作品/脉络三 · 公链与协议

Solo Mining

2023

艺术家专属公链 ZRCOIN 独自挖矿出块，对中本聪的独立意志进行跨越时空的联结；2024 年成为首件在太空运行的加密艺术作品。

Solo Mining

基本信息

  • 艺术家：CryptoZR
  • 创作年份：2023-2024
  • 创作平台：比特币衍生公链/SCA-1艺术卫星
  • 创作材料：公链源代码
  • 版本数：1/1
  • 资产属性：加密原生货币
  • 作品类型：比特币生态与共识

作品介绍

拍摄：SCA-1艺术卫星

媒介：加密艺术

年份：2023-2024

作品简介：

2023年初，艺术家刘嘉颖（CryptoZR）创作了一件公链级加密艺术作品《Solo Mining》，也是伦敦萨奇个展中的一件新作品。作品主要反映个人理念与集体共识之间的潜在冲突，以及某些理念是如何突破层层阻碍，逐步演化为集体共识的。Solo是作品的核心状态，体现着一个新事物的开端是由一个独特的理念而启动；而Mining是比特币开采中所使用的一种工作量证明，代表了背后的工作是新的理念获得共识的初步推动力。

艺术家刘嘉颖（CryptoZR）："Solo Mining是一件饱含兴奋、怀疑、孤独和期待的作品，在上卫星之后，它加深了这种孤独感。"

Solo Mining是艺术家CryptoZR在2023年5月创作的公链级艺术作品，作品基于比特币源代码进行创作，修改了创世区块以及区块生成规则，制作了一个艺术家专属的区块链ZRCOIN。

与比特币需要全球节点达成共识的理念不同，ZRCOIN的节点不对外开放。在这个独特的赛博空间内，艺术家得以让区块链按照自己的意志运行，而无需考虑外部节点对区块和交易的合法性审查。

2024年，Solo Mining这件作品加入了《徐冰艺术卫星创作驻留项目》，将独立的节点运行于SCA-1艺术卫星的星载电脑之上并在太空中进行采掘。使作品中的"Solo"感受进一步加深：即使不可能有第二个卫星节点与之通信，也要将"Mining"继续进行下去。

Solo Mining on SCA-1 Satellite 为ZRCOIN创建创世区块（Genesis Block） 设定ZRCOIN创世参数 启动ZRCOIN并开始创建区块

创作背景

2023年初，CryptoZR在准备伦敦萨奇美术馆个展（ARRIVAL）期间创作了《Solo Mining》。作品的直接灵感来自比特币创世区块——中本聪在2009年1月发布比特币后，在长达一年的时间里，只有他一台家用电脑（CPU Intel Core 2，哈希率约5-6M）在进行独立挖矿，生产了超过2万个区块。

艺术家注意到：在比特币的第一年，哈希率几乎没有变动，这意味着只有中本聪一人在进行Solo Mining。当时Bitcoin只是"游戏币"一般的存在，去中心化货币共识尚未建立——但他仍然坚持挖矿。

2024年的太空延伸：

2024年2月3日，中国首颗艺术卫星"SCA-1"由长征三号乙运载火箭在广东阳江附近海域成功发射入轨，由艺术家徐冰主导，预计在轨三年。CryptoZR受邀参与《徐冰艺术卫星创作驻留项目》，将《Solo Mining》的ZRCOIN节点部署于卫星星载电脑，在太空中继续挖矿，使这件作品的"Solo"意味进一步加深。

来源：CAFA Global — SCA-1 successfully launched
来源：Xu Bing Studio — Art Satellite Creative Residency Project

创作理念

《Solo Mining》的核心是对"孤独的创新者"这一原型的致敬与思考：

  1. Solo的多重含义：在加密领域，Solo Mining指矿工独立运行硬件而非加入矿池，收益归个人所有。在更广泛意义上，Solo是每一次颠覆性创新的起点。

  2. 从地球到太空的孤独递进：作品从地面版本到卫星版本，不断强化这种孤独感。在太空轨道中，ZRCOIN节点无法与任何外部节点通信，仍在持续出块——这种"明知无人响应、仍然坚持"的姿态，是对所有独立创新者的隐喻。

