
The Bitcoin Blockchain Visualized in 3D - abreckle
https://symphony.iohk.io/
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lpellis
This looks like something from Tron, trippy. The height of the block is the
amount of BTC, there are some huge (thousands of BTC) transactions happening.
On a semi related note, I built a 3D visualization (globe) to see where these
blocks are geographically mined.
[https://coinminingstats.com/globe](https://coinminingstats.com/globe)

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skohan
Very snappy site, nice work!

What front-end technologies did you use to build it?

I guess you're synching data to local storage and then querying it to get
those quick page loads?

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lpellis
Its a vue.js site that I host statically on Netlify, with django backend on
heroku that pulls all the data. The trick to get things to load quickly is
caching the data on [https://www.keycdn.com/](https://www.keycdn.com/) (with
the right headers you can set it up that the CDN queries the slow pages in the
background and serves the cached ones meanwhile to keep things near real-
time). I might do a writeup about that it took me a while to figure out.

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skohan
I would happily read such a write-up.

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kbumsik
"It's a UNIX system! I know this."

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URVS4H7vrdU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URVS4H7vrdU)

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novalis78
Saw this live in Miami at IOHK’s conference. They had a VR version setup for
the public. A beautiful interactive tech art rendering that visualizes the
“living creature” an active blockchain resembles.

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flixic
Great illustration of disparity between transaction values. Massive majority
of transactions are below 0.1 BTC. And then almost every block includes a
transaction of a few thousand BTC. I'd love to see something like this for
Visa network.

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travbrack
Reminds me of a dramatized GUI from CSI or a hacking sequence in a movie.

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skohan
Enhance!

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cookingrobot
There are a lot of big bars in there, like 4000Btc transactions. Does anyone
have a sense of whether those usually represent private buying/selling of
coins, or are they exchanges like Coinbase cashing in/out, lightning network,
etc? What's the story of these massive trades?

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swamy_g
The music sounds like the intro music from Tarkovsky's Stalker.

Edit: Link for those interested:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kgocncu6MBw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kgocncu6MBw)

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electrotype
Now let's see something similar but for a private coin such as Monero! :-P

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bsanalyst
It's impossible :P

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akuji1993
It tells me there are only 30.000 transactions? In the last block? Because
that number seems very small compared to the hype that surrounds Bitcoin if
that is "All Transactions of all time"

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ignaloidas
This doesn't represent Lightning network, which is used for smaller, quicker
transactions later synced onto the main Bitcoin chain by transferring only the
differences between the nodes to save on transaction fees.

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umanwizard
It's more honest to say "intended to be used for". The LN has been promised as
the solution to Bitcoin's scaling woes for years, but somehow never seems to
catch on.

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grubles
The Lightning Network actually has seen parabolic growth since it started in
Q1 2018 -- with roughly 40,000 payment channels opened and ~1000 BTC total
capacity.

[https://p2sh.info/dashboard/db/lightning-
network?orgId=1&fro...](https://p2sh.info/dashboard/db/lightning-
network?orgId=1&from=now-2y&to=now)

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eagletusk
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isometric_projection](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isometric_projection)

More isometric than 3D ...

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H8crilA
Yeah, yeah, Bitcoin valuation makes no sense. But it is a beautiful
realisation of the Cyberpunk dreams of freedom.

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keymone
Valuation of what does make sense though? Other than A=A, all valuations are
artificial.

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_ph_
Most valuations make sense as they are tied to the intrinsic value of things.
A potatoe will feed you for a while. The value can vary - a potatoe farmer
won't be hungry, so the value is to learn a living, a hungry person will value
a potatoe very high. The price at each step in the chain between the farmer
and the hungry person is determined by a lot of factors - distance and the
scarcity vs. need at each point. Same as real estate - the market value will
vary, but is cornered by the fact that each piece of land only exists once.

With Bitcoins the value is only set by an artificial demand. There is nothing
left over, if demand stops. You can't eat a Bitcoin. There is no limitation on
creating new cryptocurrencies. It is like the million dollar homepage. It was
once valued with a million dollars but I doubt, anyone would pay any
significant amount for those pixels now. Why? Well, yes, there is only one
million dollar homepage, but if there was any demand, you could create a
similar page for a few dollars of effort.

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ignaloidas
You can't eat a dollar too. Intrinsic value of a dollar is smaller than a
piece of paper, as it's not even that good for taking notes. It's valuation is
the same: based on artificial demand.

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_ph_
The point of the dollar is, that it is backed by the United States of America.
By the government the Federal Reserver Bank as the front line of setting and
defending the value of the dollar. And by the whole US industry, which is
trading their goods in dollars. That is the reason why modern currencies are
generally valued vs. the gross domestic product of countries.

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ignaloidas
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that Federal Reserve hasn't been really backing the
dollar. The gold is there, sure, but it isn't connected in any way with the
value of dollar. The Federal Reserve surely doesn't have enough goods to back
all of the dollars in circulation. The fact that US industry is trading by
dollars doesn't change the matter. There are quite a few businesses that trade
by bitcoin.

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_ph_
The dollar has not been backed by gold for a long time. It is backed by the
Federal Reserve bank by the political power of the US and of course by the GDP
of the US. Like with gold prices, there is quite some flexibility in the value
of a currency, but that flexibility is contained in certain intervals because
of the influence and the acting of the Federal Reserve bank. As long as the US
doesn't default, the dollar has a value.

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ignaloidas
It is not backed. I cannot exchange dollars into political US power or GDP of
US.

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shireboy
I get your point and generally agree fiat is not backed by much more tangible
than BTC’s math. To be fair, plenty of people trade US dollars for US
political power. Lobbying, 500k speaking fees, PACs, Charity “Foundations”.
You and I can’t trade in those markets because we don’t have enough dollars
(or have too many scruples)

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jtms
Well this is just awesome! Glad to see IOHK is putting some of that Cardano
loot to use in fun ways :)

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6nf
I enjoyed this a lot, thank you :)

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loblollyboy
Wow, cool. I'm not going to try and get it but I appreciate the aesthetics

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piracy1
OP, did you make this?

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momentmaker
mycelium network ;)

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ir77
All his effort and the site is completely unusable on mobile Safari and
barely/confusingly usable on mobile Firefox - I gave up about 20 seconds into
it.

what’s the point of all the nerdiness if it’s unusable.

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ThomPete
What's the point of seeing it on mobile?

It's way too rich to be experienced on such a small screen.

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ir77
because my "mobile" is my primary computer?

