So, I'm a lazy bastard. Because of this, I'm very much into finding new ways to do things that will help me to do less. Naturally, technology makes that kinda shit easier. If Bitcoin Mining has taught us anything, it is that those of use who are on top of the tech will be the ones who can do the most. Well, that and a lot of money to buy that tech. But that's besides the point.
Here are a few advancements around the corner that might be the biggest game changers for Crypto.
Optical Computing, or Badass Photonics
So, you might have heard of electronics. No shit, right? If you're reading this you are using electronics. Basically the device that you're using right now is nothing more than a big ass set of little TINY baby switches. Those switches are known as transistors. They are the "brain cells" of the electronics operation, and they're mostly congregated really really tightly together in your processor (which is the whole brain).
Basically, processors and transistors use electrons to flip switches in just the right pattern to calculate numbers, run code, and show you PornHub.
Oh yeah, and to MINE BITCOIN. How could I forget?
The problem is that today's processors tend to use up a lot of energy. It has been estimated that worldwide, bitcoin uses about 7 GIGAWATTS of power annually. That's how much all of Sweden uses in a year.
So, what if you could use light instead of electrons to do all that fun little switch flipping instead? First, you would save yourself an ASS-TON of energy because light doesn't take up much compared to electrons. Second, you would be able to do computations faster! That's basically all that bitcoin is, right? Energy and computation. That is the vision of photonics, and it's right around the corner.
Quantum Computing
I have talked about this one before (when I first started on publish0x) and honestly, while this tech is making great advances, it is still in its infancy. Google has the quantum computing game by the reigns currently (MAYBE), but as technology grows and opportunists see the ability become available, we will see Quantum computing become the next big industry.
Currently (and for the foreseeable future) Quantum Computing is limited to large rigs on labs that rely on being cooled down to a nearly absolute zero in order to both isolate the qubits (the QC equivalent to a bit) and keep them that way for entanglement with the other qubits in the system. Therefore, no, you won't have quantum computers in your house anytime soon. This leads me to believe that if it is to become a viable computing solution, it will start off like something comparable to today's cloud computing services.
Why is QC so damned important? Because it makes traditional computers look retarded. Instead of say, running through one calculation at a time, a quantum computer can run through a WHOLE lot more. A QC put to work as a miner could run though hashes extremely fast. In the worst case, it would calculate blocks at a remarkable pace, running though the remaining stuff until there's a halving event a month after implementation or something (COMPLETE SPECULATION). Worse case, it crashes the entire crypto space. Imagine being able to flood the market with your newly acquired quantum obtained bitcoin. The BTC price would fall like a rock, and the industry would likely follow.
A lot of this has to do with the fact that current cryptography methods aren't suited to stay secure with that much computing power behind it. Fortunately, there are solutions being worked on (And if you can get through this paper, I'm proud of you) to help prevent that from occurring, and we could see another layer of technology applied to the BTC blockchain to help prevent such incidents from occurring (Kinda like the Lightning Network). If there's money behind bitcoin, you can be sure that there will be stakeholders who wanna make sure that shit is secure. Just hope they get it working before the bad actors have their way.
ENERGY TECHNOLOGY!
This stuff is already at our front door. This is in the form of photovoltaics, or for the rest of us non-nerds, solar panels. Solar technology has seen a HUGE AMOUNT of success due to economies of scale in recent years. Everyone wants a piece of that sweet Flaming Fusion Gravitational Death trap in the sky. Hell, what if you could feasibly run your traditional miners off of solar panels? That would be amazing. In fact, it is estimated that it would drop Bitcoin Mining costs by 75%
But let's say you're not satisfied with your traditional Fusion Hellhole Energy Collectors. What if you wanna bring the Fusion Hellhole to YOU? Well, they are working on that (to be fair, they have been working on it for years) and have made some pretty cool advances recently. There have been a lot of those types of advances, and I think instead of fusion being 30 years away for over 50 years, we might eventually see a break-even event (where the energy OUT is greater than energy IN) really soon. It's a matter of "When" at this point. At least, that's my dumbass opinion on the matter.
Why would fusion be important? Well, it would reduce the cost of energy incredibly for mining, but just in a different way. Instead of getting free energy from the sun, it would reduce the average cost of energy by a BIG-OL-BUTT-TON. That's something I can get behind.
Final Thoughts, By Your Local Internet Asshole
Whew! That was a LOT.
I believe there are a lot of challenges to be met when it comes to how the crypto space will be affected by the emergence of potentially industry-changing tech. However, if the innovation of really smart folks is any historical indication, we will find our ways around it, no problem. And if we don't, well... I guess we will have to do something different. Like adopt a new technology like No Horsesh*t Coin.
Thank you SO SO Much for reading, I REALLY do appreciate it a WHOLE BUNCH! If you enjoyed my first Steemit post, please consider reading some of my other stuff over at Publish0x!
Until Next Time... Keep your eye on the markets, and now the new technology...