The needs for the future generations are likely to be similar to ours; they might have the focus on peace, security and environment. What is often depicted in fantasy movies is the jump to the future or past in order to change some significant events. The software company GitHub is going to join the hype. They plan to preserve open-source software under the arctic ice so that future generations could answer the question, ‘What is Bitcoin?’
GidHub has a new mission
GitHub is one of the largest web-based collaborative software development services. The service is free of charge for open source projects providing users will its opportunities, and there are also different paid tariff plants for individual projects. GitHub cooperates with the Software Heritage Foundation with their mission to collect, preserve and share all software in source code form. It also partnerships with the Arctic World Achieve.
That is a facility for data preservation in Svalbard, Norway. The facility is above 150 meters below ground. It is located inside an abandoned coalmine in a mountain on the island of Spitsbergen. The temperature there remains below freezing that enables to store offline data in digital film for 500 years or more. In addition, the Bodleian Library of the Oxford University supports the mission.
Hidden cryptocurrency codes
The team of the project will encode a snapshot of the Bitcoin codebase onto film reels to store it under the ice. The archieve will include the Bitcoin Core code. Bitcoin Core is a free software with an open code, which secures Bitcoin wallet. Bitcoin Core is programmed to decide which block chain contains valid transactions.
The Bitcoin Core code is considered a reference implementation of Bitcoin. In addition, the project aims to archieve the repositories of cryptocurrency projects with the source codes of a number of projects of other directions. Lightning Network, Ethereum and Dogecoin codes will be also included. A snapshot of the code will be stored in a steel container. They say it will keep the data safe for 1,000 years.
What is Bitcoin? They will know
It is extraordinary to imagine the situation of the far future. But still the achieve enables people of the future to find out’ what is Bitcoin’, ‘how did it evolve’, ‘how does Bitcoin work’ and much more information. One can’t predict if Bitcoin stops its existence in the nearest future or evolves to its enormous time-long development. In any case, it is a fascinating period in the history of financial digital world now.
The idea to preserve it for the further study is worth it. What’s more, archiving of the information is supported by non-profit organizations such as Internet Archive and Long Now Foundation. And a great number of historians, anthropologists and other scientists participate in the project.
Cryptocurrency archiving for safety
Jason Teutsch, the founder of Ethereum infrastructure project Truebit, commented, ‘The social, economic, regulatory and academic records depicting motivations and resources for code development may ultimately become more important than the code itself’. He explains that the code should be together with the raw material. Other participants state that they should think seriously about Sci-Hub archiving as well as it includes over 70 million scientific articles.
The whole team of the project are planning to finish the archiving process until the end of April. The idea to use such unapproachable places to store crucial materials is not new in the crypto environment. In Switzerland, there is Bitcoin storage in the form of a military bunker dug into a granite mountain. It’s managed by the operator of the Xapo company. Its precise location is secret, and the access is limited by security measures.