Bitcoin And The Thermodynamics Of Computation

This is an opinion editorial by Spencer Nichols, a contributor at Bitcoin Magazine. 

The Santa Fe Institute has a history of studying complex adaptive systems. Bitcoin has a deep connection to complexity theory and thermodynamic theory.

(Photograph/Spencer Nichols)

“Continuous growth and the consequent ever-increasing acceleration of the pace of life have profound consequences for the entire planet… This is surely not sustainable, and, if nothing changes, we are heading for a major crash and a potential collapse of the entire socioeconomic fabric. The challenges are clear: Can we return to an analog of a more ‘ecological’ phase from which we evolved and be satisfied with some version of sublinear scaling and its attendant natural limiting, or no-growth, stable configuration? Is this even possible?” — Geoffrey West, “Scale”