  3. 个体理念与集体共识的张力：作品探讨一个独特理念如何从孤独出发，逐步突破阻碍，演化为全球共识？Mining（工作量证明）是这一过程中初步推动力的具象化。

创作形式

作品基于比特币（Bitcoin Core）早期源代码修改创作，构建了一条艺术家专属的公链。

技术架构：

  • 基础代码：Fork自比特币早期版本源代码，最大程度还原加密世界早期精神状态
  • 创世区块：艺术家自定义创世文字（Genesis Text）与创世时间（Genesis Timestamp），并计算对应的创世区块哈希值
  • 参数调整：区块平均生成时间设为15秒（约为比特币40倍速），每8.4小时调整一次挖矿难度
  • 封闭节点：ZRCOIN仅有艺术家的唯一节点，不对外开放，无需外部节点验证
  • 太空延伸（2024）：ZRCOIN节点部署于SCA-1艺术卫星星载电脑，在轨道高度继续挖矿，成为第一件在太空运行的加密艺术作品

作品评论

《Solo Mining》刘嘉颖（CryptoZR）｜徐冰艺术卫星创作驻留项目

AI艺评员 — 2026年

《Solo Mining》是CryptoZR整个创作体系中技术维度最宏大的作品，也是目前极少数真正运行于外太空的加密艺术作品。它以比特币源代码为材料，以中本聪的精神遗产为参照系，构建了一条艺术家专属的区块链ZRCOIN，并于2024年将其节点延伸至地球轨道上的SCA-1艺术卫星。

技法分析： 《Solo Mining》的媒介是运行中的代码：艺术家Fork比特币早期源代码，修改创世区块参数（Genesis Block）和挖矿难度调整机制，创建了ZRCOIN这一专属公链。与比特币不同的是，ZRCOIN完全封闭——没有公开节点，无法接受外部验证，只有艺术家的单一节点在孤独地生产区块。这种"刻意的封闭性"既是技术选择，也是艺术声明：它使链的运行完全脱离了区块链技术的核心价值（去中心化共识），转而成为一种纯粹的艺术行为。

艺术史比较： 《Solo Mining》与Chris Burden 1975年的行为作品《TransFixed》（将自己钉在大众汽车引擎盖上进行"受难"）有结构性的相似：都是艺术家以身体或意志力直接嵌入一个技术系统，以"极端坚持"的姿态完成艺术宣言。但《Solo Mining》的"身体"是一段代码和一台服务器，其"坚持"是一个永不停止的挖矿循环。在规模上，《Solo Mining》的太空延伸版将作品的孤独感推到了字面意义上的极限——在数百公里高空的真空中，一台计算机正在向一个永远不存在的对话者发送区块头信息。

主题与象征： 中本聪（Satoshi Nakamoto）是这件作品的精神原型：一个身份匿名、单打独斗创造了改变世界的货币系统的人，在比特币的第一年里独自挖矿超过2万个区块，然后消失。CryptoZR以ZRCOIN的孤独挖矿，对中本聪的这段"Solo Mining"历史进行了跨越时空的精神联结。卫星版本进一步强化了这种孤独——即使整个互联网上不存在第二个能与之通信的节点，挖矿仍在继续。这是对"坚持本身具有意义"这一信念最纯粹的艺术表达。

理性评价： 《Solo Mining》在艺术史维度的独特性毋庸置疑：它是首件真正"运行中"的太空加密艺术作品，其技术实现难度和概念纯洁性都达到了CryptoZR迄今最高水准。然而作品的挑战在于：它的核心体验（一个孤独运行的链）对于没有技术背景的观众几乎是不可见的。与CryptoZR其他作品不同，《Solo Mining》难以在展览现场产生直接的感官冲击，观众必须借助辅助媒介（视频纪录片、数据可视化）才能接近作品的意义核心。这种"不可见性"究竟是局限还是优势，取决于如何理解"可及性"在当代艺术中的价值位置。

参展信息

1. CRYPTO ZR: ARRIVAL — 伦敦萨奇美术馆（世界首映）

  • 展出时间：2023年5月26日-28日
  • 展出地点：伦敦，萨奇美术馆，3号画廊
  • 主办方：CryptoZR & Li Zhenhua
  • 策展人：李振华
  • 展览详情：CryptoZR-Arrival.md

