A Better Store of Value

Light-emitting displays are terrible stores of value. By design, they're required to continuously consume electricity in order to serve up visuals, static or not. Now think about the likes of E-paper and the way it stores value for displaying information. Using a combination of material bistability and reflective surfaces, E-paper uses up 36x lesser power compared to LCD-displays.

From an engineering perspective, the energy efficiency of E-paper renders it a better store-of-value. The technology might not be able to handle your favourite family photo in full-colour HD, but you can at least look at them in grey-scale and remember the good times.

And here's the thing about E-paper. They really do look like paper with prints that last forever since the technology will only consume energy when the surface requires displaying a different set of values. Just like those table electronic calculators, add in a miniature solar-powered unit and the deal is done. Minimal maintenance. Long life. After all, a static store shouldn't consume all too much energy to maintain a stable state.

"On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for every store-of-value drops to zero."
_{by Tyler Nakamoto}

So in our case, the only way to ensure any digital store-of-value maintains integrity over the long-term is:-

• Low power consumption.
• Couple with renewable energy.

Taking the pessimistic realism of Tyler Nakamoto's quote at face value, there's just no way that power-hungry systems can last that long. Even renewable energy wouldn't be able to patch up fundamentally energetic systems. As problem-solving creatures, we should aim for constant improvements to displace the obsolete. Go for minimal bloat with smart and deliberate design. These qualities can produce longer-lasting protocols and confident lifetime investors. If we're to imagine societies that run on many layers of community protocols all around the world, practising the philosophy of E-paperism on cryptocurrencies seem to make the most sense, at least to me.

That said, I believe a great degree of decentralisation can be achieved through power minimalism as it also lowers the barrier for mainstream participation. It is with this foundation that we get to build out the the basic pillars of public networks that doesn't consume all too much energy and more descriptively, middleman fees. Scalability has many dimensions and that also includes a system's energy footprint. Stuff like Steem, EOS, IOTA, and Raiblocks come to mind.