Three Bites of the Cherry – featuring Bitcoin, Blast and Polygon

November 28, 2023 | by John Mc Keown | 0

AFTER ALL THE ANTI-POW (PROOF OF WORK) RHETORIC ABOUT BITCOIN FOR BEING A CLIMATE CHANGE CATALYST, IT IS NOW ‘GREEN’ – APPARANTLY.

A new whitepaper published last week titled “Leveraging Bitcoin Miners as Flexible Load Resources for Power System Stability and Efficiency” claims that Bitcoins’ mining techniques which have rapid response to load changes, can aid in integrating renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power more effectively in power grids.

There is a saying that the simpler a statement is kept, the easier it is to lie. A lie can be done in one line, or sometimes a word, but it can take several paragraphs to tell the full truth.

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The simple lie about Bitcoin Mining being bad for the environment, is that mining uses electrical energy and lots of it.

This was pushed by institutional investors, who shied away from Bitcoin and PoW blockchains in general, because there is less money in it for them. Centralized ‘Layered’ ecosystems, which include EVMs, L2s, virtual product networks, and online retail actors, can provide 4, and sometimes 5 layers though which institutional investors can gain greenbacks.

They have lawyers, accountants, corporate staff that drive to work… They have marketing and promo folk who fly around the world burning air fuel to attend ‘Web3’ events.

They have sweat shops in Asia churning out ‘merch’.

When does Bitcoin, or any PoW blockchain owned by nobody, do this? Who’s really green?

Bitcoin mining has now been recognized as crucial for enhancing clean energy usage and stabilizing electrical grids.

The paper’s contributors aren’t all people with skin in the Web3 game, so conflict of interest and anchor bias is minimal.

It includes Murray Rudd, a science advisor, and Shaun Connell, Executive Vice President of Power at Lancium, a Houston-based tech company… also Brad Jones, former president and CEO of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT).

The paper provides real-world examples of case studies in Texas where Bitcoin miners have actively participated in demand response programs, so it’s more than just a thesis. Source – cryptomode.com

NEWEST ETHEREUM ‘LAYER 2,’ BLAST, SCRUBS A PYRAMID-SHAPED DIAGRAM FROM ITS WEBSITE

“You get points when your invites get points and their invites get points,”

..read an archived diagram from Blast’s website in the shape of a pyramid rotated 90 degrees. Blast advertised up to 16% referral points for a member’s referrals and 8% for referrals’ referrals.

Earning revenue from referrals’ referrals is, of course, the hallmark of a multi-level marketing scheme – i.e. PYRAMID.

‘Wait I thought this was a meme but this is a real diagram of the Blast L2 invite system … Bro it’s an actual pyramid scheme ? ‘ exclaimed Tytan.eth (@Tytaninc) Nov 21, on X.

Blast has over half a billion dollars in staked Ethereum and hasn’t yet launched its testnet.

Its anonymous founder goes by the handle @PacmanBlur and previously co-founded the NFT marketplace Blur. Other pseudonymous staffers include ‘CL,’ ‘DegenSpartan,’ Andrew Kang, and ‘Santiago.’

Investors can’t pull out, and their funds are stuck, at least until February, when Blast says it will launch its bridge. Until then, Blast hands out ‘Blast points’ from its multi-level marketing scheme (read PYRAMID). – Source Protos.com

IS POLYGON NOW EXITING WEB 3, AND LEVERAGING NO BLOCKCHAIN AT ALL??

Polygon now have a new type of token – PRC 20. It apparently works in a similar fashion to Ordinals off Bitcoin.

The tokens are (supposedly) created using transactional calldata on Polygon’s off chain (off-eth) architecture, instead of the normal ERC 20, which retains the bulk of a key offchain, but is still linked through a tiny piece of meta data to L1 Eth.

Does it make a difference?

Well, notionally it would mean maybe less security, but technically?

Polygon is a scaling system off Ethereum, but it is incorrect to say it is ‘scaling ethereum’. It seems many content writers (annoyingly) write this about Layer 2 networks in general. Ethereum is still Ethereum. EaaS isn’t a product of networks built off it. Eth token protocols allow scaling systems to build faster than Ethereum itself, and that scaling is achieved by splitting data, and keeping more of it on off-chain networks.

Another claim ‘Web 3’ content writers commonly make, is to say ‘Scaling Solution Name’ combines the scalability of an off-chain network with the security of Ethereum.

THIS IS SIMPLY A LIE. No other word for it.

Security is purely down to the robustness of the off-chain network. It matters little if the core is Ethereum, or if it’s built off the newer BRC 20 etc off Bitcoin, or other similar protocols linked to for example, Handshake, Solana or Cardano.

Inaccessibility to meta data on the blockchain core when the off-chain network has been hacked, will prevent theft, but it won’t prevent industrial sabotage. With commercial networks like Polygon, Arbitrium, X Immutable and others all chasing transaction business, but consumer end virtual assets being only a fraction of what they were worth 2 years ago, network sponsored hacking can be far more lucrative for a hacker than stealing subjective value assets.

Perception though is always marketable, and the perception of L2s and extended off-chain networks being ‘Web 3’ was notionally linked to their relationship with a blockchain core, most notably, Ethereum.

‘Layer 2 solutions are gaining traction, but many equate them with blockchains, which, in fact they aren’t. – Soban Raza.

Ethereum mainnet ‘ordinal’ type solutions have already been done. Developers named them ‘Ethscriptions’, which use the ESC-20 token standard. The protocol was launched in mid-June by Ethereum developer Tom Lehman.

The ‘ordinals’ that PRC 20 ‘inscribes’ don’t appear to be ‘Ethscriptions’ and are obviously not Satoshis – so where are they?

If they are internally on Polygon, this breaks a link with any blockchain. This means the process is completely centralized end-to-end. You might as well try to ‘mint’ to Kotak, Axis or JP Morgan!