Bitcoin and Africa

I’ve seen many innovations in Africa with Bitcoin over the past few months and years that I never would have thought about, such as sending Bitcoin via SMS. These are solutions to problems that I don’t face due to my resources. Because of these things, I’ve seen potential in Africa to be the next Bitcoin boom spot. If people are building like that, there’s literally no ceiling to where they can go.

What I didn’t quite understand was the benefits of mining in Africa. To be honest, whenever the discussion of mining in African nations came up, I didn’t really like it because of what I knew regarding several developing nations’ energy infrastructure (or lack thereof) and it felt almost predatory. However, I was very incorrect. I’ve learned that BECAUSE of how this infrastructure is set up (specifically speaking on hydro power), there is not enough consumption demand that makes economic sense to put generators down. When you introduce mining to the equation, it’s a zero counterparty buyer of the energy to provide demand enough to enact these structures. On top of all that, Bitcoin is getting introduced to the ecosystem in places that arguably need it the most.

I don’t know everything, obviously, but this is the year that I take on Bitcoin in Africa and learn from and build with African builders that have already made insane headway there.

“Fix the money, fix the world” becomes truer every day.

One thing that I’m excited to work on into the new year is a project I’m calling “Altcoin 101.” Before you make assumptions, let me explain.

Something I’ve always tried to stay true to is to not hate what you don’t know. No matter what it is. In that same regard, I am going to be doing deep dives into various shitcoins on an intelectual and fundamental level with the view of them being a solution to a Bitcoin problem and disproving that.

This idea came from an Uber ride where the driver was fairly knowledgeable about Bitcoin (relatively), but thought that there was a scaling issue, and thus came to the conclusion that XRP was the solution. He had never heard of Lightning and was very open to learn about it. I was able to help him understand Lightning to a degree, but was not able to disprove any of his XRP claims. We have created a relationship and I’m going to keep working to move him over.

I want to share this research with you all as I conduct it so it gives you a ground to argue against shitcoins without just saying “they’re not Bitcoin so they’re bad.”

How do you do a long form post (with formatting) in Damus?

Yo @Marty Bent, I’ve been trying to do some research on the Stratum protocol (and prior with getwork) the past few days, mainly trying to understand what led up to Stratum V2. I keep finding myself on trails that seem like I’m getting somewhere, but can’t ever get a good grip on just the entire history and understanding of it. Buddy of mine said you might have some helpful resources so I thought I’d reach out. I appreciate the time!

@OCEAN block template view

Currently live on @OCEAN. Will post updates as I learn more. This is awesome.