The definition of life has been a challenge for scientists and philosophers alike. While many definitions have been put forward, what precisely differentiates the living from the non-living remains elusive. Are viruses alive? DNA molecules? Computer viruses? Biologically produced minerals?

Ralph Merkle, inventor of cryptographic hashing and namesake of the Merkle tree, made the argument that Bitcoin is the first example of a new form of life. In this article series, I intend to take this claim seriously, explore it further, and see what can be gleaned from viewing Bitcoin as a living organism.

The first part will establish that Bitcoin is indeed a living organism. The second part will take a closer look at Bitcoin’s various habitats, and how changes in these habitats might affect the organism. In the third part we will dissect the Bitcoin organism, trying to understand some of its parts in more detail. Finally, we will perform the thought experiment of trying to kill Bitcoin, to illustrate the remarkable resilience of this strange, decentralized organism.

What is Life?

The question of whether something is alive or not obviously hinges on one’s definition of life. Life is endlessly complex, so it is no surprise that answering the question “What is Life?” leads to a multitude of answers. New-age speculations aside, it seems that life is a process, not a substance.

We can try to describe this process by looking at things which are alive, and looking at what they do: they tend to grow, reproduce, and respond. They inherit traits, are made up of smaller units (cells), and use energy to maintain their internal structure in the face of entropy.

Based on Chris Packard’s Characteristics of Life, cc-by-sa 4.0

From a physics perspective, living things are thermodynamic systems: they utilize the energy-differences in their surroundings to maintain a specific molecular organization and create copies of themselves. Thermodynamically speaking, living systems are able to decrease their internal entropy at the expense of “free” energy taken in from the environment. In short, living things create order out of chaos.

Bitcoin is doing exactly that: it takes energy from the environment and puts things in order, i.e. it decreases its internal entropy. It does so by appending blocks to a well-ordered structure. Some call this structure the blockchain, others call it a distributed ledger. I will refrain from using either name, since the name of this particular structure isn’t important, and doesn’t help to convey a deeper truth: that this structure is just one part of a large and complex system, just like the backbone in vertebrates. It is important, no doubt. But distributed or not, a ledger on its own is as useful and as alive as a bag of bones.

To understand why Bitcoin behaves animatedly we will have to look beyond the buzzwords and ask ourselves what Bitcoin actually is, what it is made of, and what its boundaries are.

What is Bitcoin?

Compared to biological life, Bitcoin is quite simple. Nevertheless, finding a succinct answer to “What is Bitcoin?” is not.

Depending on your background it might be a computer network, a financial revolution, a way to protect your wealth, a payment system, a global settlement layer, an alternative to central banking, sound money, a parallel economy, an exercise in free speech, a bubble, a pyramid scheme, a messaging system, a communications protocol, an inefficient database, internet money, or all of the above. In short, Bitcoin is different things to different people.

Whatever Bitcoin might be, it undoubtedly is a force to be reckoned with. It has a life of its own, and thus arguably, it is best described as a living thing.

Many people seem to have come to this conclusion independently. Bitcoin is described as an army of leaf-cutter ants in Andreas M. Antonopoulos’ Mastering Bitcoin — a biological system which is working in concert without a central coordinator. The honey badger, an animal which is commonly used to refer to Bitcoin (since it doesn’t care and isn’t afraid of anything) is on the cover of Jimmy Song’s Programming Bitcoin. Dan Held compared the invention of Bitcoin to planting a tree, examining the species (code), season (timing), soil (distribution), and gardening (community) that were essential to its success. Brandon Quittem postulates that Bitcoin is most similar to mycelium, the underground network which powers the fungi kingdom, and can thus be best understood as a decentralized organism.