- Metadata:
- Keeping track of things in the informational realm always implies keeping track of time
- time is money -> money is time
- How do you keep track of time as the system you are using becomes larger and larger?
- To fix this - bitcoin’s own time (block time or block height) can be used to solve this
- There are two ways to keep track of things: tokens and ledgers
- Tokens are physical ways of keeping track, thus it is distributed among the users
- Ledgers are representations of that physical interaction, thus it is centralized
- Double spending non-physical information is the root problem of using a ledger based currency system
- quotes “If you have an apple and I have an apple, and we swap apples - we each end up with only one apple. But if you and I have an idea and we swap ideas - we each end up with two ideas” - Charles F. Brannan
- Tokens are trustless and timeless, if you have them in your possession then you can spend them
- Ledgers relies on man-made laws to be spent
- The move from physical laws to man-made rules leads to the need to keep centralized ledgers from being fraud
- This relies on timestamps so audits can reverse the entire history at anytime
- ==This distinction highlights the need for accurate time tracking==
- Non-crypto currency solves the problem of double-spending by establishing a central agency - but the notion of cryptocurrency is to relinquish the need for centralized control
- Instead of having accurate clocks to keep track of time, just use the order of events as blocks of time
- ==Time needs causality and unpredictability to flow==
- Entropy-increasing functions are required to establish an arrow of time
- Fibonacci Numbers are casual but not entropic, every number is caused by the previous two but because it is predictable it can’t be used to tell the time
- Bitcoin use two sources of unpredictability - transactions and proof-of-work
- The proof-of-work puzzle will be randomly solved by a miner and no one can predict it in advance
- Time adjustment difficulty is also key to build an internal rhythm to Bitcoin so it can be adjusted to more and more miners getting onto the network
- Bitcoin managed to establish timekeeping without a centralized time-stamping company, physical medium as proof, and keeping the ticks of time more-or-less constant