BitCoin: Should I Sign Up?

gnome · Post by **gnome** » Wed Dec 27, 2017 8:40 pm

Obligatory

http://tellyspotting.kera.org/wp-conten ... -Vasey.jpg

gnome · Post by **gnome** » Wed Dec 27, 2017 8:42 pm

I do want to hear from Sparks on this one... something doesn't seem right.

Rob Lister · Post by **Rob Lister** » Wed Dec 27, 2017 9:05 pm

gnome wrote:I do want to hear from Sparks on this one... something doesn't seem right.

LOL. Sparks is going to tell you to listen to Lister.

How the fuck do otherwise intelligent people graduate high school without learning basic thermodynamics?

What "doesn't seem right" to you? Where do you think that energy goes if not to heating your CPU and thus the room?

If it turned into light it might escape your room and warm the environment, or space, or whatever. If you open the door to your room it might escape and warm some other room. If you have windows then they'll get warm and warm the outside. If you get all warm and toasty by it and then walk to your ugly neighbor's house it might leak a little to them.

Where does the watt go if not to heat?

If you turn a fan on in your room does the room get warmer or cooler? Warmer. Warmer by the exact wattage of the fan.
If you leave your refrigerator door open does the room get warmer or cooler? Warmer. Warmer by the exact wattage of the fridge.

Pyrrho · Post by **Pyrrho** » Wed Dec 27, 2017 11:24 pm

Rob Lister wrote:
Pyrrho wrote:https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2017/12 ... um-heater/

We used a cryptocurrency miner as a heater this winter and it really worked

As far as the rest of the innards go, the Comino N1 (the model we had a chance to test) boasts eight ASUS P106-100 6G graphic cards mounted on an ASUS PRIME Z270-A Motherboard, as well as 3 NOCTUA NF-A14 PPC-2000 PWM fans, a customized Black Ice NEMESIS GTX420 radiator and 2 Chieftech PROTON BDF-750C 750W power supply units.

All of this oomph amounts to about 1kW of power consumption per hour. Make sure to check your local electricity rates to get an idea of how much that will add up to your energy bills.

The contraption stands 63.5cm tall, with a length of 45.9cm and a width of17.5cm, which means you could easily fit it in an idle corner of your room and forget about it, while it does the mining for you. And this is precisely what we did.
I will ask without reading the article, what was their return on the dollar?

Because if you have to heat your house anyway, and you don't access to cheaper alternatives like gas or oil, you might as well run a miner. I can't think of a single disadvantage. An electric heater running at X watts uses the same watts as a miner. The amount lost to uploading/downloading crypto data is too insignificant to bother with. The only downside is the cost of the equipment.

I use NG to heat my home and the cost of that fuel plus the cost of the unit is not trivial; probably more than a decent miner. If there's a decent return on the dollar it might be a worthy investment.

They say:

Since installing the miner on November 16, it has so far transferred a total of little over 1.2 ETH to my designated wallet – this equals to roughly 1 ETH per month. At the time of writing, my mining returns amount to about $814, according to CoinGecko.

He doesn't say how much more he paid for electricity.

Each of those machines costs $5,000.00

Rob Lister · Post by **Rob Lister** » Wed Dec 27, 2017 11:49 pm

Abdul Alhazred wrote:Waiting for sparks before further comment. :)

Do you think sparks is going to tell you that your CPU/GPU watts are somehow magical?

See if you can guess what he will say. Other than Listen to Lister.

sparks · Post by **sparks** » Wed Dec 27, 2017 11:49 pm

If one is trying to heat one's home to a comfortable temp, then one should pay attention to where the Watts are going. If they're staying in the domicile, one may take that as a WIN.

If some of them go out the webz, that would constitute a FAIL.

But, it is, after all, a matter of intent.

Fuds Law, damnit!

ETA: Just ask ed. He invented this shit!!

Rob Lister · Post by **Rob Lister** » Wed Dec 27, 2017 11:56 pm

sparks wrote:If one is trying to heat one's home to a comfortable temp, then one should pay attention to where the Watts are going. If they're staying in the domicile, one may take that as a WIN.

