Bitcoin Forum

Meta—It was suggested that this post be forwarded to this bitcointalk forum. It was originally posted on Reddit here: https://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMining/comments/sab5yk/an_idea_that_could_increase_the_efficiency_of/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3 (https://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMining/comments/sab5yk/an_idea_that_could_increase_the_efficiency_of/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). Obviously this is not a technique that could be developed by anybody except the most highly specialized scientists and engineers, but if the idea has merit then I think development should begin as soon as possible. So, if you know anybody in the R&D department of a large Bitcoin mining corporation, please forward it to him/her.

Tl;dr—Instead of using a local energy source (local work) to accelerate and manipulate charged particles (electrons, which are not massless) in intelligently designed devices to perform logical operations (compute proof), why not use intrinsically energetic and intrinsically massless particles (photons) that originate from the largest source of energy (work) in the solar system (the sun) as a source of coherence (for logical operations), and incoherence (if its needed for random guessing), to compute the proof of the next block? All that is needed is a novel, intelligent design.

There is already a large amount of research being performed in the development of Application Specific Photonic Integrated Circuits (ASPICs) and Programmable Integrated Photonics (PIPs). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_computing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_computing). To my knowledge, these devices can be used to perform basic logical operations, and I don’t know of any reason why they couldn’t be designed to perform the SHA256 hash function.

Due to the fact that these devices are intended to be deployed in locations where they are needed, ASPICs are currently being developed to use locally-powered lasers as a source of coherence. However, it is well-known that Bitcoin mining is location agnostic. As it turns out, lasers can be produced from solar radiation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar-pumped_laser (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar-pumped_laser).

Of course, Bitcoin’s Proof of Work algorithm includes randomly guessing a nonce. As it turns out, random number generation can be performed using either a coherent or incoherent source. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1611.00224.pdf (https://arxiv.org/pdf/1611.00224.pdf), https://arxiv.org/abs/2108.08743 (https://arxiv.org/abs/2108.08743).

Therefore, is it, or is it not, conceivable that the work that is required to prove the sequential ordering of Bitcoin transactions can be performed by the sun? And, is it, or is it not, also conceivable that the proof of that order can be computed by the radiance of the sun?

Therefore, isn't it conceivable that the sole source of all new bitcoins could, someday, be the sun? Doesn't this also solve the oft-cited problem of Bitcoin's security post-2140?

Edit: See this video, for example, of a professor from the Netherlands giving a talk about optical computing. https://youtu.be/UqeH7ozVOpQ (https://youtu.be/UqeH7ozVOpQ). The video is more than an hour long, but the summary is that optical computers have been following Moore’s Law during the past couple of decades the same way electronics followed Moore’s Law in the latter half of the 1900s. They are now making optical computing chips as neural nets in AI, and these chips are much more efficient than their traditional electronic counterparts.

Edit 2: One of the companies that is mentioned in this professor’s talk is LightElligence. https://www.lightelligence.ai/technology (https://www.lightelligence.ai/technology). “By processing information with light, our chips offer ultra high speed, low latency, and low power consumption representing orders of magnitude improvement over traditional electronic architectures.” This particular company specializes in optical chips designed for AI applications. If Bitcoin continues to grow, I expect there will become a greater incentive for companies to develop similar ASPICs designed for SHA256 hash.

Solar power is already being used for bitcoin mining. So yeah...anything like that sounds like it could be possible. needs to make financial sense for the miner tho.

Interesting idea, on high level (not sure if the science behind it is sound), but you forget that it won't be completely 'performed by the sun'. You will still have devices converting all this energy, radiation etc. into valid blocks. These would be the new ASICs that will always get faster (better use of sun energy / efficiency), smaller etc. and then I'm not sure what issue will actually be fixed. Because there will still be electric waste, race to produce more and better miners and so on.

If it's just about reducing power draw from the grid (that's not more efficient - just a different way to retrieve electric energy), that can be done today through solar cells.

Also, fwiw the nonce's randomness isn't really so important that it makes sense to use photons or similar, you could even just count up from 0.

Yes, indeed, solar power is already being used, but not in the way that is being suggested here. Currently, the energy of the photons from the sun is being absorbed by the PV panels and converted into electricity, which is then used to provide power to traditional electronic computers which perform computation by accelerating electrons within the device's transistors. What's suggested here is that all those photons from the sun be used directly within the optical logic gates of a novel device that is specifically designed for this purpose. It is apparent that solar radiation can be used to create coherent light (laser). From wikipedia:


Additionally,


So, if computation can be performed by a source of coherent light, and coherent light can be produced by solar radiation without an artificial energy source... then doesn't that imply that it's theoretically possible to perform computation with zero operational cost? Obviously it hasn't been economical to mine Bitcoin this way because there is no such optical computing device in existence that is specifically designed to perform SHA256 hash function, let alone one that can perform the hash function from a single source of coherent light. But... it seems as if photonic integrated circuits are now starting to become economical for certain niche applications.

I'm not suggesting that this actionable at the moment. But, perhaps in 20 years, maybe something like this could be the pursuit of a joint venture between some government agency, polytechnic universities, and a large Bitcoin mining corporation.

