Bitcoin and Africa
I’ve seen many innovations in Africa with Bitcoin over the past few months and years that I never would have thought about, such as sending Bitcoin via SMS. These are solutions to problems that I don’t face due to my resources. Because of these things, I’ve seen potential in Africa to be the next Bitcoin boom spot. If people are building like that, there’s literally no ceiling to where they can go.
What I didn’t quite understand was the benefits of mining in Africa. To be honest, whenever the discussion of mining in African nations came up, I didn’t really like it because of what I knew regarding several developing nations’ energy infrastructure (or lack thereof) and it felt almost predatory. However, I was very incorrect. I’ve learned that BECAUSE of how this infrastructure is set up (specifically speaking on hydro power), there is not enough consumption demand that makes economic sense to put generators down. When you introduce mining to the equation, it’s a zero counterparty buyer of the energy to provide demand enough to enact these structures. On top of all that, Bitcoin is getting introduced to the ecosystem in places that arguably need it the most.
I don’t know everything, obviously, but this is the year that I take on Bitcoin in Africa and learn from and build with African builders that have already made insane headway there.
“Fix the money, fix the world” becomes truer every day.
One thing that I’m excited to work on into the new year is a project I’m calling “Altcoin 101.” Before you make assumptions, let me explain.
Something I’ve always tried to stay true to is to not hate what you don’t know. No matter what it is. In that same regard, I am going to be doing deep dives into various shitcoins on an intelectual and fundamental level with the view of them being a solution to a Bitcoin problem and disproving that.
This idea came from an Uber ride where the driver was fairly knowledgeable about Bitcoin (relatively), but thought that there was a scaling issue, and thus came to the conclusion that XRP was the solution. He had never heard of Lightning and was very open to learn about it. I was able to help him understand Lightning to a degree, but was not able to disprove any of his XRP claims. We have created a relationship and I’m going to keep working to move him over.
I want to share this research with you all as I conduct it so it gives you a ground to argue against shitcoins without just saying “they’re not Bitcoin so they’re bad.”
Yo @MartyBent, I’ve been trying to do some research on the Stratum protocol (and prior with getwork) the past few days, mainly trying to understand what led up to Stratum V2. I keep finding myself on trails that seem like I’m getting somewhere, but can’t ever get a good grip on just the entire history and understanding of it. Buddy of mine said you might have some helpful resources so I thought I’d reach out. I appreciate the time!
I think I may have been in the 20s or 30s..? Maybe? There were only 2 pages of participants when I joined. Second was not full.
Feels good being early!
Extremely simple.
Stratum is simply mine.ocean.xyz:3334
Your miner name is [valid bitcoin address].[worker name of your choice]
Password is x
Then you can search that address you used on the dashboard and see your active worker(s)
I’m still trying to figure out the relation between getblocktemplate and Stratum admittedly. Both, to my understanding, were replacements / advancements from getwork, but I may be wrong about that.
I did not expect to learn as much as I did in my deep dive tonight on the Stratum protocol. Very excited to see what happens with Stratum V2.
Thankful in times like this for https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/ for the knowledge preserved. I know more about mining now than I did yesterday.
One research project I’m embarking on is one that I actually thought of accidentally. It will be looking at different thermal conductivity in thermal paste used on ASIC chips to measure performance in hashrate.
It may sound weird, I know. But while reapplying thermal paste to several hash boards, I inadvertently used two types of thermal paste with different thermal conductivity, and saw a minor difference in temperature readings when testing them.
I’ll be using different thermal pastes (based on W/mK) on a control (S19j Pro 100 TH/s) with an adequate sample size (likely 3 known fully hashing machines) and I will look at power draw, chip temperature, and hashrate over the average of 12 hours in a controlled climate.
There is, of course, a point of diminishing returns, and I hope to find that to see the peak optimization in a machine based on a tiny factor such as thermal paste. It may be minute, but it very well could be large enough to consider.
Much to be done!
“Profitability” in mining is very subjective. Most people count it as covering costs to run the machine with the rewards it produces. This is usually at a large scale.
To me, I personally believe that as long as you can run the machine, you are operating profitably. The first KYC free sats that you earn (in my eyes) put you in the black. It’s all relative to your time horizon.
Some of the main things I plan on talking about here:
- Bitcoin news (more specifically on a protocol level)
- Mining news
- Mining research I’m doing
- Progress on my essay (which will include questions to you)
Hello!
This is Tatum, but the more serious side of me. I wanted to make a new account where I can separate the fun part of me from the actual unique and informed opinion part of me. I am still using my other account (@TatumTurnUp) and will likely use it more than this one, but feel free to follow here if you’d like to see a different side of me.
I will be using this to give my opinion and takes on breaking Bitcoin news, mining, progress on my essay, research I’m working on, and more.
Hope you enjoy!
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