Bitcoin

[SouthSideChiDomer]

Gotcha. Thanks for the explanation. Part of the reason for all the issues with these crypto currencies is the crazy knowledge barrier to get involved with them. This stuff is like Mandarin for 95% of the population.

So are the tethers accepted anywhere else in exchange for other crypto or a cash payout? Also how has no one noticed yet that they aren't getting USD back?

I think they are only listed on the one exchange. And the reason people haven't noticed is because they get an error when they try to withdraw from their accounts, but there are often problems in the process so not enough people have said anything for other to realize the same thing happened to them.

 

[Legacy]

One Bitcoin Transaction Now Uses as Much Energy as Your House in a Week (Motherboard)

An index from cryptocurrency analyst Alex de Vries, aka Digiconomist, estimates that with prices the way they are now, it would be profitable for Bitcoin miners to burn through over 24 terawatt-hours of electricity annually as they compete to solve increasingly difficult cryptographic puzzles to "mine" more Bitcoins. That's about as much as Nigeria, a country of 186 million people, uses in a year.


This averages out to a shocking 215 kilowatt-hours (KWh) of juice used by miners for each Bitcoin transaction (there are currently about 300,000 transactions per day). Since the average American household consumes 901 KWh per month, each Bitcoin transfer represents enough energy to run a comfortable house, and everything in it, for nearly a week. On a larger scale, De Vries' index shows that bitcoin miners worldwide could be using enough electricity to at any given time to power about 2.26 million American homes.

Bitcoin: Massive fossil fuel use required for cryptocurrency's generation is industry's dirty secret

China's server farms use up to 25,000 computers to encrypt calculations - each run on electricity powered by fuels like coal that produce most pollution

Eight 100-metre-long metal warehouses in northern China are a case in point. Bitmain Technologies runs a server farm in Erdors, Inner Mongolia, with about 25,000 computers dedicated to solving the encrypted calculations that generate each bitcoin. The entire operation runs on electricity produced with coal, as do a growing number of cryptocurrency “mines” popping up in China.

The global industry’s power use already may equal 3 million US homes, topping the individual consumption of 159 countries, according to the Digiconomist Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index. As more bitcoin is created, the difficulty rate of token-generating calculations increases, as does the need for electricity.

From Bloomberg:

 

[IrishinTN]

My son and I have been mining ethereum since June. We started with three vid cards and now have 6 superclocked to mine .75 per month. My electric bill went up about $40 A month, so after initial startup, with the way we are mining (and may add a second rig soon) we seem to be making money fine.

Ethereum is backed and accepted by the banks, so I felt better about it all along. And we can cash out for usd through our coin wallet any time. We do not have or mine bitcoin, but a friend of mine got in day one at $10 each. I'm thinking he'll sell soon and make a small fortune.

 

[IrishLax]

My son and I have been mining ethereum since June. We started with three vid cards and now have 6 superclocked to mine .75 per month. My electric bill went up about $40 A month, so after initial startup, with the way we are mining (and may add a second rig soon) we seem to be making money fine.

Ethereum is backed and accepted by the banks, so I felt better about it all along. And we can cash out for usd through our coin wallet any time. We do not have or mine bitcoin, but a friend of mine got in day one at $10 each. I'm thinking he'll sell soon and make a small fortune.

Well done!

 

[Sherm Sticky]

My son and I have been mining ethereum since June. We started with three vid cards and now have 6 superclocked to mine .75 per month. My electric bill went up about $40 A month, so after initial startup, with the way we are mining (and may add a second rig soon) we seem to be making money fine.

Ethereum is backed and accepted by the banks, so I felt better about it all along. And we can cash out for usd through our coin wallet any time. We do not have or mine bitcoin, but a friend of mine got in day one at $10 each. I'm thinking he'll sell soon and make a small fortune.

Increase of $40 for electric a month is nothing, well worth it to get .75 ether coin, which 1 eth is nearly $700.

Ether and monero are the future. I wish I had the space and capitol to start my own rig for ether, monero, litecoin, etc.

Or capitol to invest in a substantial amount of ether and or monero.

Awesome work by you and your son. Good luck going forward.


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[IrishLax]

https://gizmodo.com/bitcoin-falls-below-10-000-1822134754

 

[wizards8507]

+1

Sell it. Sell it all. Sell it now.

^ Wizstradamus

 

[phgreek]

https://gizmodo.com/bitcoin-falls-below-10-000-1822134754

...No idea how to put a value on this shit.

I do believe it demonstrated the merit of Blockchain tech....

Also believe with continued investment in blockchain tech...Bitcoin becomes more mainstream as it is the big boy in the crypto currency space....

Would I buy a bunch...nope. I'd hold a couple if I had 20k burning a hole in my pocket,.

 

[GATTACA!]

...No idea how to put a value on this shit.

I do believe it demonstrated the merit of Blockchain tech....

Also believe with continued investment in blockchain tech...Bitcoin becomes more mainstream as it is the big boy in the crypto currency space....

Would I buy a bunch...nope. I'd hold a couple if I had 20k burning a hole in my pocket,.

