So the paper I quote below was released by the Cryptoeconmics systems journal, which was spun out of the MIT digital Currency Initiative and Published by the MIT Press
There are two authors Maxwell Murialdo who worked at the Livermore National Labs, PhD at Caltech, internship at Northrop Grumman. Obvious red flags.
Jon Belof is the other author and works at Livermore as well, specifically on material science for weapons.
“As Program Leader for Equation of State, Physics and Engineering Models (PEM) within the Advanced Simulation and Computing (ASC) program, I coordinate a multi-PI program that is focused on the research and development of advanced material models for use in weapon simulation. At LLNL, we are the world leaders in high performance computing applications for national security and the EOS program is no exception, with our simulation methods spanning from the quantum/atomistic/mesoscale/continuum regimes and with accelerated performance on the latest next-generation computer hardware.”
The paper is about creating a cryptostablecoin that is based by physical asset. Money backed by energy has been a recent focus of your @AMcD so I think you will find this significant. Energy as collateral for currency. @Jason_Bosch your research into the nature of money may bring up alot of thoughts here too.
From the Abstract:
In opposition to this conventional belief, we propose a new class of stablecoins that can be both fully decentralized and fully collateralized by a physical asset with intrinsic utility (electricity). We detail how statistical mechanics and information theory (via Maxwell’s demon) can be used to transfer free energy in the form of electricity between anonymous users of a decentralized network without interfacing with utility corporations, power plants, or even electrical grid networks. In turn we reveal how electricity can be used to collateralize a stablecoin such that each token can be exchanged for one kilowatt-hour (KWh) of electricity and vice versa, without any centralized authorities.
They claim that free energy can be transferred purely by the transmission of information.
The theory behind E-Stablecoin is built on the fact that free energy can be transferred by the transmission of information alone. It can seem daunting to try to bridge a connection between the pristine beauty, purity, and security of the ethereal digital world and the dirty, physical reality that humans must inhabit to physically survive.
Wow, dwell on that last part…
The specifics are difficult to understand for myself, but broadly the idea is that ‘work’ can be extracted from waste heat without violating the second law of thermodynamics. the extension of Maxwell demon to Szilards engine:
In Szilard’s construction there is only a single gas molecule in a box. The demon can close a shutter through the center of the box, thereby trapping the molecule in a random half of the box. (Note that the demon can be replaced by a reversible computer.) If the demon knows which half of the box the gas molecule is trapped in, then it can then push a piston into the empty half of the box (unopposed). Upon reopening the shutter, the gas molecule will push on the piston to perform up to kBTln2 units of useful work (Equation 1). In a thermally insulated system, the particle would cool down as it performs work on the piston. However, if the Szilard engine is in thermal contact with a larger single-temperature heat bath (e.g., the earth at room temperature), then it can extract heat from the bath so that the entire process is isothermal (and conducted at the temperature of the heat bath).
Okay so the earth is used to maintain temperature (seems parasitic) of the one molecule (bit) that exerts a certain amount of force in that design. They go one to explain how the ‘waste data’ generated by the knowledge of which side of the box the single molecule (bit) ended up on, maintains the laws of thermodynamics.
This redesign is conceptually similar to Maxwell’s demon. However, in the Szilard engine two addition facts become apparent. First, we see that exactly one bit of information (knowledge of which half of the box the particle is in) can be used to extract up to kBTln2 units of heat from the system and convert it into work. This one bit of information is the recorded “waste data.” Second, the measurement of the bit of information need not be concurrent with the conversion of the thermal energy into work. Once the shutter is closed and the information stored (knowledge of which half of the box the molecule is in), there is no rush to proceed. Szilard could choose to come back at any later time to convert his known bit of information into work. Furthermore, the bit of “which side of the box” information need not be stored locally (as elaborated by Hossenfelder [undefined]).
Recently has it been shown that a Maxwell’s demon that extracts thermal energy from a single temperature bath and converts that thermal energy into work can be physically realized [undefined]. Moreover, it is now understood that the “fuel” for such a Maxwell’s demon comprises the empty (preinitialized to a standard internal state) data storage space wherein the “waste data” is to be recorded.
Its a kinda of merger between the idea of information entropy (Shannon information, a basis of information theory) and physical entropy, in order to turn heat into ‘useable work’ which will be electricity in their stablecoin system.
Erasing this waste data required work and is the counterbalance that makes th system not violate thermodynamics.
