Saturday, December 14, 2019

Bitcoin Mining Facilities

I've been following some Bitcoin news especially since this past summer, and the Google data centers reminded me of their mining facilities. This one apparently mines Bitcoin worth 70K USD a day (the video also tries to explain blockchain and the hashing function a bit): 



 Here's an article from 2018 that lists the top five mining operations in the world: 
https://coincentral.com/the-top-5-largest-mining-operations-in-the-world/

 I wish we had some more time to talk about cryptocurrency and blockchain in the class. I'm not that knowledgeable on the topic either, but it seems like it could be the starting point of some generative discussions especially in relation to our weeks on labor, algorithms, and waste. 
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2 comments:

  1. noakaplanDecember 15, 2019 at 4:26 PM

    There is some recent scholarship on how bitcoin circulates extremist ideologies. David Golumbia's recent book, The Politics of Bitcoin: Software as Right-Wing Extremism and Nick Land's Crypto-Current: Bitcoin and Philosophy both examine how libertarian and neo conservative values spread via cryptocurrency. Land expresses that "the crypto-current is a nightmare for the left (rigorously conceived).”

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  2. UnknownDecember 15, 2019 at 10:28 PM

    Thanks Noa! Tara told me about Golumbia's book but I've yet to read it. Based on the quote you provide though, it seems like they have similar takes on cryto. Would be interested in reading both - thanks for the suggestions :)

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