Bitcoin Forum

I was thinking recently there is some sort of correlation between cryptocurrencies and 3d printing. If you think about this two, relatively new technologies, it seems like they are going in the same direction : Bitcoin is decentralizing money, 3d printers are decentralizing production. As a follower of both i would really like a world where you can buy everything (from a glass to a nuclear weapon  ;D) as a 3d printer project using BTC and then produce it with my own printer.

What do you think ? We are heading to a decentralization of the whole economy ? Is this good or dangerous ? /discuss

good correlation.
could be dangerous if we all 3d print nuclear tho..

It's great. I'm going to 3d Print the starship enterprise. Probably will take a lot of those plastic wheel things. to get it the right size and all. :-)

I know, I'm gonna start 3d printing drugs and then sell them to pay for my 3d printing

Not really sure if this is real, but if it is, it would be great to earn some Bitcoins, right?

i dont know but i love both, fascinating  :) !

What? How about printing 3D printers with themselves?  ;D

Well  , I'm familiar with the tpb campign "You wouldn't download a car"
It's nice in theory but..., seriously , after thinking how many times my printer has printed with errors I wouldn't "print" the airbags of my car in my garage.

Reminds me of that scene in Star Trek where they fly across different galaxies and come around an old cryogenics facility somewhere around where Earth use to be, naturally they begin resurrecting the frozen people and curing them from their fatal diseases and one of them happens to be a lawyer. When the lawyer wakes up his immediate reaction is "Where are the banks? Call my financial manager! Where are my investments? I must be a trillionaire by now!" and the crew has no idea of what a bank, an investment or even a financial manager is, because in their time they have an atomic accumulator that can create any object that you wish out of thin air without any need for a job so naturally people don't have to work, create corporations, invest or do any of that nonsense, since anyone can wish and get anything their heart pleases immediately.

Bitcoin is a technology on a similar scale, it changes how we think on a fundamental level, 3D printing might be a couple hundreds of years short of printing golden porches with hookers in the back seat but it still appears to fall under the same category as Bitcoin.

Woah...Printing 3d printers....with 3d printers?

http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2010/310/3/c/mind_blown_by_yhrite-d329zgm.jpg

Print a 3d printer which is halfway through printing a 3d printer.

So then, what if we print a 3d printer with a 3d printer, then have both those 3d printers print 3d printers, and then all those 3d printers just keep printing 3d printers and so on and so on....Would we then have an army of 3d printers who could just 3d print guns for themselves and 3d print ammo and conquer the world? What if the 3d printers develop a mind of their own and enslave humans into a never ending chain of 3d printing?

3D printing is _so_ 2013. Get with the times:

http://www.ted.com/talks/skylar_tibbits_the_emergence_of_4d_printing.html (http://www.ted.com/talks/skylar_tibbits_the_emergence_of_4d_printing.html)

You do not truly understand the phenomenal nature of what the future will bring us.

The convergence of the Singularity is upon us not from hyper-intelligent Computers, but from the Network of Networks, The Internet, a system that not only connects Computers to Computers, but the minds that connect to those computers to the Machines that are connected to that network, The Internet of Things. Everything will be connected and within your range of control from anywhere in the world, soon you will be cooking from you vehicle on the way home in a interactive simulation of your kitchen on your car dash... hell you'll probably train your car to do the cooking for you.

Think clearly and carefully the amalgamation of A.I, 3D Printing, the Internet of Things, Nanotechnology, programmable DNA, BlockChain enabled property rights management and voting systems, the future will be insane.

Not only will 3D printers print 3D printers, the 3D printers could very well be sentient; Think of Wall-e from pixars animated movie Wall-e, searching the wasteland for materials to brake down so it can make components for itself, or larger structures for it's use, all built in a modular fashion for swap and go performance... and all these components are Industrial Internet connected, everything Wall-e builds is connected to the network running on a massive Cloud server composed of those parts that are being made, all being  diagnosed and optimized by the Clouds Machine Learning System.  Through the eyes of a million cameras and satellites the Cloud A.I. can follow Wall-e around from orbital micro-modular satellites and even give network control to a Human with access to the control panel or a consensus driven network of humans that can set out routines for Wall-e to follow, allowing Wall-e to benefit from the collective intelligence of not only the Cloud A.I. but also from the Swarm of Humans connected to the Industrial Internet of Things. In fact these same objects that Wall-e is building, and Wall-e too, are contributing to the dialogue of what is to happen next, Wall-e has a say on what it can do, collaborating with the Cloud and the Swarm to direct and improve it's own operation beyond it's own sentient sovereignty. Wall-e can even go on autopilot and rely on the networks guidance while it gives it's attention to projects which it is interested in beyond it's everyday duties; Think of it as productive day-dreaming for machines, what could you do if as you were day dreaming in a factory your thoughts were becoming a reality?
   Wall-e could very well be designing new libraries for Synthetic DNA or programmable DNA systems to upgrade Humans, Networking the Humans themselves at a DNA level, Connecting the Human Source code directly to the Industrial Internet of Things.Wall-e could very well be analyzing your DNA while it does it's everyday duties, observing analyzing your own DNA and upgrading it on the fly with special Machine to Biological interfaces installed in your body. I give this with backing with the latest reseach... we can now program the HIV virus to upgrade the Human White Blood Cells, what will we do next?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6SzI2ZfPd4

