Bitcoin: From Byzantine Fault to Self-evolving Digital Organisms

The founder of Bitcoin solved the long-standing Byzantine Fault problem that has plagued humanity by introducing the Proof of Work ( PoW ) mechanism. This problem is essentially about how to reach consensus in an environment filled with uncertainty and potential betrayal.

The Byzantine Fault can be simplified to: in a chaotic and disordered system, how to establish a mechanism for all parties to reach an agreement and form order? This is essentially the process of reaching Consensus. From a thermodynamic perspective, this is a process of entropy reduction from disorder to order.

The PoW mechanism incentivizes miners to participate in a competition for computational power to find a specific hash value, thereby reaching consensus among a group of unordered nodes. This solves the Byzantine Fault problem and establishes what is known as Byzantine Fault Tolerant Consensus in the Bitcoin network.

PoW creates an ever-expanding entropy reduction system. While most things in the universe follow the law of increasing entropy and ultimately tend toward heat death, life is an exception. Life forms order by absorbing negative entropy, achieving entropy reduction. From this perspective, the Bitcoin system is essentially a continuously growing organism that absorbs global computing power through mechanical consensus for sustained development.

Bitcoin(BTC) is merely a reward symbol that drives the growth of this living entity, rather than the entirety of the system. The Bitcoin network, as an independent living entity, possesses both independence and sociality, allowing it to collaborate with other entities to create greater value.

After years of development, Bitcoin continues to thrive, while many imitators gradually fade away. After Ethereum switched to Proof of Stake ( PoS ), it abandoned the mechanism of continuous evolution through the absorption of global computing power, relying instead on the capped ETH staking rate to form Consensus. This may be one of the deeper reasons why Ethereum is gradually falling behind Bitcoin.

These phenomena prompt us to rethink the essence of Bitcoin: how does this life form driven by mechanical Consensus continue to exert its social value in human digital civilization? How can Bitcoin better integrate with human society and unleash greater life energy?

Exploring the integration of Bitcoin life forms with human society may be the most meaningful research and entrepreneurial direction in the next phase of the cryptocurrency field.