While Clausius entropy is decreasing (as heat is converted into work), Shannon entropy is increasing (by adding entropy to the memory bank). The result is that the overall combined entropy (Clausius entropy and Shannon entropy) never decreases at any point in the process, thus preserving a generalized second law of thermodynamics.
Therefore, a Maxwell’s demon can continue to convert thermal energy into work until it runs out of digital memory space in which to record the “waste data” [undefined]. As soon as the demon runs out of memory space (i.e., fuel), it must either erase previously recorded information to free up new space or halt its process. Bennett clarified that the only thermodynamic entropy-generating step (necessarily irreversible step) in the operation of a Maxwell’s demon occurs when the stored “waste data” is erased from the memory bank [undefined].
The stablecoin system depends on outsourcing the erasure of data to another person who expends work to erase the data someone had to accumulate as they transmute heat into work. Below is step three in how Alice transfers her waste data to Bob who expends free energy to erase the data. In turn Alice gained work from thermal energy and Bob expended work. this creates the transfer of free energy between Bob and Alice through ONLY THE EXCHANGE OF INFORMATION…
Alice can continue to extract thermal energy and convert it into work (or electricity) until her local data storage hard drive is full of “waste data”. At this point, Alice must clear her data storage hard drive in order to be able to extract additional thermal energy. However, if Alice were to erase her “waste data” locally, she would have to expend all of the free energy that she previously extracted (by Landauer’s principle), assuming that all processes are conducted at a single temperature (room temperature). Instead, Alice can outsource her data erasure process to Bob (who is at a physically distant location from Alice). This is done by reversibly transferring the “waste data” on Alice’s hard drive to available storage space on Bob’s hard drive (see Section 5.4 for more details). The result is that Alice’s data storage space is reset to its initial (empty) condition while Bob’s previously empty data storage space is now filled with Alice’s “waste data.” This outsourcing process can in theory be done without expending any free energy. Here counterfactual communication channels can be established between Alice and Bob in order to transmit information between remote locations without transferring any matter/energy (or physical particles) through the intervening space.
Below is the steps in creating a stablecoin
in their process.
1. Alice (now representative of any user of the E-Stablecoin network) connects a Szilard engine to a large thermal mass at a single temperature. Alice extracts thermal energy and converts it into one KWh of electricity (along with “waste data” which she stores locally via reversible computing). Alice uses the extracted electricity locally to perform daily tasks.
2. For the price of one E-Stablecoin token plus a fee, Alice outsources her “waste data” erasure process to a decentralized data storage cloud (D). In this exchange a smart contract destroys the E-Stablecoin token(s) that Alice paid for this service. The decentralized data storage cloud is housed across a network of privately owned (decentralized and anonymous) reversible computers (see Section 5.1 for more details). The private owners of these reversible computers are incentivized to share their storage space with the E-Stablecoin network in exchange for fees. The specific fee due to each contributor of data storage space is computed and dispersed automatically by a smart contract (see Section 5.1).
3. Bob (now representative of any user of the E-Stablecoin network contributing storage space to D) can expend his own electricity (locally) to erase the “waste data” outsourced to his privately owned hard drive. For this service Bob is awarded one E-Stablecoin token plus a fee. This transaction is automatically mediated by a smart contract. The smart contract creates new E-Stablecoin token(s) to pay to Bob for his services rendered.
Based on what we know on bionanotech, piezoelectric and related fields, It seems highly plausible that people will the ‘single thermal mass’ that the Szilard engine needs would be bodies.
Broadly this creates mechanism where people can be paid in a future global reserve currency (remember the US dollar is in ways backed by energy, due to its requirement for many international purchases of energy) just by maintaining their body.
Considering the authors affiliations and work at the Lawrence Livermore National Labs (DoE runs it, extension of Manhattan project, domination of life), the paper holds more weight.
The idea of a energy backed currency has been around for a long time and ties into what Allison has been looking into around chemistry based planned economies.
To be clear this is purely a theoretical paper. However the people at MIT are imaginative and this shows where their minds are at as they look at creating a ‘CBDC’.
I put this in the mixed bag category because it relates to the internet of bio nano things, e government, CBDC, blockchain, wellness (mediations, maintaining homeostasis, possibly using people ability to connect with the creator as fuel for harvesting energy and creating money ).
I hope some of that made sense… difficult subject, but I have an inkling that this is the longer term plan for a ‘CBDC’, and a link into how the nano tech could be utilized.