2 to be exact.

 

[calvegas04]

I guess bitcoin has lows every January for the past 4 or 5 years then it shoots up in the summer. Mark Cuban just announced he is taking bitcoin purchases and he endorsed another coin

 

[IrishLax]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...elow-8-500-as-cryptocurrency-misery-continues

I hope all of you that were in got out while you could. Plunged as low as $7600 today.

 

[RDU Irish]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...elow-8-500-as-cryptocurrency-misery-continues

I hope all of you that were in got out while you could. Plunged as low as $7600 today.

If you hate your money - you should view this as a buying opportunity.

 

[Ndaccountant]

How much will this impact credit cards?

About 18 percent of bitcoin investors used a credit card to fund purchases of the cryptocurrency, according to a LendEDU survey of 672 active investors conducted in December. Of those, 22 percent could not pay off their balance after buying the digital coin.

........

Nearly 90 percent of those surveyed who said they hadn’t paid off their credit card bill said that they plan on doing so using money generated from selling their bitcoin.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...rn-to-credit-cards-as-fomo-breeds-risk-taking

 

[Veritate Duce Progredi]

How much will this impact credit cards?



https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...rn-to-credit-cards-as-fomo-breeds-risk-taking

This makes me legitimately sad for people. Either due to their intellect or poor decision making (or both).

 

[IrishLax]

How much will this impact credit cards?

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...rn-to-credit-cards-as-fomo-breeds-risk-taking

Oh my god....

This makes me legitimately sad for people. Either due to their intellect or poor decision making (or both).

Yeah, seriously.

 

[Sherm Sticky]

You know what the price of bitcoin was a year ago this time?About $2k. So I think investors who understand the technology are fine financially.

It’s all the morons in November and December who bought because they heard in the news for the first time what a bitcoin is are the ones who are screwed now.

Saying all this Lax...time to invest again as the correction is taking place and the price will rise.


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[Sherm Sticky]

Also I want you all to checkout what DigixDAO is doing. Wish I invested in it. And wish I had the money to purchase right now. Lol damn bills


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[Meatloaf]

Anyone buy stuff in the crash? Got some XRP at $.64, already up to .925.

 

[Veritate Duce Progredi]

Anyone buy stuff in the crash? Got some XRP at $.64, already up to .925.

To which crash are you referring?

I was hoping you'd respond because I was going to point out we hadn't seen a "crash" yet. We are beginning to see a market readjustment and we'll see how strong crypto really is. It's been feasting on the bull market energy, time to see how people play the crypto game when the bears waken from hibernation.

 

[Veritate Duce Progredi]

I was hoping you'd respond because I was going to point out we hadn't seen a "crash" yet. We are beginning to see a market readjustment and we'll see how strong crypto really is. It's been feasting on the bull market energy, time to see how people play the crypto game when the bears waken from hibernation.

 

[Meatloaf]

I was hoping you'd respond because I was going to point out we hadn't seen a "crash" yet. We are beginning to see a market readjustment and we'll see how strong crypto really is. It's been feasting on the bull market energy, time to see how people play the crypto game when the bears waken from hibernation.

Just got around to reading this. I referred to it as a crash because ripple was down well over 80% from it's peak of $3.75 on Jan 4th when I bought more last week. Losing that much value in month certainly constitutes a crash to me. It could stabilize, it could keep falling through the floor. The inherent risk of crypto is that it's not a traditional investment vehicle and is extremely volatile. In many ways, it is gambling, so I don't "invest" more than I'm comfortable losing.

 

[IrishLax]

Just got around to reading this. I referred to it as a crash because ripple was down well over 80% from it's peak of $3.75 on Jan 4th when I bought more last week. Losing that much value in month certainly constitutes a crash to me. It could stabilize, it could keep falling through the floor. The inherent risk of crypto is that it's not a traditional investment vehicle and is extremely volatile. In many ways, it is gambling, so I don't "invest" more than I'm comfortable losing.

Yes, it's literally gambling. As long as people understand that I wish everyone the best and hope they make as much money as possible.

 

[Veritate Duce Progredi]

Just got around to reading this. I referred to it as a crash because ripple was down well over 80% from it's peak of $3.75 on Jan 4th when I bought more last week. Losing that much value in month certainly constitutes a crash to me. It could stabilize, it could keep falling through the floor. The inherent risk of crypto is that it's not a traditional investment vehicle and is extremely volatile. In many ways, it is gambling, so I don't "invest" more than I'm comfortable losing.

Good, happy to hear it. With such a low value, it's easy to throw a little discretionary income and track it for fun. Glad that's the route you've gone. I do the same with some stocks because it's fun to have a little skin in the game.

The rest I put in Vanguard funds and rest easy. Although I really should've sold some funds and increased my bond holdings. I was tempted multiples times in the past month to do just that but I'm still relatively young so I'm okay with the pendulum swings.

 

[calvegas04]

Yes, it's literally gambling. As long as people understand that I wish everyone the best and hope they make as much money as possible.

