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Mining

What does it really mean when you mine Bitcoin?

By Alec BlackwaterPublished 3 years ago 7 min read
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Mining
Photo by Tetiana SHYSHKINA on Unsplash

"Johnny! Where'd you go?"

The old man sighed, he was getting impatient with this child. He couldn't be more than 19 but gods. He didn't need to follow Johnathan Willows around like a lost puppy. Of course, Johnny knew that the lad was just trying to do his job and that he had only started working for the care company that looked after him. But... God, he was just insufferable!

"Oh, there you are!" The 19-year-old appeared in the kitchen doorway, seemingly out of breath. Johnny rolled his eyes and turned himself back around to continue making himself a hot mug of tea, wincing as he did so due to his sore back. The 19-year-old jumped forwards, "Oh, let me help you with that!"

"Back off!" Johnny growled at the lad in his broad South Wales accent. "I can make my own mug of f*cking tea!" Johnny turned and saw the look of fear in the child's eyes. He sighed. "I'm sorry kid. Just the old nerves jumping out at me." Johnny gestured to the sofa. "Look, go sit down, and I'll make you one as well."

"I... I. I don't think I'm allowed to do that, sir." The lad stammered. Looking backwards and forwards between Johnny and the Sofa. Johnny laughed gruffly and grabbed a mug from the draining board.

"Look lad, I don't care what your boss says, at the end of the day," He turned around to get the milk from the fridge, the fridge making a satisfying pop sound as the suction separated making Johnny smile further. "At the end of the day, you're working for me, in my house. And if I want you to have a cuppa. You will have a cuppa."

Johnny turned slowly and limped over to the coffee table. Setting the mugs down and sitting in his favourite armchair.

The lad smiled at him. He nodded as a way of saying thank you and settled back in his chair. He looked around the room. Taking in the pictures and items hanging off the wall. Johnathan realised the air was beginning to become stale.

"Hey, what's your name again?" Johnny asked. The kid jumped almost spilling his tea down his shirt. Johnathan raised his eyebrow.

"It's... umm, it's Daniel, sir." Daniel stammered, looking at Johnathan with large, innocent eyes.

Johnathan sighs. "Do you want to hear a story about a few of the people on the wall?"

"Yes! Please if that's okay sir?" Johnathan scoffed at the boy who was currently almost bouncing in his seat from excitement.

"It's not that exciting. But if you would like to hear it..."

Back when I was younger. About your age actually. I worked in the mines in the north of Wales. We mined a particular type of gold that was individual to Wales. Clogau Gold which was named after the first mine it was found in. Myself and a group of lads from all across Wales had been specially instructed to collect the gold we found and to put it on a separate train. Instead of it going off to the main factory, we sent it off to the royal jewellers. We were paid handsomely for this and overall, we just generally enjoyed our work. It was hard, the days were long, and the mines' darkness was blinding, but we were with friends.

After a while, one of my friends, a short lad called Gwynfor, became bored of mining the same stretch of mine time and time again. And so one shift, he led us deep into the mine, where no-one else was mining, and we began our hard work. It wasn't much of a change, and we struck nothing but rock for four days. But on the fifth day, that changed.

I was mining as usual when, suddenly, the texture of what I was mining felt different. It wasn't as hard as before, but softer and more glossy. I figured it was the Clogau, so I began to excavate the area around the vein. I held the light closer. But I realised very quickly it wasn't Clogau as I had thought. It wasn't any kind of gold I had ever seen before. I was like gold that was interlocked with silver. As though the silver had grown around the gold. I called out for my friends to take a look. They came over one by one and inspected the vein. They all confirmed what I had suspected.

"This isn't gold," said Owain "It looks too much like silver. Maybe it's Copper?"

"Not Copper," said Gethin, the oldest of us, he was in his late 40's. "Copper is more rigid. This feels like clay." Gethin reached his hand into the vein, and a piece of the metal came apart in his hand.

"It's very fragile" I remember saying. It came out of the cave wall quickly, we could use our hands to remove it, even with the blisters between our fingers.

"We should tell the boss," Gwynfor whispered once we had it all out. Just a pile of it sat in different buckets (we were too far into the mine to have brought the cart). We agreed, and so we took it back to the surface. We hid it from the others in the mine. We didn't know what it was, so we didn't know if it was precious or not. We reached the cabin at the edge of the entrance of the mine and entered.

He didn't take us seriously, to begin with. But once he sat down and looked at the metal, his face went white with glee. He called for a man, oh god I can't remember his name, Asian chap he was. But the man came, and he looked at the metal. He was excited too. He told us we had found a new type of metal. He asked us what we wanted to call it. My friends, well they all decided I should be the one to name it as I had found it.

I picked it up and asked the man: "What could it be used for?"

"It's such a pretty metal." The man replied. "It seems to be tough enough to melt down, and then maybe it could be hardened." He stopped to think for a minute, feeling the raw material in his hand. "It could be used as a luxury metal for horses. I hear the queen is always looking for a prettier colour to style her horses with."

"Darnarian," I said. "like "Darn o Arian (A bit of silver)" because it looks quite a bit like silver."

I remember the man smiling. The boss asked us to mine some more. So the next day, we returned. And we mined. And we mined. And we mined. We didn't stop for two weeks, just trying to find another vein. We never did.

The Asian man who came to us suddenly vanished. And the boss became angry with us not finding anything, so we were returned to the Clogau mines. I worked there all the way up until they closed in the late. Of course, they reopened and closed again. But I never returned. The 1960s, that's when they closed. For me, anyway.

"Darn arian". Daniel sighed. "That's a beautiful name, sir". His mug sat empty on the coffee table. Johnny raised his eyebrow as Daniel checked his watch. He jumped up and ran to put the cup in the little kitchenette. "Oh gosh. I'm really sorry sir I have to go to another house".

Johnathan smiled kindly at the boy. "There's no worry. I'm just sorry I kept you so long."

Daniel smiled at the man while pulling on his coat. "Darn arian. Huh, It was a very good story."

Johnathan smiled and followed Daniel as he left the house. Daniel stopped just before he entered his car. "What does Darnarian mean again?" He blushed embarrassed at himself for having to ask. Johnathan just laughed.

"It could mean a couple of things really. Bit of Silver. Bit of Money. Bit of coin." Johnathan bid the boy farewell and went back into the house. On his desk were a group of letters. Johnathan opened them and read through. When it came to the last envelope, he paused and chuckled. Inside the envelope, as he had been getting every month since November 2008, was a cheque. He pulled out the cheque and placed it in his top drawer. His son could take it to the bank for him later this week. Johnathan told Daniel he didn't remember the name of the Asian man from the mines. This was a lie. Johnathan touched the golden-silver wedding band on his finger.

The man's name was Satoshi Nakamoto. And Darn Arian was a success.

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