User:Dusan Barok/Rig

Installation, 2011

Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer currency. Peer-to-peer means that no central authority issues new money or tracks transactions. These tasks are managed collectively by the network. The participants store the money (bitcoins) on their computers and run the software to make transactions to others. To generate money the users are optionally running another piece of software, Bitcoin mining client on their machines, called the "mining rigs". The processing power of the rig mining network thus replaces the central authority issuing money.

Installation addresses the idea of the economic utility of the Bitcoin network. It presents an engine of this networked economy, a mining rig, as a readymade: the money making machine. With a twist. The rig mines but never mines anything. The machine is supposed to make money. But it doesn't. Something went wrong.

Documentation

Rig was exhibited at No Such Thing as Repetition at Roodkapje Rotterdam on 2-15 July 2011, curated by Inke Arns.

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Sidenote

From the dictionary:

'Rig' is a computer. the word is commonly used by DIY computer geeks or hardcore computer gamers.

And in placing the rig as a 'readymade' into a gallery, i'm building upon this interpretation:

"The readymades are appropriated machine-made objects or parts of machines, the foundational aspect of which is their
dysfunctionality (their removal from the world of efficiency and function to that of aesthetics)."

from Amelia Jones, Irrational Modernism. Neurasthenic History of New York Dada

Research

Mining bitcoins is the process of generating blocks for the block chain, which is a way of processing and verifying transactions. Adding a block to the block chain is difficult, requiring time and processing power to accomplish. So what incentive does anyone have to spend the effort to produce a block, if it takes up all these resources? The answer is that the person who manages to produce a block gets a reward. This reward is two-fold. First, the block producer gets a bounty of some number of bitcoins, which is agreed-upon by the network. (Currently this bounty is 50 bitcoins; this value will halve every 210,000 blocks.) Second, any transaction fees that may be present in the transactions included in the block, get claimed by the block producer. This gives rise to the activity known as "bitcoin mining" - using processing power to try to produce a valid block, and as a result 'mine' some bitcoins. [1]

Mining rigs of Bitcoin community: [2]

Mining software: [3]

Bitcoin mining calculator: [4]

Pooled mining is an approach where multiple generating clients contribute to the generation of a block, and then split the block reward according the contributed processing power. Pooled mining effectively reduces the granularity of the block generation reward, spreading it out more smoothly over time. [5]

Comparison of mining pools: [6], [7]

Further research

Bitcoin: censorship-resistant currency and domain name system to the people