Hash Wars
Hash Wars was inspired by the invisible and fierce global race between Bitcoin miners to mine the next block in the blockchain. The piece depicts cryptographic hashes rapidly streaming through space and time. The hashes are moving toward a newly minted Bitcoin block at the center. Some of the hash streams are broken or faded, representing generated hashes that failed to match the pattern required to mine the next block, while others intensify and pulse with electric energy as they race closer to the new block. The energy required for mining is represented by the jagged, electric lines that light up the virtual digital landscape where this takes place.
Bitcoin "mining" is the name given to the process of creating the next block in the Bitcoin blockchain. The way it works is that Bitcoin nodes aggregate new (unverified) transactions in search of a special hash value. Hashing is a cryptographic function that takes an arbitrary size input, in this case the aggregate unverified Bitcoin transactions, and outputs a single value. The hash algorithm Bitcoin uses is called SHA256, where the output size is 256 bits. If the output hash matches a certain pattern then the miner will have mined the next block in the blockchain. That block is then broadcast to all the other nodes where it can quickly be verified. One amazing property of hashes is that they are very hard to find but very easy and fast to verify. Once a block is discovered the race for the next block immediately begins. On average, it takes the Bitcoin network about 10 minutes to mine each block. Now because miners expend resources searching for these hashes, they need an incentive to do so. That's where the Block Reward comes in. When the miner is aggregating the unverified transactions, they include a transaction awarding themselves Bitcoin. The Block Reward was initially 50 BTC but decreases over time. The current Block Reward is 3.125 BTC or roughly $200k.
Hash Wars is limited to just 256 prints, as a nod to the SHA256 hashing algorithm that Bitcoin employs.
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