Yes, the devices would need to be specially designed. But, the theory presented here is that the energy required to perform the computation would come directly from the sun without first converting it into electricity. The idea is that the photons that come directly from the sun would be the exact same photons that are used in the logic gates of this novel device, with no conversion to electricity.


Technically, the idea suggested here is not a computer that is retrieving electric energy from the grid in a different way, but rather a computer that is powered primarily and directly by a naturally occurring fusion reaction in space.

I see, I see. So your logic gates will operate on light rays instead of wires with electricity going through them. Sounds plausible. You will still need a small traditional computer that constructs blocks and inputs them into the ASIC (or ASPIC). So an interface between 'traditional electronic computer' and 'ASPIC that needs photonic inputs'. After the inputs were set, the circuit will need to double-hash, check difficulty target, choose a new nonce and repeat.

Yes. Like any worthwhile endeavor, designing such a device would likely be extremely difficult.

What do you think about this as a potential solution to the apparent lack of incentive to continue mining after the block subsidy is no longer issued? This is not a topic that I've spent a considerable amount of time thinking about, so please forgive me if I'm uninformed or simply being naive, but if there ever came a time when the Lightning Network was robust and stable, and when new channels were not created often, then the transaction rewards to the miners might not be sufficient to cover the cost of such a large power consumption (even if it is still only < 5% of the global power consumption). On the other hand, if all of Bitcoin's power consumption came directly from the sun's nuclear fusion reaction, without conversion to useable electricity, and if the optical computing devices were stable and durable, then nobody could possibly complain that Bitcoin was taking too much energy from the grid and maintaining the network may be as simple as infrequent maintenance of these durable devices.

And just because it uses renewable energy doesn't mean it is something miners would do unless it made financial sense.


More likely is that transaction fees will  make up for the block subsidy.

Well, technically, the renewable energy source suggested in this idea is like no other. It's more akin to how plants use sunlight to grow; not many people would consider plants as a user of renewable energy (at least, not energy that could sensibly be made available to the grid). But, since you bring up the financial aspect, I think large miners may someday want to collaborate with a government agency to fund a $10 million R&D project if it could potentially save them an order of magnitude, or more, in efficiency, especially if their operational cost is an order of magnitude greater than their contribution to the project's funding. If Bitcoin becomes as accepted and ubiquitous as the internet is today, then what government wouldn't jump at the opportunity to make their mining operation more environmentally friendly than that of every other nation?


Personally, I think it's too early to predict whether or not the fees will cover the costs of the miners; 2140 is quite far into the future.

Photosynthesis is the process by which plants use sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide to create oxygen and energy in the form of sugar.

I dont see a similarity. But if that technology existed then
fine we used to have asics now we have something better
Miners still need to make a profit Bitcoin goes on what else can you use the technology for?




 Think of it like the trucking industry whenever gas prices go higher or new regulations get put in place to make things more expensive for the trucking industry guess who gets the price passed on to them?

The similarity to which I was referring was simply that this proposed mining technique, like plants, would use the power of the sun without relying on electricity; the power of the sun would go directly into the proof-of-work computation without first converting the photons' energy into electrical power. Similarly, plants use sunlight directly in the process of photosynthesis to make energy within their cells, no external electricity required.

so what else would the technology be used for? is bitcoin it's most compelling application?

Well, I think that depends on the technology to which you're referring. There's already commercially viable photonic integrated circuits (PICs) being employed in niche areas of the market. As noted in the OP, a company called LightElligence is making PICs for AI applications.

If you're referring to the entire technique, though--the technique of using sunlight directly for computation--then I think that would have very limited applications, mostly because the availability of sunlight is intermittent. But, I think the efficiency that it could bring to the Bitcoin mining market is reason enough to motivate its development, especially if Bitcoin continues to become a more important and prevalent financial technology.

Not exactly zero operational costs - you still have the data center maintenance costs - but this manages to eliminate the need for large power sources, and with it, the main talking point that people use against bitcoin mining (that "crypto mining causes pollution" - but that is a discussion for yesterday). It can be deployed in places like Africa with almost zero disruption to the power grid. You'd still need a backup generator for the systems running the Bitcoin nodes submitting the blocks, and a decent internet line, but yeah. It looks doable.

Optical computing is extremely slow and clunky. Optical stuff is great for communication though.

It's easy to see why it wouldn't work: the photon just takes too much space - with wavelength hundreds of nanometers it just cannot compete with the density of present day chips. Additionally photons don't interact themselves, so at least one electron is needed for anything to happen. Or to happen probably, maybe. It's way worse: the event probably doesn't happen. The computation is lost then. Which means huge switching devices, and relatively slow speed.

What about the power needed? One must use lasers for all this. Very inefficient.

Edit: typo.

I don't understand much from optical computing, but here's a simple question: What's bad with converting the energy of the photons to electricity? Does it make the procedure less efficient?