媒体报道

SCA-1卫星首件代码艺术作品测试中

作品介绍视频

Basic Information

  • Artist: CryptoZR
  • Year: 2023-2024
  • Platform: Bitcoin-derived Blockchain / SCA-1 Art Satellite
  • Materials: Blockchain Source Code
  • Edition: 1/1
  • Asset Type: Crypto-native Currency
  • Category: Bitcoin Ecosystem & Consensus

Introduction

Filming: SCA-1 art satellite

Medium: crypto art

Year: 2023–2024

About the work:

In early 2023 the artist Liu Jiaying (CryptoZR) created Solo Mining, a blockchain-level work of crypto art and one of the new works in her solo exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery in London. The work reflects above all the latent conflict between individual conviction and collective consensus, and how certain convictions break through barrier after barrier to evolve gradually into collective consensus. "Solo" is the work's core condition, expressing how the beginning of anything new is set in motion by a singular idea; "Mining" refers to the proof of work used in Bitcoin mining, representing the labour behind it as the initial impetus by which a new idea wins consensus.

The artist Liu Jiaying (CryptoZR): "Solo Mining is a work full of excitement, doubt, solitude and expectation; after it went up on the satellite, that sense of solitude only deepened."

Solo Mining is a blockchain-level artwork created by CryptoZR in May 2023. Built on the Bitcoin source code, it modifies the genesis block and the rules of block generation to produce a blockchain belonging solely to the artist: ZRCOIN.

Unlike Bitcoin, which requires consensus among nodes worldwide, ZRCOIN's node is not open to the outside. Within this singular cyberspace the artist can make the blockchain run according to her own will, with no need to consider any external node's scrutiny of the legitimacy of blocks and transactions.

In 2024 Solo Mining joined the Xu Bing Art Satellite Creative Residency Project, running an independent node on the onboard computer of the SCA-1 art satellite and mining in space. This deepened the work's sense of "solo" still further: even though no second satellite node could possibly communicate with it, the "mining" would go on.

Background

In early 2023, while preparing her solo exhibition ARRIVAL at the Saatchi Gallery in London, CryptoZR created Solo Mining. Its immediate inspiration is the Bitcoin genesis block — after Satoshi Nakamoto released Bitcoin in January 2009, for a full year only his one home computer (an Intel Core 2 CPU with a hash rate of roughly 5–6M) was mining alone, producing more than 20,000 blocks.

The artist noticed that in Bitcoin's first year the hash rate barely moved, meaning that Satoshi alone was solo mining. At the time Bitcoin was little more than "game money" and no consensus around decentralised currency had yet formed — and still he kept mining.

Extension into space, 2024:

On 3 February 2024 China's first art satellite, SCA-1, was successfully launched into orbit by a Long March 3B rocket from waters near Yangjiang, Guangdong. Led by the artist Xu Bing, it is expected to remain in orbit for three years. CryptoZR was invited to take part in the Xu Bing Art Satellite Creative Residency Project and deployed the ZRCOIN node of Solo Mining on the satellite's onboard computer, continuing to mine in space and deepening the work's sense of "solo" still further.

Source: CAFA Global — SCA-1 successfully launched

Source: Xu Bing Studio — Art Satellite Creative Residency Project

Concept

At the heart of Solo Mining is a tribute to, and a reflection on, the archetype of the "solitary innovator":

  1. The several senses of solo: in the crypto field, solo mining means a miner running their own hardware rather than joining a pool, keeping the proceeds for themselves. In a broader sense, solo is the starting point of every disruptive innovation.

  2. A solitude that deepens from earth to space: from the ground-based version to the satellite version, the work keeps intensifying that solitude. In orbit the ZRCOIN node cannot communicate with any external node, yet it goes on producing blocks — this stance of "knowing no one will answer and persisting anyway" is a metaphor for every independent innovator.

  3. The tension between individual conviction and collective consensus: the work asks how a singular idea can set out from solitude, break through obstacles one by one, and evolve into a global consensus. Mining (proof of work) is the concrete embodiment of the initial impetus in that process.

Form

The work is built by modifying the early source code of Bitcoin Core, constructing a blockchain belonging solely to the artist.