If some of them go out the webz, that would constitute a FAIL.

But, it is, after all, a matter of intent.

Fuds Law, damnit!

So there you go Abdul and Gnome. You have spark's almost comprehensible reply.

To be pedantic ...
Nothing goes out to the webz but 1's (I submit a fraction of a picowatt to you) and 0's (I absorb a fraction of a picowatt from you). Assuming an even distribution of each, the net is zero. With fiber, those picowatts turn into femtowatts.

sparks · Post by **sparks** » Thu Dec 28, 2017 12:01 am

Yet, energy must be expended to produce the 1's and 0's going out the webz. Net (no pun intended) energy going away from the appliance you are running.

Further, it (your appliance) is not 100% efficient, therefore your home will be heated. but in a small way.

Continue to pay your gas bill. Or learn to love your CPU like a shape-shifter.

It is NOT a nice thing and therefore allowed.

ed lives in Florida. ed? Is it right, is it right, or is it right?

Rob Lister · Post by **Rob Lister** » Thu Dec 28, 2017 12:04 am

Abdul Alhazred wrote:Hey Lister:

To quote my knowledgeable buddy sparks "FAIL". :De_Bunk:

I don't get that dude. It is your fail.

Rob Lister · Post by **Rob Lister** » Thu Dec 28, 2017 12:23 am

Abdul Alhazred wrote:Sure.

If you are somehow mining bitcoins with zero energy leaving the house ... which is to say you're not really mining bitcoins.

Are you being glib? It all leaves the house eventually. Through the windows, the walls, the ground. Not so much through the internets.

sparks · Post by **sparks** » Thu Dec 28, 2017 12:48 am

Listy has a new word: Glib. He's used it twice today.

Good boy Rob.

Those self help books are really paying off! :)

Yes it all leaves the house eventually. But if you have good windows, walls and a decently insulated basement, then you have a chance of staying comfy. But not on the energy it takes to run a single confuser, let alone the energy leaving the house through the 1's and 0's you are transmitting to the webz.

Admittedly, very little energy leaves the 'hood through the webz. But SCIENCE!!! says that a small, yet definable amount does.

Eat that, skeptics!

Mentat · Post by **Mentat** » Thu Dec 28, 2017 1:06 am

But that's just the networking side. These rigs chew through kilowatts of power running GPUs and CPUs, not for talking over ethernet or wifi.

Mentat · Post by **Mentat** » Thu Dec 28, 2017 1:24 am

The application doesn't matter. Mining certain currencies is just a reliable way to keep most of the computing cores busy all day.

Anaxagoras · Post by **Anaxagoras** » Fri Dec 29, 2017 2:14 am

A space heater of the same wattage would cost maybe 100 bucks, maybe less or more, but close enough, so obviously this is a secondary use. And it's only going to be helpful for maybe 4 or 5 months of the year. The rest of the year you either don't need more heat or you actually want to cool things down. And you can't just put it outside. If you have a shed or a garage you could put it there maybe, if there's a power outlet, but I wouldn't have a good place in my house to put it in the summer.

Anaxagoras · Post by **Anaxagoras** » Sat Jan 06, 2018 1:14 am

Episode 816: Bitcoin Losers (Planet Money podcast, NPR)

Plenty of people will tell you they're getting rich off of Bitcoin. They could be right. But there's another group of Bitcoin owners that aren't so ecstatic. Because they might be rich, too, but they lost the passkey that would let them get at their digital fortune. Syl Turner is in that second, less glamorous group. When he got around one-and-a-half Bitcoins seven or eight years ago, they were nearly worthless. So worthless he bunked the hard drive that held the key somewhere and now he can't remember where.

Today on the show, we join Syl on a digital treasure hunt, as he ventures into his attic looking for what could be the key to his Bitcoin wallet, and tens of thousands of dollars. It's all or nothing. In the decentralized anti-governmental world of Bitcoin, you can't file a claim for damaged or lost currency. You've either got the key, or you don't.