Whether or not it's bad depends on your moral philosophy, so can't determine that for you. Regarding the question of efficiency, the short answer is "yes, it's less efficient to convert photons into electric power and then use that power to accelerate subatomic charged particles, with mass, inside electrically conductive material to perform computation (which inevitably produces a lot of heat because the particles are charged) than it is to simply use the intrinsically energetic and intrinsically massless photons to perform computation directly." Of course, this is all moot because humanity has not developed this technique of using sunlight to perform computation. This answer also depends on the design and engineering of the technique; a bad design can turn a more efficient physical process into a less efficient human endeavor.

i'd say i couldnt agree with you on "very limited applications". such a technology seems like it would be useful in general purpose computing. if it can compute hashes i'm sure it could run a c program.

My moral philosophy? What makes direct usage of the photons' energy more or less moral than the other way?

Yes, but I don't understand how's morality related with the discussion at all; otherwise it wouldn't be tiring from me to just add an adverb and avoid confusion.

can you give an example of something that needs to "run all the time without downtime"? bitcoin mining is not such an example.

Well, to be fair to ETFbitcoin, I think most people would mine 24/7 if that was also the most economical mining schedule. But you're right, with this technique the mining would only occur at those times when the intensity of available sunlight is sufficient, which means the miners would not "run all the time without downtime". However, sunlight availability was the primary reason why I wrote that the application of this technology would probably be very limited.

However, if I really allow my imagination to run wild, perhaps this technology could be applied to all data centers. Again, I am not an expert, and this would certainly be an enormous engineering challenge... but, theoretically, if sunlight could be concentrated into a single source of very intense and powerful coherent light, and that light could be sufficiently split and distributed amongst many computers... and if the fresnel lens apparatus (which concentrates the sunlight into coherent light) could seamlessly be swapped for an artificially powered, high-intensity laser during the night to produce an equivalent source of coherent light, then I suppose this could also provide large efficiency benefits to regular ol' data centers. However, I think we're still something like a decade away from general purpose optical computers becoming commercialized.

Additionally, I briefly read that solar-pumped lasers could be used to concentrate sunlight to the effect of increasing the efficiency of solar panels, or something like that, but that has nothing to do with the optical computing stuff.

If the mirrors last long enough, it might pay itself off in "creature comforts".

Yes, that cost is likely due to the use of a heliostat. While a heliostat is desirable, it's not technically a required component for this technique to work. I can think of two alternatives:

1. The fresnel lens is stationary, no heliostat, and it only concentrates the sun's rays into a laser for a short duration each day.
2. Some brilliant mathematician/physicist/engineer devises a 4π fresnel lens that can focus the sun's rays from any angle into a laser, no heliostat required.

Or, perhaps a supplementary PV panel could be used to provide power to the heliostat.

I've just learned about Lagrange Points, which are "points of equilibrium for small-mass objects under the influence of two massive orbiting bodies." Lagrange point 1 is located between the Earth and the Sun.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ee/Lagrange_points2.svg

A Bitcoin Mining operation that relies purely on solar power could remain operational 24/7/365 if it was positioned at Lagrange point 1, with no possibility of clouds obscuring the line-of-sight to the Sun.

in theory yes but in practice, there's other considerations. rocket fuel has to be used to maintain the position so when the rocket fuel runs out it won't be able to maintain its position. the total cost of putting the mining hardware into orbit and such could be rather large. assuming a limited lifetime of operation, it has to recoup the costs and make a profit on top of that. i highly doubt even elon musk would gamble on something like that lol.

as an example, the james webb telescope had a cost of about 9 billion us dollars to put it into orbit at L2. they expect it to have enough propellant to keep it in orbit for 10 years.

also, check my math here but L1 is located 1.5 million km from earth. it takes light about 5 seconds to travel that far. that delay would be a problem for bitcoin mining. could be.

i doubt a government would ever go to that extreme to mine bitcoin. not even sure governments are interested in mining bitcoin for example the usa government can just print more money anytime it wants. or make their own digital currency and control it.


5 second delay is both ways to and from. then satellites around earth have to communicate with things down on the earth surface. another delay. the latencies add up. how many miners miss out on a block reward by seconds? how about 10 seconds?

another issue is, this thing that is out at L1 becomes outdated tech as new tech is developed and put into use on earth that has a larger hash rate. making it even less productive over time...and you can't easily replace it or upgrade it or do any type of maintenance.

There's a big problem with heat dissipation in space. How would this setup cool the miners? It would need enormous radiators for dealing with all the heat.

Unless one breaks the 2nd law of thermodynamics this looks quite bad. But then no need to go in space - no problems with heat, noise, space, and most importantly, no need of any power supply. This would break most PoW assumptions though.

a 10 seconds latency in BTC mining is very costly since the mining pool won't be paying you money out of their own pocket, most pools will send new work within a few seconds and thus the majority of the shares you submit will be invalid, mining solo with such latency will also increase your stale block size by a large margin, but this idea is still applicable if the cost of setup and operation is a lot lower than mining on planet earth, although I highly doubt that this will be the case.

totally agree, why not to use our main power source....
the largest source of energy (work) in the solar system (the sun) as a source of coherence (for logical operations...

best look in finding accurate team!!