The debate then turns to whether private research is possible without communication with others, and the likelihood of private advances in producing bitcoins. The topic shifts to the factors influencing decentralized mining, including access to hardware and electricity supply, and how top-of-the-line hardware affects competitiveness. The conversation then explores the possibility of teaching mining hardware plans in classrooms and parallelizing the process. It also touches upon the relationship between energy infrastructure and software design, and the difficulty of abstracting away energy in proof-of-work. The motivation behind discussions for improving decentralization lies in security and censorship-resistance, as the latter supports censorship-resistance. Finally, the conversation discusses the space changes due to private research and/or compromise of pools.