Web3: Bitcoin, Ethereum, and AI Network
Bitcoin Whitepaper: Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System
2023 marks the 15th anniversary of the birth of Bitcoin. We start by examining the Bitcoin whitepaper, “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System”, which heralded the beginning of Web3. Instead of ‘coin,’ as in the name, the term ‘Cash’ is used in the whitepaper, which is why it can be said that everything about Bitcoin is encapsulated in the title of the whitepaper. P2P, or Peer-to-Peer, signifies a system where individuals can electronically and directly exchange cash, and notably, the terms often discussed in public like currency, decentralization, or cryptocurrency do not specifically appear in the whitepaper. It advocates for a user experience that allows carrying and electronically converting cash anywhere through a distributed network. Bitcoin simultaneously posed and answered the question of whether it’s possible to replace the transmission and reception of cash, which was traditionally done through a central server, using P2P instead.
The ‘Double Spending’ Problem Bitcoin Aimed to Solve — The Internet Lacks ‘Time’
It’s important to address the problem Bitcoin aimed to solve — ‘Double Spending.’ Without a central server, that is, without a trusted third party, Bitcoin faced the monumental task of creating an electronic cash system without a central authority settling transactions. Let’s examine through the illustration below.
Imagine person A in Seoul and person B in San Francisco simultaneously buying a coffee at Starbucks. Until now, the standard for time on the internet was not real time, but rather the order in which the information reached the trusted party, Starbucks. The determination of who paid first, A or B, depended more on whose order reached the central server first rather than in the order of the actual times of the transactions. In essence, until now the internet lacked time and only had decisions to order data. Here it’s important to remember that the internet lacked the concept of time and there hadn’t been an attempt to solve this problem. The essence of the double spending issue Bitcoin aimed to resolve is essentially an attempt to record the order of transaction history.
Vitalik Buterin and Ethereum, Bringing Time to Programming
The project that emerged to execute programming in an internet environment where programming had never been executed before is Ethereum. The essence of a program is its ‘state’, and the execution of the program means the process of moving from state A to B. Before Ethereum, there was no execution of programs on the internet. As mentioned earlier, it was difficult to determine which state, A or B, was first, a key characteristic of the internet. Vitalik Buterin, inspired by how Bitcoin and the double spending problem determined the order of ‘transaction history, state,’ attempted to create a means to arrange these states. The existence of a means to arrange states implies that the order of programs can be communicated, and Ethereum is now organizing ‘states’ and determining their order on the internet. This is why the era before Bitcoin and Ethereum, Web2, can be defined as Stateless Internet, and Web3 as Stateful Internet.
Ethereum’s state engine is about ‘consensus of everyone’ — a concept where every computer performs the same operation simultaneously. Ethereum’s approach of a ‘World Computer’ is akin to the world’s computers agreeing in unison, which is of course slow in its execution, but proves safest due to all participants agreeing on the same thing.
Common Computer and AI Network
Even in the Web2 era (the time-lacking era of the internet), IT giants emerged rapidly, and with the advent of Web3 the internet is experiencing explosive growth, adding another dimension to the web. Commonly, the Web2 era is referred to as the information age, which implies a vast amount of data, but in reality all the information from the early days of the internet could fit onto a single CD (a mere 600MB).
A prime example of this explosive growth is Defi (Decentralized Finance). The Stateless Internet of Web2 only could only accommodate web pages and not specific data, so when a user made a monetary transfer, all the records could only be held within a specific financial institution’s server, rather than on the internet itself. Now, records can be recorded on the internet via blockchain, signaling Defi, the scale of which has grown to exceed the GDP of some countries. Essentially, Defi is like a server migration from Web2 to Web3.
Beyond finance and to AI, AI Network aims to enable high-end, large-scale programs to run on the internet. If Bitcoin solved the double spending problem and Ethereum solved the state engine issue, then AI Network is attempting to solve large-scale computational problems on the Internet. At AI network we try to migrate large models to the Internet in accordance with the trend of the times.
In Ethereum there is only one truth; the ‘state of the network.’ However, if everyone calculates and agrees, reaching consensus, it inevitably slows down. This may be suitable for finance, but it is impossible for everyone to repeat this type huge consensus with the astronomical, large-scale computations required for AI. AI Network allows for decentralized consensus and the multiverse, because the world of AI cannot exist as a singularity. It is a world of diversity, and instead of a ‘World Computer,’ AI Network advocates for a ‘Common Computer.’
AI Network is a decentralized AI development ecosystem based on blockchain technology. Within its ecosystem, resource providers can earn $AIN tokens for their GPUs, developers can gain access to GPUs for open source AI programs, and creators can transform their AI creations into AINFTs. The ultimate goal of AI Network is to bring AI to Web3, where everyone can easily develop and utilize artificial intelligence.
If you want to know more about us,
- Homepage: https://www.ainetwork.ai/
- AI Network DAO Discord: https://discord.com/invite/aindao/
- AI Network YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ainetwork_ai/
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- AI Network Twitter: https://twitter.com/ainetwork_ai
