As I said previously, according to the basic principles of the first law of thermodynamics, Bitcoin mining is not essentially a waste of energy, but the conversion and storage of energy, transforming energy of the natural world into Bitcoin through hashrate of mining machine, that's why Bitcoin could be applied in value reserve, it is supported by real energy. Simultaneously, the process of Bitcoin mining involves not only the first law of thermodynamics, but the second law. Now let's look at some knowledge of the second law of thermodynamics briefly.
The second law of thermodynamics, one of the basic laws of thermodynamics, is expressed as: it is impossible to transfer heat from a low-temperature to a high-temperature object without causing other effects; or it is impossible to take heat from a single heat source to completely convert it into useful work without triggering other effects; or the micro-increment of entropy in the irreversible thermal process is always greater than zero, also known as the law of entropy increase. It shows that in natural process, the total chaos of an isolated system will not decrease.
Why does entropy mean the degree of chaos of a system? Let’s talk about what heat is. Heat is a manifestation of the irregular movement of a large number of molecules, representing how confused a system is to some extent. The second law of thermodynamics states that spontaneous processes are irreversible, from order to disorder. The law concerns the conversion of heat and work. Work can be converted into heat, but it's a one-way street because work is a directional and orderly behavior while heat is disorderly. So the entropy function is a measure of chaos. All spontaneous and irreversible processes are from order to disorder, proceeding in the direction of growing chaos.
Low entropy signifies a low degree of chaos, vice versa. The second law of thermodynamics conveys the idea that all moving systems have energy conversion and all closed ones prefer the state of maximum chaos, unless external energy is injected. If no external influence is exerted, things will always develop into a more chaotic and disordered situation. For example, if our room is not cleaned, it will become messier and messier unless cleaning comes, which will undoubtedly take energy. The maintenance of order means the consumption of energy.
All things in the universe are going through a process of transferring from high energy to low energy, a process of gradually declining. People grow old and die, the environment deteriorates, the sun goes out, and ultimately everything goes to destruction. The arrow of time perpetually heads for increasing entropy.
Maybe after trillions of years, all stars will disappear, so will the universe. But all human activities are against entropy. By adding external energy, we turn disorder into order. Bitcoin mining also conforms to the principle of entropy increase principle, but it does not actually accumulate entropy, but maintains the entropy reduction of the entire Bitcoin network with the help of external energy, that is to say, maintains the order of the Bitcoin system.
Bitcoin mining factually uses the computing power of the chip to continuously carry out hash collisions and get the answer faster than others to win the accounting rights on the Bitcoin ledger and obtain Bitcoin rewards. This dull and repeated process is visually compared to mining. Developing Bitcoin is similar to mining gold: ceaseless electric energy is supplied to the mining machine for hash calculation, which would then be converted into hashrate. Then Bitcoin rewards will be finally obtained based on the proportion of hashrate provided.
With continuous input of external energy maintaining the entropy reduction state of the Bitcoin network, Bitcoin ledger will record human economic behavior and ultimately generate value. The process of Bitcoin mining is of energy conversion, turning disordered information into order. So how is external energy infused into Bitcoin network? As a matter of fact, the computer is for coping with information, which can be measured by entropy. Before CPU starts working, the system is disordered. When CPU functions, bit will be controlled to become 0 or 1 and system becomes organized. CPU can handle information the information is finally fed back to the Bitcoin network. That is Bitcoin's ledger information. During the course, the real effective part is not the conversion of electrical energy but the order of the ledger system of Bitcoin and the reduction of entropy.
Very obscure as it seems, it is my deep thinking of some entropy reduction principles in Bitcoin mining. What do you think?
Second law of thermodynamics:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamicsEntropy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy
