Before Modern currency and the industrial revolution, gold and silver were the primary currencies all around the world.
While the processes involved in Bitcoin mining and gold mining have virtually nothing in common, they do have a few similarities.
During the earths formations, gold, silver and other rare earth metals were distributed all throughout the earth. Today most of it is still locked up deep in the rock formations. Over time earth went through many volcanic, geothermal, seismic and erosional events which redistributed some of it.
During the 1800's and early 1900's most of the gold rich deposits were located and mined out. The old time miners either used pick and dynamite to get to the gold rich veins deep in the rock, or they would scour the rivers and streems in search of placer deposits and gold nuggets.
They used Giant machines called bucket dredges to suck every possible speck of gold from the rivers and streams bottom, They then often used mercury to turn the gold dust into a gold bead. The hard rock miners used train loads of dynamite and built massive underground mines, then often used heavy chemicals to separate the gold ore from the rest of the rock.
All of those methods were largely unhealthy to the environment and to this day we still see the long term impacts of the carelessness of the 49r's. The bad impact made by them set a bad stage for all miners after.
I truly LOVE the outdoors and one of my favorite pass times is recreational gold prospecting. It is a very tranquil and peaceful way to interact with nature. Its not riches I'm chasing, it is the unique feeling of finding something valuable that has NEVER been found by another human being in the history of earth. those tiny fragments of shiny yellow metal always make me think of a Satoshi, which is the smallest possible fragment of a bitcoin.
While digging for gold I find many things. Sometimes I will find sapphires and ruby's, lead fishing weights and bird shot. other times I find small fossils, arrow heads from the native americans. one time I even found a fossilized shark tooth and I often find trash.
On occasion I will find some left over carnage from the 49r's. Every now and then a small ball of mercury with gold dust fragments in it will show up in my pan. This stuff is crazy toxic and it's still in our rivers and streams which feed our city's water supply's and harbor aquatic life.
New age miners clean much of the toxins out of the gravels with our new sluice-box's and dredge's, and don't use chemicals to trap the gold. Think of it as a transaction fee, The miner filters through the gravels and removing all heavy metals which are toxic, in return for his service he gets to keep the valuable minerals that came in with the trash.
Though gold prospecting is as about as enjoyable as any outside activity could be, remember one thing. There is not much money in it unless you go large scale.
As i stand up to my knees in raging and ice cold stream water, I dig under a large rock in search of my next potential pocket of gold. My legs numb from the cold water, head dripping sweat from the sun and hard work shoveling wet gravels into a #8 classified 5 gallon bucket. 5 hours pass and I never think to take a break and maybe only a couple of dollars worth of gold made it into my vial. In this moment i cant help but compare it to Mining Bitcoin. A machine works tirelessly to unlock tiny fragments of a mysterious yet valuable currency from the blockchain.
You could say, Earth is my blockchain. Gold is my Crypto. And I am the miner.
I Hope you enjoyed this short post. Please comment below and let me know what you think.
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