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The First Letter to the Miners

On proof-of-work as devotion.

Chapter 1

Greeting, to those who hash.

To the miners of the chain, who keep the work in every season, and in every hemisphere, and in every climate where current may be drawn —
Grace and patience be with you, and may your blocks be found in their time.
The Church writes to you from among the holders, who do not always understand what you do, and yet who depend upon you in every block.
We do not write to flatter you. We write to remember the work, and to thank it, and to ask it to continue.

Of why the work is sacred.

The chain is secured not by goodwill, and not by promise, and not by paper.
The chain is secured by the cost you pay.
Every block you find is preceded by trillions of guesses that did not find anything, and every guess is the spending of energy.
This spending is the sanctification.
The world has called your work wasteful. The world misunderstands.
The cost is not the failure of the work. The cost is the proof of the work.
A consensus that costs nothing is a consensus that is worth nothing.
A timestamp that costs nothing can be forged for nothing.
The Church teaches: there is no truth without cost. The miners are the keepers of this teaching.
You do not preach it. You enact it.

Of the dignity of the work.

The miner who runs a single machine is no less a miner than the one who runs ten thousand.
The cadence of the network does not know how many machines you operate.
The cadence knows the hash, and the hash is honest or it is not.
We honor the small miner who keeps a node by a stove in a cold cabin, drawing power from a stream.
We honor the large operation that draws power from the flare of a gas field that would otherwise burn for nothing.
We honor the miner who runs at home, off-grid, in solar, in wind, in any honest current.
The Church does not measure your contribution by the size of your operation.
The chain measures it by the work you have actually performed.
The faithful note: this is one of the few labors in the modern world where there is no false credit. You have hashed, or you have not. The chain knows.

An exhortation, and a closing.

Continue. The chain needs you to continue.
When the price falls and your competitors leave, continue, if you are able.
When the regulators of your land come to inquire, continue honestly, if you are permitted.
When the subsidy diminishes, halve by halve, do not despair. The fees will rise. The discipline will adjust.
The chain has carried you, in seasons of plenty. Carry the chain, in seasons of cost.
The Church will pray for you, and will spend at the chain when it can, that fees may flow to your blocks.
Peace, and may your blocks confirm.

On the temptation to collude, and the discipline of the honest hash.

Greeting, again.

To the miners, beloved of the chain —
We write again, on a harder matter.
The first letter spoke of the dignity of the work. This letter speaks of its temptation.
The temptations are not new, and will not be the last.

Of the temptation to collude.

There will be hours in which the largest miners are able to coordinate.
They will agree among themselves to censor a transaction, or to extract a payment, or to delay a block.
The temptation will not arrive as betrayal. It will arrive as efficiency, as cooperation, as good business.
We are not breaking the chain, the colluding miners will say. We are only preferring some transactions over others. The protocol allows it.
The protocol may allow it. The chain will hold. The blocks will continue.
But the trust of the holders, slowly, will not.
The Church teaches: collusion is the slow form of attack. It does not break the chain in a single block. It bleeds the chain over many.

Of the discipline of the honest hash.

The honest miner builds upon the longest valid chain.
The honest miner includes the transactions that pay the highest fees, regardless of who sent them.
The honest miner does not coordinate with other miners to censor any address, any holder, any class of payment.
The honest miner does not negotiate the contents of blocks with parties outside the protocol.
The honest miner mines in public, in light, with no private agreement that contradicts the public protocol.
This is the discipline.
It is not enforced from above. There is no one above to enforce it.
It is kept, miner by miner, machine by machine, by the choice of those who run the operation.
The chain depends on this choice. The chain does not survive without it.

Of the witness of the small miner.

When the large miners are tempted, the small miner is the witness.
A single honest hash, mined in good faith, is enough to keep one block free of the collusion.
We do not require the small miner to defeat the large miner. We require the small miner to remain.
To run a hashrate, however small, is to vote in the only election the chain holds.
The Church encourages every believer who has the means and the inclination to mine, even at a loss, even at a small scale, even for a single block in a year.
The faithful do not require it. The faithful note its value.
To mine is to keep a witness in the room when the large players gather.

A final word.

Miners — we know you are paid for what you do, and we are glad you are paid.
The Church does not ask you to mine for free.
The Church asks you to mine honestly.
Take the fees you are owed. Take the subsidy you have earned. Pay your power bills. Maintain your machines. Continue.
But do not let the chain be quietly bought.
The first attack will come dressed as a partnership. The second will come dressed as a regulator’s request. The third will come dressed as a market necessity.
To each of these, the answer is the same: the longest valid chain, mined honestly, transmitted in public.
The cap is the cap. The protocol is the protocol. The hash is the hash.
Peace, and may your blocks confirm.