control of the government, which couldn’t be shut down, was tantalising.
He recognised an element of craving once again at that idea, and again the sensations rose to the surface from deep within the mind. “But at what environmental cost!?”
Even though his realisation encompassed the libertarian and environmentalist mindset, the effect on the planet...imagining people in developing countries and how they might use this technology was in stark contrast to the cost of using Bitcoin in its native state. A large percentage of people might only be sending small amounts of money and very infrequently.
The amount of energy and resources required to send such a small amount of money was at odds with the mission, at odds with the purpose it was designed for. Especially as the title of the whitepaper insinuates.
He then visualised the whole chain of events that lead to a Bitcoin transaction. From the mining of the metal and creation of plastics for the POW miner. Then to the production line of the hardware manufacturer packing up the POW mining rig and sending it off to Kazakhstan where Bitcoin mining was surging after China began rooting it out….the staffing and facilities required for ASIC’s…..Coal energy….diversion of essential power…..upgrading hardware and natural advancement and replacements and recycling of that hardware.
Not only were their energy challenges but inherent space required to house that hardware, the noise, GPU shortages. And he saw the work and effort required to maintain the mental and emotional ideology that might not necessarily be the answer. The crypto market indeed was filled with the shortcoming of greed and promise of riches.
He thought to himself:
“Much of the world could benefit from a technology that provides inclusive financial access, but it can’t come at the cost of the planet, or bring unnecessary waste….and it needs to operate at a cost that makes sense for a global monetary network”
A “peer to peer electronic cash system” needs to be something that everyone can access and costs little to nothing for the user, whilst not drawing on an amount of resources and energy that supercedes the amount being sent. It needs to be environmentally friendly, fast, efficient and able to scale for the global population. He also imagined that this currency could be used on social platforms like Twitter and WhatsApp, where your user name could essentially be your PAYID. And it should have the capacity to fulfill micro transactions.
He thought about the “modern world” and the idea of “digital money”....so he hopped onto his computer, opened the Google web browser….and typed in the terms:
“Digital money for the modern world”.
Immediately displayed, at the very top of the page in number 1 position, a search result jumped out and snatched every atom of his attention, publishing his inner realisation onto the glowing screen, reverberating through his entire soul.
There on the page it read:
NANO - Digital money for the modern world. Feeless, eco-friendly and instant.
He breathed a sigh of relief, smiled and thought….
This is exactly what I envisioned.
Thank you for reading
MM (Mindful Manchild)
REFERENCES | images | links:
Bitcoin white paper: https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf
Energy used per Bitcoin transaction: https://www.statista.com/statistics/881541/bitcoin-energy-consumption-transaction-comparison-visa/
Volcanic geothermal power for Bitcoin mining - https://bigthink.com/technology-innovation/volcano-bitcoin-mining-geothermal-energy
Kazakhstan mining surges - https://www.newscientist.com/article/2284222-coal-powered-bitcoin-mining-soars-in-kazakhstan-following-chinese-ban/
Volcanic Geothermal Power - https://www.reuters.com/technology/el-savador-exploring-volcanic-bitcoin-mining-bukele-says-2021-06-09/
Gautama - https://www.ancient-origins.net/history-famous-people/siddhartha-gautama-how-father-buddhism-walked-suffering-enlightenment-008843
Coal Mining in China - https://www.mining.com/web/china-must-ban-new-coal-power-plants-to-meet-2060-goal-report/
Bitcoin Mining and Transaction Fees - https://thenextweb.com/news/bitcoin-miners-305-million-transactions-segwit-cryptocurrency
Other resources, facts and interesting content related to Nano:
Nano is the lowest latency fully confirmed cryptocurrency, or crypto asset, with ZERO fees and was fully distributed for FREE to the public