🌎Earth

1st Element

Perceived by all 5 senses - Undeniable Decentralized & Distributed Existence

If History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme – then can we make sense of Blockchain/Distributed Ledger Technology as a method of rediscovering the Elements? Specifically in the case of Bitcoin, can we understand the network through a perspective of the Elemental Earth?

This Digital Earth is mined for Digital Gold

Elementally speaking, the Earth is cold, dry, solid, resistant to movement or change (ossified)...quite frankly – boring.

The Bitcoin network has indeed been described in this way! As the elemental Earth has been mapped onto the Solid State of Matter, in this way the Bitcoin network appears to also follow suit:

• Resistant to Movement = long block confirmation times: 10-minute block times and up to 60 minutes for block confirmations proving transaction finality

• Cold & Dry = difficult to build upon the network due to absence of Smart Contracts, and the inherent relatively ossified nature of the blockchain

• Resistant to Change = community has bought in to the limited fixed supply of 21M BTC, and this is likely to remain

While the above has invoked various complaints about Bitcoin, these properties can be understood as Features in place of Bugs.

These Features add Value to the Bitcoin Network and BTC the Digital Asset

Like the Earth, the Bitcoin network is stable, durable, and reliable. It is the foundation of everything in the World of Digital Assets (colloquially known as “cryptocurrencies”). Symbolically, this Earth has given us Soil which nurtured the growth of numerous other projects – occasionally known as “altcoins” – and though some of these digital assets were such altcoins at one point, some of them have grown to become core pillars of the Digital Asset Ecosystem. E.g., Ethereum.

In the Age of Information Technology and Free Energy, this Digital Gold can simultaneously morph into Digital Soil. It can additionally be likened to the mantle of the Earth with seemingly infinite Potential Digital (Free?) Energy that can be harnessed for the Collective. Many narratives.