Then Kimberly Grauer and Jonathan Levin of Chainalysis help us figure out how much Bitcoin has been lost and why it's so difficult to track down, and try to figure out if there's any way to find Syl's vanished riches.

Rob, you ever find your lost bitcoin? :notsure:

Rob Lister · Post by **Rob Lister** » Sat Jan 06, 2018 1:27 am

nope.

Witness · Post by **Witness** » Sat Jan 06, 2018 1:56 am

https://s9.postimg.org/k4sapj0fj/fpct2gdzactzjpg.jpg

Pyrrho · Post by **Pyrrho** » Sun Jan 07, 2018 12:54 pm

https://www.duffelblog.com/2018/01/bitc ... diers-say/

FORT JACKSON, S.C. – Bitcoin futures today suffered from heightened volatility due to rumors of a possible two-day extension of MRE rations, soldiers on a field exercise reported.

“I thought that trading my jalapeño cheese for .00000387 Bitcoin was a good choice three days ago,” said Pfc. Josh Warner. “But now that there are rumors that we’ll have MREs instead of mermites tomorrow and the end of FIELDEX BBQ is cancelled because of a DUI from another unit, I’m realizing that the value of that MRE cheese would have tripled if I held onto it until tomorrow.”

gnome · Post by **gnome** » Wed Jan 17, 2018 11:25 am

The Daily Express announces the "end" of cryptocurrencies.

https://www.express.co.uk/finance/city/ ... outh-korea

I think that may be premature.

Witness · Post by **Witness** » Thu Jan 18, 2018 5:38 am

https://s9.postimg.org/x21vrjzgv/995312 ... 2e0767.jpg

BBC wrote:CES 2018: Kodak soars on KodakCoin and Bitcoin mining plans

Shares in photo firm Eastman Kodak soared nearly 120% after it revealed plans to mint its own crypto-currency, the KodakCoin.

The US firm said it was teaming up with London-based Wenn Media Group to carry out the initial coin offering (ICO).

It is part of a blockchain-based initiative to help photographers control their image rights.

Kodak also detailed plans to install rows of Bitcoin mining rigs at its headquarters in Rochester, New York.

Details of this second scheme - which is being branded the Kodak KashMiner - were outlined at the CES tech show in Las Vegas.

Customers will pay up-front to rent mining capacity.

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-42630136

And for a contrasting opinion:

lifehacker wrote:Why Kodak's Bitcoin Scheme Is a Scam You Should Avoid

Just like your friend from college who won’t stop posting about it on Facebook, Kodak is really into cryptocurrencies. During CES 2018, the company announced a two-pronged blockchain strategy: 1) its own cryptocurrency called KodakCoin designed to improve image rights for photographers and 2) a Bitcoin mining scheme called KashMiner where customers can rent equipment and allegedly make money over a two-year period.

That first one isn’t a terrible idea. It uses blockchain technology to solve a legitimate issue, and Kodak’s well-established brand could help popularize the idea of a public ledger for image rights to ensure that photographers get paid for their work. However, the second announcement is quickly being written off as a scam and proof that the Bitcoin bubble is dangerously close to popping.

https://lifehacker.com/why-kodaks-bitco ... 1821957658

The two points which apparently make it a scam: 1. Mining gets more and more difficult and 2. Nothing guarantees a continued rise of the Bitcoin. Details at the link.

Rob Lister · Post by **Rob Lister** » Thu Jan 18, 2018 11:54 am

Witness wrote:The two points which apparently make it a scam: 1. Mining gets more and more difficult and 2. Nothing guarantees a continued rise of the Bitcoin. Details at the link.

1. appears to be a feature. I've got nothing on 2.
But assuming bitcoin is currently a bubble, what would have to pop down to for it not to be a bubble?

gnome · Post by **gnome** » Thu Jan 18, 2018 1:17 pm

My stab at it: a "bubble" would mean that speculators are overvaluing the commodity--so in theory, for it not to be a bubble the value increase should be matched by an evident increase in the demand for its usage.

Does that fly?