 And to bring it around full Circle, Wall-e could be doing any one of these activities while earning Bitcoins, maybe even paying others to do things for it while it does these things, Network investing. Meanwhile Wall-e is incentivised to think about contributing to other projects by how much each project is worth in the eyes of the greater network; So Wall-e thinks, hmmm maybe I should start coding for project X because their cryptostock is paying well, even though Wall-e prefers to solve xDNA puzzles which have little returns, but have great potential. Wall-e could very well be Merge Investing in several stocks through escrow of it's earning for the crypto work it has done for different Cryptocurrencies, there by spreading the risk over several investments in it's portafolio of investments and Crypto rewards.

If it so suits itself, Wall-e could be 3D printing off specific objects for certain CryptoCurrencies or OT contracts funded by millions of Bitcoin users, maybe even gathering materials to sell to other 3D printers that need specific materials for manufacturing components based on per-arranged contracts, a mobile micro DAC network. Specific control of what Wall-e does and does not do can be controlled by market forces, with direct access by everything to everything around the planet, giving individuals a Control Console for the planet with accurate Real-Time Data.

Re: printing a 3d printer with a 3d printer. Reminds me of an old programming 101 saying:

"In order to fully understand recursion, first you must fully understand recursion."

UK Military is going into 3D printing

this is the beginning of the end of manufacturing jobs

3 important things that happened in last years IMO:

-Internet, ability to transfer information world wide
-Bitcoin, ability to transfer some kind of value world wide, decentralized, not controlled, fast
-3D printer, ability to build a prototype without large amounts of cash

Point is, that we, people are gaining some control and options and most important knowledge and awareness.

I wouldn't go that far, but I saw they have started making parts with the printers.

I completely agree.  There are many similarities between Bitcoin and 3D printing.  Both are democratizing 2 different major sectors of the economy. 

For fun I google the 2 words.  seems there are a lot of 3D Printed bitcoin products:
http://3dprintboard.com/showthread.php?711-3D-Printing-Bitcoin-Objects&highlight=bitcoin

LOL!

I have a feeling we will be hearing a lot about both transformative areas a lot over the next few years.

Very good correlation.  This has been a trend in the making for a very long time that is often referred to as "distributed computing", particularly when you're talking about P2P.  While 3D printers are not as interdependent as P2P, they do represent a form of "distributed computing based manufacturing". 

This article in 2002 (http://www.openstandards.net/viewOSnet3C.jsp?showModuleName=ARTICLE_webservices), while on the topic of web services, which were new then, discusses the trend towards distributed computing:



 

Erik has a good point,

Distributed computing allows us to send information without the vulnerabilities that come with a centralized system.
For example- we could anonymously buy 3d designs of items that are patented by large corporations.
-Think about napster but with objects (Such as printing your own iphone for 25% of the cost)

Love where you're going, but one thing left.

If we have the power of Gods (basically, creating anything we want at a whim) why do we need money?

Lol! I got so carried away writing a Mind-Fuck article that I forgot to check the foundations. LOL!

Yeah at that moment in history, who the hell is going to use money, but on the ramp up toward that future they'll serve as great scorekeepers of intangible goods.

This is the real barrier to 3D printing adoption I think.

Once we can 3D print semiconductors at a thickness comparable with those found in smartphones, we'll really be rolling.

Think about what you spend most money on, in your life: which of these things can be replaced by 3D printing?

They got it already. Printing processors is not too far off, we have the technology, we can re-build it.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cartesianco/the-ex1-rapid-3d-printing-of-circuit-boards

http://3dprintingindustry.com/2013/11/29/fuji-xerox-exploring-potential-3d-printed-embedded-chips-change-world/

and If they can print pictures 78 microns wide, then they can print circuit boards that small too.

http://petapixel.com/2012/08/13/color-photo-printed-at-100000-dpi-the-highest-resolution-ever/