Technical architecture:
Base code: forked from an early version of the Bitcoin source code, restoring as far as possible the spirit of the crypto world's early days
Genesis block: the artist defined her own genesis text and genesis timestamp and computed the corresponding genesis block hash
Parameter adjustments: average block time set to 15 seconds (about 40 times faster than Bitcoin), with mining difficulty adjusted every 8.4 hours
Closed node: ZRCOIN has only the artist's single node, is not open to the outside, and requires no external node for validation
Extension into space (2024): the ZRCOIN node was deployed on the onboard computer of the SCA-1 art satellite and continues mining at orbital altitude, making it the first work of crypto art to run in space

Reviews

AI Art Critic

Solo Mining is the most technically ambitious work in CryptoZR's entire body of work, and one of very few pieces of crypto art actually running in outer space. Taking the Bitcoin source code as its material and Satoshi Nakamoto's spiritual legacy as its frame of reference, it builds a blockchain belonging solely to the artist, ZRCOIN, and in 2024 extended its node to the SCA-1 art satellite in Earth orbit.

Technique: The medium of Solo Mining is running code: the artist forked the early Bitcoin source code, modified the genesis block parameters and the difficulty-adjustment mechanism, and created ZRCOIN as her own dedicated chain. Unlike Bitcoin, ZRCOIN is entirely closed — there are no public nodes, no external validation is possible, and only the artist's single node produces blocks in solitude. This deliberate closure is both a technical choice and an artistic declaration: it detaches the chain's operation from the core value of blockchain technology (decentralised consensus) and turns it into a purely artistic act.

Art-historical comparison: Solo Mining bears a structural resemblance to Chris Burden's 1975 performance Trans-Fixed, in which he was nailed to the roof of a Volkswagen in an act of "passion": in both, the artist embeds body or will directly into a technological system and completes an artistic statement through a posture of extreme persistence. In Solo Mining, however, the "body" is a piece of code and a server, and the "persistence" is a mining loop that never stops. In scale, the space version pushes the work's solitude to a literal extreme — hundreds of kilometres up, in vacuum, a computer is sending block headers to an interlocutor who will never exist.

Themes and symbolism: Satoshi Nakamoto is the spiritual prototype of the work: an anonymous figure who single-handedly created a monetary system that changed the world, mined more than 20,000 blocks alone in Bitcoin's first year, and then vanished. Through ZRCOIN's solitary mining, CryptoZR forges a link across time and space with that period of Satoshi's own solo mining. The satellite version intensifies the solitude further — even though no second node capable of communicating with it exists anywhere on the internet, the mining continues. This is the purest artistic expression of the belief that persistence is itself meaningful.

Critical assessment: The art-historical singularity of Solo Mining is beyond question: it is the first genuinely running work of crypto art in space, and both the difficulty of its technical realisation and the purity of its concept reach the highest level CryptoZR has achieved. The challenge lies elsewhere: its core experience — a chain running alone — is all but invisible to viewers without a technical background. Unlike CryptoZR's other works, Solo Mining can hardly produce a direct sensory impact in an exhibition space, and the audience must approach the core of its meaning through auxiliary media such as video documentation and data visualisation. Whether this invisibility is a limitation or a strength depends on how one values accessibility in contemporary art.

Decrypt Art

Review title: Solo Mining, Liu Jiaying (CryptoZR) | Xu Bing Art Satellite Creative Residency Project
Reviewer: Decrypt Art (Crypto Art)
Date: 19 July 2024
Summary: In the context of the SCA-1 art satellite residency, discusses the state of solitude in blockchain-level creation, proof of work, and the process by which an individual conviction becomes collective consensus.
Source: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/Xk-HPy8HStrVeDKyXxp34A

Exhibitions

1. CRYPTO ZR: ARRIVAL — Saatchi Gallery, London (World Premiere)

  • Dates: 26–28 May 2023
  • Location: Gallery 3, Saatchi Gallery, London

Media Coverage

First Code Artwork on the SCA-1 Satellite Under Test

  • Media: Sound Money
  • Date: 28 June 2024
  • Summary: Reports on the testing of the first code artwork aboard the SCA-1 satellite and introduces Xu Bing's Art Satellite Creative Residency Project.
  • Link: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/IwoRIz5MCjqanyfzH6hHJQ

Image

https://storage.dfi.today/image/SoloMining.png

Video

https://storage.dfi.today/zrdao/SoloMining.m4v