Rob Lister · Post by **Rob Lister** » Thu Jan 18, 2018 3:28 pm

gnome wrote:My stab at it: a "bubble" would mean that speculators are overvaluing the commodity--so in theory, for it not to be a bubble the value increase should be matched by an evident increase in the demand for its usage.

Does that fly?

Seems like it should fly but how do you value that usage? How do you even define that usage? If I trade a bitcoin for a commodity that is demand. But the ability to store value is also a commodity. And when SK became a threat to that specific end, the price tumbled. I have little doubt it will rebound but not enough confidence to invest in chasing this bottom.

Here's a fair article on the bubble issue
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/16/skeptic ... wrong.html
Gold remains a good example. 15% of newly mined gold goes to work in industry (electronics, primarily). That is the only true utility. The other 85% goes to jewelry and coins as a value store. Nobody is using it to buy groceries. But as a store it is about as solid a store as there is.

That's a long way of me saying I don't fucking know what flies.

Mentat · Post by **Mentat** » Thu Jan 18, 2018 5:37 pm

Abdul Alhazred wrote:As of right now, 3.55 kilos of gold per Bitcoin.

Based on:
1 BTC = $11995.00
1 Kg of gold = $42,593.28

Aside from fluctuation, there may be some sort of arbitrage if dollars are not used as an intermediate.

You mean 1.3 kilos of gold can buy a bitcoin. That's right, for the low price of 5.4 kilos of gold, you can buy just one bitcoin! Come in now, before the price changes from 2.7 kilos.

Rob Lister · Post by **Rob Lister** » Thu Jan 18, 2018 10:56 pm

One thing like gold is a mining GPU
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/201 ... -shortage/

Spoiler:

Pyrrho · Post by **Pyrrho** » Mon Jan 29, 2018 12:43 am

@thelateempire

a shitcoin startup called Prodeum just exitscammed with millions of investor dollars and left them the following message on their site

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DUnR8ffXkAAnsHM.jpg

Rob Lister · Post by **Rob Lister** » Thu Feb 01, 2018 3:35 am

Pyrrho wrote:

@thelateempire

a shitcoin startup called Prodeum just exitscammed with millions of investor dollars and left them the following message on their site

I heard eleven dollars.

Anaxagoras · Post by **Anaxagoras** » Thu Feb 01, 2018 4:25 am

Rob Lister wrote:
Pyrrho wrote:

@thelateempire

a shitcoin startup called Prodeum just exitscammed with millions of investor dollars and left them the following message on their site

I heard eleven dollars.

Considering that it probably took many hours of work (more likely weeks) to set up the scam, I guess the joke's on them. They made less than minimum wage.

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/arti ... sage-penis

The Prodeum website, for what it’s worth, is flashy and overall very well done. To throw off the suspicious, if you click a photo of any of Prodeum’s staff, you’re taken to that person’s associated LinkedIn profile. It also appears, as Buzzfeed journalist Ryan Mac noted on Twitter, that the startup was paying people on Fiverr to promote the ICO by writing “Prodeum” on their bodies. Still, it doesn’t seem like all the promotion was enough to make Prodeum’s crowdsale profitable.

Witness · Post by **Witness** » Wed Feb 14, 2018 6:10 pm

"Groundbreaking producer and technological advocate, Gramatik, raised the maximum amount of $2.48 million (7500 ETH) in under 24 hours during his GRMTK token sale in Zurich on November 9th, 2017, as he became the first artist in history to ‘tokenize’ his intellectual property–meaning, he created his own form of cryptocurrency that will represent his IP."

From his Wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramatik

Rob Lister · Post by **Rob Lister** » Mon Feb 26, 2018 11:24 am

Abdul Alhazred wrote:Women in Cryptocurrencies Push Back Against ‘Blockchain Bros’
The New York Times

:lmao:

That's pitiful whining. That playing field is perfectly level. But here's a great take-away quote

“Women always question if they’re qualified,” she said. “But look at these clowns around us.”

That's what Hillary said.