All investments is gambling

 

[GoldenToTheGrave]

Yes, it's literally gambling. As long as people understand that I wish everyone the best and hope they make as much money as possible.

I prefer the term speculating but whatever.

All investments is gambling

As I was saying to Lax, the difference between an "investment" and "speculation" is that an investment's value is based on it's ability to produce a return, be it financial (bonds, etc), or physical (machinery, farmland, etc).

The value of a speculative position is entirely based off of perceived scarcity. That can be in gold, cryptocurrency, or (arguably) real estate. There's nothing inherently wrong with speculation and it gets a bad rep to a certain degree, but it is distinct from investing.

 

[Ndaccountant]

All investments is gambling

Maybe, but gambling on different things.

Bitcoin is a "commodity" in that anyone could literally produce it. Sure, diminishing returns apply so the ability for Joe Smith to wake up one day and efficiently mine is long gone. But Bitcoin doesn't have that tangible and intrinsic value that metals, grains, and other traditional commodities posses. Bitcoin obviously has scarcity, but beyond that, there is what? I get the technology and yada yada yada. But when push comes to shove, you need derivable value. The only thing I can come up with is the cost to mine it. But that isn't very comforting nor easy to value.

At some point, there is a risk that those who can mine successfully will be incredibly consolidated, potentially to the point that one group (or say, government) could control what the "value" is. From a commodity standpoint, that doesn't exist today. Sure, some places may have more of a physical commodity, but the value of the commodity is based on how it is used and the value of those goods. Bitcoin....not so much.

 

[Veritate Duce Progredi]

All investments is gambling

Diagree. Both with the statement and it's construct (pluralz iz not güd).

I suppose some people really believe putting money anywhere other than inside a mattress is gambling.

 

[Wild Bill]

Maybe, but gambling on different things.

Bitcoin is a "commodity" in that anyone could literally produce it. Sure, diminishing returns apply so the ability for Joe Smith to wake up one day and efficiently mine is long gone. But Bitcoin doesn't have that tangible and intrinsic value that metals, grains, and other traditional commodities posses. Bitcoin obviously has scarcity, but beyond that, there is what? I get the technology and yada yada yada. But when push comes to shove, you need derivable value. The only thing I can come up with is the cost to mine it. But that isn't very comforting nor easy to value.

At some point, there is a risk that those who can mine successfully will be incredibly consolidated, potentially to the point that one group (or say, government) could control what the "value" is. From a commodity standpoint, that doesn't exist today. Sure, some places may have more of a physical commodity, but the value of the commodity is based on how it is used and the value of those goods. Bitcoin....not so much.

The intrinsic value of a crypto-currency, as I see it, is its potential ability to facilitate transactions, particularly in nations with unstable currencies. If, somehow, bitcoin or some other crypto establishes itself as stable, it gives people some protection against the unstable currency of their own nation. Currently, these people are just shut out (to some extent) of the markets unless they can find a way to get their hands on the US dollar. Crypto could give these people another option so they're not as dependent on the limited circulation of a foreign state's currency.

The demand for access to markets is too great for me to believe one of these cryptos will not emerge as a long term, stable option. Which one and how exactly it'll be accomplished is beyond me.

 

[Ndaccountant]

The intrinsic value of a crypto-currency, as I see it, is its potential ability to facilitate transactions, particularly in nations with unstable currencies. If, somehow, bitcoin or some other crypto establishes itself as stable, it gives people some protection against the unstable currency of their own nation. Currently, these people are just shut out (to some extent) of the markets unless they can find a way to get their hands on the US dollar. Crypto could give these people another option so they're not as dependent on the limited circulation of a foreign state's currency.

The demand for access to markets is too great for me to believe one of these cryptos will not emerge as a long term, stable option. Which one and how exactly it'll be accomplished is beyond me.

I hear ya, but I personally have a hard time taking that thought and connecting the dots on how that impacts the commoner. Take the Lira, for example. Turkey average household income is somewhere around $3k per year. How is that person, worried about the wild change in the Lira with geopolitical uncertainty, going to be able to not only gain access to Bitcoin (or others), but to transact for daily items? It's a great idea, but I just struggle with the practicality.

 

[Wild Bill]

I hear ya, but I personally have a hard time taking that thought and connecting the dots on how that impacts the commoner. Take the Lira, for example. Turkey average household income is somewhere around $3k per year. How is that person, worried about the wild change in the Lira with geopolitical uncertainty, going to be able to not only gain access to Bitcoin (or others), but to transact for daily items? It's a great idea, but I just struggle with the practicality.

Completely agree. I have a hard time wrapping my mind around how one would make it work. Global corporations, especially tech companies, will have to play a role. Thirty years ago, you would have been laughed at if you predicted every American citizen, even those living in abject poverty, would be walking around with wireless, miniature computers in their pocket. Here we are. Admittedly, it's a far greater task getting this done on an international level, but if it's one thing I know, they'll do anything within their power, and they have a lot of it, to peddle their products the masses.

Connectivity solves the problem of practicality. It's just unclear if and how the masses are connected.