Some things in our world have been left untouched by human intervention. Not disturbed, manipulated, or tainted in any way. There are few things left on our planet that remain this way. In fact, only 5% of the Earth’s surface has yet to be touched by the human hand.

“95% of the Earth's land surface has some indication of human modification.”

That being said, there is an area of the Earth that has widely been left undiscovered. Safe from human curiosities by virtue of its location and the challenges that accompany expeditions to discover its mysteries.

The great depths of the ocean.

Although the 5 oceans of our planet cover over 70% of its surface, over 80% of it lies undiscovered. An enormous gap in the history of our planet lies bare at the ocean floor, hiding secrets of movements long ago.

There are a couple of reasons why the exploration of the deepest parts of the ocean is not a simple task.

Dr. Gene Carl Feldman, an oceanographer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, explains that the ocean, at great depths, has three main attributes. Zero visibility, extremely cold temperatures, and crushing amounts of pressure.

If you were to dive to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, nearly 7 miles deep, the pressure you would feel would be equivalent to the weight of 50 jumbo jets pressing on your body.

In addition to the unbearable conditions, exploring the ocean floor is incredibly cost prohibitive for even short ventures.

For these reasons, we have primarily left the ocean depths a mystery allowing it to thrive, uninterrupted as it has for millions of years.

In 2009, the pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto initiated the Bitcoin network and began using his own computer to “mine” the first Bitcoin. Although human-generated, Bitcoin has now run for 14 years, uninterrupted, without human intervention.

As the depths of the ocean are protected by the intense pressure expelled on any explorer who dares to take on the deep, Bitcoin exerts a prohibitive cost wall of pure digital energy, that prevents humans from changing its state.

Bitcoin’s wall of digital energy, securing its valuable contents, is truly a torrent of pressure that is insurmountable.

When measuring the computing power of the Bitcoin Network, it is described in terms of “hash power.”

At the time of this writing the hash rate of the Bitcoin Network is currently 311,647,588,661,428,000,000 Hashes per second or H/s.

Every second, 311 Quintillion mathematical guesses are made, trying to win the proverbial lottery to mine the next block.

This incomprehensible number represents a digital wall of energy that is utterly impenetrable. Not only is this amount of computing power from specialized ASIC machines the most powerful computing network on earth, but it also lacks one central point of failure. The Bitcoin Network is entirely decentralized across the globe with contributions from 130 countries around the world.

As the Bitcoin Network continues to grow and more users come on board, it just becomes more secure, incentivizing even more participants to join.

“As the network grows, everyone benefits.”

As the network grows, this cascade of computing power continues to grow to unimaginable levels, providing the most secure network to store the most incorruptible, fixed supply, digital hard asset ever created, which is available to anyone in the world.

Bitcoin is the deepest depths of the ocean. A wall of insurmountable pressure, unavailable to human coercion, greed, and manipulation. It doesn’t need us to survive and exist. In fact, it thrives and works because it is out of our human control.

Nature has a beautiful way of just doing what works not based on selfish impulses, but to achieve one singular goal. Survive. I surmise that Bitcoin will survive long after I am gone as well.

As Greg Foss says, do it for the kids. Our children and our children’s children. 100’s of years from now, I can only hope that Bitcoin continues to work behind the scenes, protected from human nature by an uncompromising wall of pressure.