How ‘Black Mirror’ helps explain Bitcoin as a proof of work system

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According to Dr. Craig Wright, chief scientist of blockchain research and development group nChain, the reason for Bitcoin as a proof of work system can, in part, be explained by an episode of Black Mirror.

In a post published on Medium, Wright explained the significance of CoinGeek as the first independent corporate miner of Bitcoin, and how this would offset what he describes as ‘proof of social media’—with consequences that can be lifted directly from an episode of the dystopian drama series.

“As Bitcoin has been growing up, the value has not been high enough to attract real corporate miners. The first of these has appeared. CoinGeek has become the first real corporate miner in bitcoin…Their investment into the infrastructure, not as a means of gambling and speculation between coins but with the goal of delivering global money signals the start of a new era and one that Bitcoin was always destined to reach,” he wrote.

Wright added, “Other entities (such as SBI) will follow the leadership of CoinGeek. The importance of this cannot be understated. Bitcoin is a system has always been designed to end in data centres and corporate competition. The reason for this is to achieve stability. It is to achieve the creation of the first money that is set in stone and invariant. It is this stability that is needed for the long-term creation of contracts and which delivers the ability for Bitcoin to achieve stable global money.”

He went on to explain how the episode shows a protagonist in search of acceptance in the form of social credit, which he says “[demonstrates] analogously what I had termed proof of social media (PoSM)” in the early stages of bitcoin mining.

This, he argues, had led to social media becoming too influential a voice, with individual miners in pools more likely to be swayed by false or misleading news than corporate miners.

Now, with CoinGeek breaking new ground as a corporate miner, he sees the next wave of development as one of increasing corporatisation, which will see the benefits of Bitcoin as a proof of work as it grows to succeed as a mainstream international currency.

His post concludes calling for international competition between larger corporate miners, seen as an essential step towards truly stable global money.

“Bitcoin is stable global cash. It is through international competition, not of small home users and hobby nodes but from large corporate entities that we will gain this stability and solidity of the world’s first stable money,” Wright said.