Skip to main content

It won’t power the Matrix, but these suits use humans to mine cryptocurrencies

cryptocurrencies body suit mining bitcoin
Biological Labour - IoHO - Elevate Festival at esc medien kunst labor
Compared to the obvious toll of industrialization, it’s far too easy to forget about the environmental and human impact of the digital age. Whether it is the energy usage of a data center helping power the internet or the cognitive capitalism of a company like Google that asks us to exchange our data instead of our cash, there is a weird temptation to view the world of zeros and ones as substantially different to the one that preceded it. Much the same is true for cryptocurrencies, the not-so-filthy-lucre which greases the virtual wheels of the digital economy. Not only does it carry its own environmental toll (the bitcoin network consumes more energy than the country of Bulgaria), but its associated areas — algorithms, artificial intelligence, and machines — alter how humans relate to labor.

An innovative new project carried out by a Dutch organization called the Institute of Human Obsolescence (IoHO) explores this idea in an intriguing way by creating a more sustainable approach to mining cryptocurrencies — by harvesting human body heat.

Recommended Videos

“We [hired] human workers to lay down on workstations, wearing a body suit that harvests their residual body heat, with which we produce electricity that then is used to mine cryptocurrency,” creator Manuel Beltrán told Digital Trends. “With this project, we aim at sparking a discussion about the way humans relate to technology and the socio-political implications of the accelerated pace of undiscriminated technological assimilation. In a future with a labor market dominated by machines, would you rather work laying down and producing cryptocurrency with your body heat?”

Please enable Javascript to view this content
Biological Labour - IoHO - Elevate Festival at esc medien kunst labor
Biological Labour – IoHO – Elevate Festival at esc medien kunst labor

On one level, the concept is some kind of utopian take on universal basic income (who wouldn’t want to earn cash by doing nothing more taxing than lying in bed?) mixed with the nightmare human energy harvesting of The Matrix. It’s no sci-fi fantasy, though. The project has already carried out trial runs in Europe involving 37 different workers and 212 hours of “work.” A follow-up operation is planned for 2018 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

The initiative currently involves mining vertcoin and startcoin cryptocurrencies, since these require less energy to mine than bitcoin. At present success rates, it would take one month of heat mining of 44,000 people at present success rates to afford a single bitcoin. Volunteers in the project kept 80 percent of the cryptocurrencies they generated, while the rest was given to IoHO.

In terms of efficiency, it’s nowhere close to getting a regular job and working to buy cryptocurrency. However, its creators hope the project’s conceptual nature means that it is about more than just making its participants a quick buck.

Luke Dormehl
Former Digital Trends Contributor
I'm a UK-based tech writer covering Cool Tech at Digital Trends. I've also written for Fast Company, Wired, the Guardian…
Why the price of DDR5 memory is so high — and won’t drop anytime soon
Intel Alder Lake box with DDR5 memory.

DDR5 is finally out in the wild, but those trying to hop on the DDR5 train early have run into high prices and low supplies. TrendForce released their analysis of the current RAM market for glimmers of hope on the state of DDR5 -- but their news was only lukewarm.

It seems that while overall DDR5 pricing could fall, the average selling price probably won't budge.

Read more
Apple’s Universal Control won’t arrive on Macs, iPads until 2022
The MacBook Pro with the default wallpaper, which hides the notch.

After having dropped the latest releases of its operating systems -- including iOS 15.2, iPad OS 15.2, macOS Monterey 12.1, watchOS 8.3, and tvOS 15.2 -- early Monday morning local time, one highly coveted feature that Apple promoted during its WWDC presentation earlier this year was notably missing. Unfortunately, it appears that Universal Control, a KVM-like feature that allows you to share a mouse and keyboard and work seamlessly across a Mac and iPad, didn't quite make the cut in the latest versions of the company's new iPadOS and macOS operating system releases.

It appears that the release date for Universal Control on the Mac has now been adjusted from winter to "available this spring," according to Apple's information page for macOS Monterey. The company did not give any further details or explanation for the delay, though this could mean that the feature won't arrive until macOS 12.2 drops.

Read more
The Steam Deck won’t have any exclusive games, says Valve
Steam's new handheld console, the Steam Deck.

When it launches next year, Valve's Steam Deck will be able to run a suite of PC games, none of which will be exclusive to it. The mobile console, which is really more of a handheld Steam machine, won't have any exclusive games according to Valve.

In a beefy FAQ section for developers, Valve says it won't support exclusive games on its upcoming console. "No, that doesn't make much sense to us," reads an FAQ answer. "It's a PC and it should just play games like a PC." In short, don't expect a "killer app" that's only available on the device.

Read more