Satoshi and the Cosmic Code: A Blockchain Universe?

I am interested in fundamental physics and I write about blockchain technology, so I find the idea of a “blockchain universe” intriguing. Turns out the idea has very interesting aspects and implications.

I first encountered the idea that the universe could use something like a blockchain to compute itself in a 2015 article by Justin Drake titled “Ethereum puts time into computing — A compelling metaphor.” The original article has disappeared from the web, but a copy is archived. With Justin’s permission (I hope), I am pasting the full text here:

Time appears to have direction. The past lies behind, fixed and immutable. The future lies ahead, awaiting to be shaped. Sounds familiar? This sense of time characterises Ethereum (and Bitcoin!).

Behaviourally, Ethereum is a computing engine with three key properties:

Immutable history: the past is fixed

Ubiquitous state: the present is a shared common

Guaranteed execution: the future is inexorable

In this light, Ethereum is simply a computational universe with true time dimensionality.

Let’s flesh out the metaphor:

the Genesis block ← → the Big Bang

blocks ← → space

mining ← → time progression

the blockchain ← → spacetime

the highest block state ← → the present

contracts ← → physical bodies

transactions ← → physical interactions

ether ← → energy

the state transition function ← → the laws of physics

block confirmation time ← → Planck time

block propagation speed ← → the speed of light

I believe this insight captures and crystalises the essence of the new era of computing pioneered by Satoshi Nakamoto. I hope it serves as a useful pedagogical tool.

Justin says that he is still thinking about the idea a bit, but hasn’t written more.

I would change a couple of things in Justin’s sketch of a theory (more below), but the core idea is clear. There could be close parallels between how blockchain-based distributed systems process transactions, and how the universe processes physical interactions. It would be cool to build a blockchain-like toy model for Quantum Field Theory (QFT), I guess it would be simpler than strings.

“Ether” — equivalent to energy in Justin’s list above — is the native currency of the “Bitcoin 2.0” platform Ethereum, which adds “Turing Complete” programs to handle complex chains of conditional transactions (“smart contracts”) to basic “Bitcoin 1.0” systems, but Justin’s metaphor is understandable in terms of the more familiar Bitcoin, to which sophisticated smart contracts can be added.

Quantum Field Theory (QFT) — the current framework for much of fundamental physics — provides a unified treatment of particles and fields where particles can be seen as excited states of underlying fields, and fields can be represented as particles. Physical interactions can be visually represented by Feynman diagrams with incoming and outgoing “real” particles joined by short-lived intermediate “virtual” particles.

QFT is complicated because, for a given configuration of incoming and outgoing particles, one has to take into account all Feynman diagrams, from simple ones to hugely complex ones with nested virtual particle loops. Empty space itself becomes a “quantum vacuum” populated by virtual particles that keep popping in and out of existence, with real physical effects.

All that follows from elementary physical interactions at the vertices of Feynman diagrams, where particles are emitted and absorbed, appear and disappear, split and merge. Complex physical processes can be “assembled like Tinkertoys” from elementary interactions.

Similarly, complex transactions in the Bitcoin network can be assembled like Tinkertoys from elementary transactions (see for example Andreas M. Antonopoulos’ “Mastering Bitcoin” for detailed explanations).

In the seminal 2008 paper titled “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System,” Satoshi Nakamoto showed how a decentralized, distributed network of end-user computers, each running a piece of software built upon the public-key cryptography algorithms and communication protocols described in the paper, can keep track of all digital currency transactions between the users of the network in a shared public ledger called the blockchain, while avoiding double-spending.

The double-spending problem — how to prevent users from spending a digital token twice? — was an apparently insurmountable roadblock for previous attempts at P2P digital cash. The key achievement of Satoshi has been solving the double-spending problem in a distributed network, where all participating nodes contribute to maintaining a permanent, tamper-proof record — the blockchain — of all valid transactions that have ever taken place. In general terms, blockchain technology permits building distributed networks where, even without a central repository, all nodes agree on what happened in the past and how to update the network.

It seems plausible that some generalized blockchain template could be the only way to do that. If so, it makes sense to think that perhaps the universe uses similar tricks.

In the Bitcoin network, all nodes have a local copy of the entire blockchain and all transactions are immediately sent to other nodes for confirmation. But in practice the Bitcoin system is augmented by faster off-chain channels, ranging from simple hosted wallets to lightning networks, where related transactions are temporarily processed off-chain and the aggregated output is eventually send to the blockchain for confirmation.

It’s interesting to consider parallels between off-chain transactions and virtual particles in QFT: the virtual particles inside Feynman diagrams are unreal but contribute to producing the final “confirmed” real particles.

Since all Bitcoin network nodes have a local copy of the entire blockchain, any Bitcoin address knows the transaction history and current balance of all other addresses. Similarly, entangled quantum particles are non-locally aware of each other even when they are too far to exchange signals limited by the speed of light.

In the Bitcoin network there is a clearly defined arrow of time: the past — all valid transactions that ever happened — is permanently stored in the blockchain, of which all nodes have a local copy. Similarly, according to speculative physical theories, everything that ever happens, including our thoughts and memories, is stored in permanent “Akashic records,” a cosmic memory field hidden in yet unknown aspects of reality.

This is, for me, the most interesting aspect of the blockchain universe concept. Perhaps future scientists will find ways to hack Satoshi’s cosmic blockchain code and develop magic-like “Akashic Engineering.”

I am not proposing these weird idle speculations as a “serious” scientific theory, but I think a blockchain metaphor for fundamental physics is worth considering and exploring.

Picture of Bitcoin mining rig and picture of Feynman diagram from Wikimedia Commons.