Tesla Cars Prove Capable Of Serving As Bitcoin Nodes

So, Tesla and its cars have had a long, storied history of controversies. Everything from the battery catching fire to the vehicles working with less capacity to try and counteract the battery fires, to offshore Chinese investments, has all counted against Tesla. Recently, the computer system on these cars has taken a hit, first by a potential hack, and now some good news: You can use Tesla vehicles as a Bitcoin node.

Downloading full blocks to this @Tesla pic.twitter.com/j4L84QycxX

— bcoin (@Bcoin) January 16, 2020

Bcoin Showing Project Flexibility

This was brought forth by the team behind the new Bitcoin project, Bcoin. Through a successful experiment, Bcoin’s developers managed to rework the Tesla car’s computer system to act as a Bitcoin node with nothing but the car’s built-in web browser.

Bcoin itself serves as a Bitcoin protocol alternative. This alternative was built with the plan of creating an entire node on any device by way of an online browser. This technology proved to be capable of operating on the Tesla as well, and so far, everything is working as it should.

Don’t Try This At Home

As should be evident by anyone with enough technical know-how, using most of the Tesla car’s computer power to manage a Bitcoin node, then actively using that said car is a very, very bad idea.

Bitcoin is somewhat infamous for the massive amounts of processing power it needs to operate a node. As one would imagine, this would have a significant impact on the performance of a given Tesla vehicle, should you run the node and use the car at the same time. The problem is compounded due to the Tesla onboard computer system already being used for a wide range of smart systems built into the vehicle. As one would imagine, having a car operating at peak abilities is preferred to having a processing error pop up out of nowhere and possibly cause a massive accident.

Using What Little One Has

Another issue that comes from this is Tesla’s memory modules. These modules have already been widely criticized as being very limited in its various lifespans. Running a Bitcoin node on a Tesla vehicle would only make the issue worse, using what limited lifespan you have of the module to mine Bitcoin instead of driving around.

The entire experiment to allow a node on Tesla’s cars was just that: An experiment. It was never meant to be tried out for dangerous use unless you plan on having a Tesla vehicle sit around and look pretty while mining Bitcoin with it. No one should do this for more than a few minutes.

If you want to learn more about Tesla check out this page about Tesla stocks!