In a notable exchange on social media platform Forest cheepwhich resonated with Musk, shed light on the extraordinary statistics that characterize the bitcoin network, prompting a simple but profound response from Musk: “Wow.”
Wood’s message on they have constructed. in the last 15 or 20 years.”
Wow
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 19, 2024
bitcoin is 500 times more powerful than supercomputers
This bold claim was based on a tweet from Yassine Elmandjra, head of digital assets at ARK, which aimed to counter recent skeptical comments made by JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon. During an event at the World Economic Forum, Dimon, known for his constant criticism of bitcoin, diminished its importance by referring to it as a “pet stone.”
He reiterated his 2021 view on btc's lack of inherent value and, despite acknowledging the practical applications of blockchain technology, signaled his reluctance to engage further in discussions about bitcoin. “This is the last time I'm talking about this with CNBC, so help me God,” Dimon said, adding: ““I think we wasted too many words on that.”
In stark contrast to Dimon's skepticism, Elmandjra's tweet shed light on the formidable computational capacity of the bitcoin network. He clarified the network's recent milestone of achieving a hash rate of 500 exahashes per second.
To articulate the enormity of this achievement, Elmandjra provided vivid comparisons, illustrating that the btc network processes 5 billion calculations per second for every star in our galaxy, and would require approximately 2,000 years for the entire world's population, each performing a hash. Secondly, to match the current hash rate of the network.
Furthermore, he noted that the network executes approximately 67 times more hashes per second than the estimated total number of grains of sand on Earth and its throughput, in terms of gross operations per second. Furthermore, all bitcoin miners outperform the world's most powerful supercomputer by a factor of about 500.
These huge statistics highlight the monumental scale and computational prowess of the bitcoin network, prompting reactions such as Peter McCormack's comment: “Math.”
bitcoin is digital gold
Musk's openness to cryptocurrencies is no secret, as evidenced by Tesla's significant holding of 10,725 btc. During a recent slot on X with Cathie Wood, Musk expressed his perspective that btc serves as an efficient mechanism for establishing a predetermined scarcity, similar to that of gold.
He fixed“It's very good for designed scarcity, kind of like gold or something.” Furthermore, he proposed that a more appropriate name for btc could be “BitGold”, thus drawing a parallel with the precious metal.
At the time of publication, btc was trading at $41,382.
Featured image of Zipmex, chart from TradingView.com
