BUILDING BITCOIN TO LAST FOR CENTURIES

The Great Pyramid of Egypt held the record for tallest man-made structure for at least 3,800 years, and its 2.3 million blocks weigh 6 million tonnes. The massive granite blocks forming chambers at its core weigh up to 80 tonnes each and are situated over 40 meters above ground level. It is at the very least 4,500 years old, and even that barely conceivable age is based on surprisingly thin evidence: The realistic possibility exists that it is significantly older (do your own research, Bitcoiner — don’t trust, verify).

Whoever and whenever the builders were, the physical achievement of the pyramid is undeniable. Still, the people who designed and built it are long dead. The civilization in which those individuals lived their entire lives ended millennia ago. It was ancient even to Herodotus, the Greek historian, when he wrote about visiting it in 500 BC. Countless empires of man have risen and fallen on Earth during the silent reign of this colossal proof of work. Still, it stands.

The Great Pyramid is an artificial mountain and everything about its engineering design is oriented to resilience. The tapering shape from a wide base, large block size and solid construction throughout is a recipe to provide ultimate stability, allowing the great height to be achieved — and held as mankind’s tallest structure for so long. Other buildings have failed in tiny fractions of its time frame. Wind, sand and rain bounce harmlessly off its flanks. Even thousands of years of earthquakes have at worst only dislodged some outer casing stones, which themselves had already been pillaged for building materials in more modern times. The interior rooms and passageways — the key functional elements, the purpose for the whole structure — have been preserved intact.

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