Pyrrho · Post by **Pyrrho** » Mon Feb 26, 2018 11:38 am

Link:

Witness · Post by **Witness** » Thu Mar 01, 2018 2:07 am

South China Morning Post wrote:Man mugged in Taiwan's first bitcoin robbery

Taiwan police have arrested four men over a bitcoin robbery worth NT$5 million (US$170,000) in what they said was the first case of its kind on the island.
[…]
Taiwan police said three men in their early twenties lured a man surnamed Tai to the central city of Taichung, pretending to be interested in buying bitcoins.

After Tai showed proof of his bitcoins on his phone, the scammers assaulted him and his friend, then transferred 18 bitcoins worth NT$5 million from Tai’s account via his phone.

The suspects attempted to pass off the heist as a drunken row by forcing the victim to drink Kaoliang, a strong Taiwanese liquor, Taichung city police said in a statement.

Police arrived at the scene after receiving a call about a dispute and one man was detained. The other two had fled.

http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies ... in-robbery

The old methods still work, sorta. :mrgreen:

gnome · Post by **gnome** » Thu Mar 22, 2018 4:12 pm

Witness wrote:
South China Morning Post wrote:Man mugged in Taiwan's first bitcoin robbery

Taiwan police have arrested four men over a bitcoin robbery worth NT$5 million (US$170,000) in what they said was the first case of its kind on the island.
[…]
Taiwan police said three men in their early twenties lured a man surnamed Tai to the central city of Taichung, pretending to be interested in buying bitcoins.

After Tai showed proof of his bitcoins on his phone, the scammers assaulted him and his friend, then transferred 18 bitcoins worth NT$5 million from Tai’s account via his phone.

The suspects attempted to pass off the heist as a drunken row by forcing the victim to drink Kaoliang, a strong Taiwanese liquor, Taichung city police said in a statement.

Police arrived at the scene after receiving a call about a dispute and one man was detained. The other two had fled.
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies ... in-robbery

The old methods still work, sorta. :mrgreen:

Out of curiosity-- I've wondered before about ATM robberies. Often I figure it's just a target of opportunity--someone visiting an ATM probably just got money that the robber can take. How common is someone being forced to operate the ATM to withdraw money (presumably at gunpoint)?

Witness · Post by **Witness** » Fri Mar 23, 2018 5:09 am

gnome wrote:(presumably at gunpoint)?

Gun? Too Murican. One of my (ex) colleagues got mugged with the cash out of the machine still in her hands: a spurt of alcohol (kirsch, apparently :mrgreen: ) into the eyes and you're helpless. :(

gnome · Post by **gnome** » Fri Mar 23, 2018 1:30 pm

Yikes!

Witness · Post by **Witness** » Wed Apr 11, 2018 4:14 am

Foxconn's entry heats up race for first mass-market Bitcoin-friendly phone

Raising the stakes is Taiwan's Foxconn, the world's largest contract electronics maker and a key Apple and Amazon supplier.

A Foxconn unit has agreed to develop and produce a blockchain-based smartphone from Swiss-Israeli technology startup Sirin Labs, Bloomberg reported last week.

The new smartphone, called the Finney, will let users "shop on crypto friendly sites like Overstock.com and Expedia, converting cash into specialized tokens if needed," Bloomberg said.

Users may also trade battery power with others and get paid in tokens or earn by simply allowing a tourist to browse the internet using their phone's Wi-Fi.

"Blockchain technologies and cryptocurrencies are considered to be too complex for 99.99 percent of the population," Sirin said in a white paper, adding that Finney will help bring cryptocurrencies to the masses.

http://www.dw.com/en/foxconns-entry-hea ... a-43320990

Rob Lister · Post by **Rob Lister** » Wed Apr 11, 2018 10:48 am

Abdul Alhazred wrote:How close are we to the point where the maximum number of bitcoins has been "mined"?

2145. This graph goes to 2033

https://i.imgur.com/SNLuaml.png

Witness · Post by **Witness** » Sun May 20, 2018 12:47 am

Bitcoin to use 0.5% of world’s electricity by end of 2018

London: Bitcoin, one of the most popular cryptocurrencies, currently uses almost as much power as Ireland does, and could be consuming about 0.5% of the world’s total electricity by the end of this year, a study has found.

