<story><title>Bitcoin Mining’s Three Body Problem</title><url>https://www.aniccaresearch.tech/blog/bitcoin-minings-three-body-problem</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>trixie_</author><text>&amp;#x27;Bitcoin is the product of hashpower. The industry wouldn’t exist without incentivizing miners to continuously invest in hardware and burning electricity to augment Bitcoin network’s settlement assurance&amp;#x27;&lt;p&gt;I think this is a common misconception. People don&amp;#x27;t need to continually invest in mining hardware to keep it going. The entire Bitcoin network could technically be run off a single Rasberry Pi.  The network hash rate is only so high because the ROI is there, but without it, people would still be mining.&lt;p&gt;Case in point, there are plenty of long forgotten altcoins out there that people are mining just for fun. At the end of the day your computer is no different from an expensive space heater. Might as well mine some crypto with it.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>season2episode3</author><text>&amp;gt; At the end of the day your computer is no different from an expensive space heater. Might as well mine some crypto with it.&lt;p&gt;Or, you know, you could just turn the computer off while you&amp;#x27;re not actively using it. It saves you money and does a small little good thing for the environment too.</text></comment>
<story><title>Bitcoin Mining’s Three Body Problem</title><url>https://www.aniccaresearch.tech/blog/bitcoin-minings-three-body-problem</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>trixie_</author><text>&amp;#x27;Bitcoin is the product of hashpower. The industry wouldn’t exist without incentivizing miners to continuously invest in hardware and burning electricity to augment Bitcoin network’s settlement assurance&amp;#x27;&lt;p&gt;I think this is a common misconception. People don&amp;#x27;t need to continually invest in mining hardware to keep it going. The entire Bitcoin network could technically be run off a single Rasberry Pi.  The network hash rate is only so high because the ROI is there, but without it, people would still be mining.&lt;p&gt;Case in point, there are plenty of long forgotten altcoins out there that people are mining just for fun. At the end of the day your computer is no different from an expensive space heater. Might as well mine some crypto with it.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>brian_cloutier</author><text>I haven&amp;#x27;t read the article, but I believe it will say something like, the continual investment is necessary in order for the transactions to be irreversible (settlement assurance). I&amp;#x27;m sure there are some forgotten altcoins out there still chugging along, but it probably does not take much money to hire sufficient hash power to double-spend those alts, or even re-write their history.&lt;p&gt;For as long as bitcoin miners fight, tooth and nail, to hash incrementally more efficiently than their competitors, it will be prohibitively expensive for most actors to reverse transactions.</text></comment>