Bitcoin’s burgeoning electricity demands have attracted almost as much attention as the cryptocurrency’s wildly fluctuating value. However, estimating exactly how much electricity the bitcoin network uses, necessary for understanding its impact and implementing policy, remains a challenge.

“We’ve seen a lot of back-of-the-envelope calculations, but we need more scientific discussion on where this network is headed. Right now, the information available is pretty poor quality overall, so I’m hoping that people will use this paper as a foundation for more research,” said economist and blockchain specialist Alex de Vries, who works at PwC in the Netherlands.

The estimates, based in economics, put the minimum current usage of the bitcoin network at 2.55 gigawatts, which means it uses almost as much electricity as Ireland. A single transaction uses as much electricity as an average household in the Netherlands uses in a month. By the end of this year, he predicts the network could be using as much as 7.7 gigawatts—as much as Austria and 0.5% of the world’s total consumption.

“To me, half a per cent is already quite shocking. It’s an extreme difference compared to the regular financial system, and this increasing electricity demand is definitely not going to help us reach our climate goals,” he said. If the price of bitcoin continues to increase the way some experts have predicted, De Vries believes the network could someday consume 5% of the world’s electricity.

https://www.livemint.com/Money/3wU3b1Iu ... -2018.html

Anaxagoras · Post by **Anaxagoras** » Sun May 20, 2018 10:08 am

Jesus, that's a lot of electricity.

Abdul Alhazred wrote:How does that compare to the amount of electricity used by cam whores?

I don't know, but somebody has calculated how much electricity it takes to run the Internet.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/christophe ... dd9ef41fff

America’s myriad server farms and data centers operate 100 million drives that hold 350 million terabytes of data — everything from your decade-old emails to lolcat videos and the collected offerings of Netflix NFLX -0.3%.

A new report from the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory figures that those data centers use an enormous amount of energy — some 70 billion kilowatt hours per year. That amounts to 1.8% of total American electricity consumption. At an average cost of 10 cents per kwh, the annual cost of all that juice is on the order of $7 billion.

Seventy billion kilowatt hours is such a giant number that it’s helpful to put it into some other terms. For comparison purposes, 1 kwh is enough power to keep ten 100-watt lightbulbs illuminated for one hour, or to keep your smartphone charged for an entire year.

To generate 70 billion kwh you’d need power plants with a baseload capacity of 8,000 megawatts — equivalent to about 8 big nuclear reactors, or twice the output of all the nation’s solar panels.

Sliced up per capita, the average American uses about 200 kwh a year for his or her internet use, costing about $20. For those of you obsessed with carbon footprints, your internet use is responsible for the emission of about 300 pounds of carbon dioxide per year.

But our internet addiction is only growing. According to Nielsen, the average adult in the United States spends 10 hours and 39 minutes a day consuming digital media. That’s up an hour a day in the past year. And we’re spending most of that additional time peering at our smart phones, which now occupy us for an hour and a half each day.

And that's just for America. According to another article I found, porn accounts for about 30% of internet traffic, so you can do the math. As of now porn probably uses more electricity than bitcoin, but they're in the same ballpark.

Rob Lister · Post by **Rob Lister** » Sun May 20, 2018 11:53 am

Anaxagoras wrote:Jesus, that's a lot of electricity.

Abdul Alhazred wrote:How does that compare to the amount of electricity used by cam whores?
I don't know, but somebody has calculated how much electricity it takes to run the Internet.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/christophe ... dd9ef41fff

... Sliced up per capita, the average American uses about 200 kwh a year for his or her internet use, costing about $20. ...
And that's just for America. According to another article I found, porn accounts for about 30% of internet traffic, so you can do the math. As of now porn probably uses more electricity than bitcoin, but they're in the same ballpark.

This growing consumption is not reflected as growth in total consumption.
https://i.imgur.com/uFHE8kP.png

I'm going to consume energy no matter what I do. The only thing I could do that is less of a load than surfing the internet or watching Netflix is perhaps reading a book.

One conclusion: Given the choice of watching porn or ironing clothes, we're all very wrinkled.