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How does that justify such profligate use of energy to imagine them?
that's just proof of work, there are other consensus algorithms out there.
With blockchain based currencies off the top of my head you don't need:
You mean you have a working implementation which scales properly for billions of users?
Nope, didn't think so.
Blockchain is an interesting technology but the energy intensive mining for bitcoin etc is not a good use of it. Secure, distributed ledgers is.
there's the rub - secure. the cost of mining is part of the reason the bitcoin ledger is secure.
I have no clue about this but do have a couple of questions. I'll watch the documentaries listed above later.
Is the income from mining virtually guaranteed for a certain hardware setup until it tapers off?
Secondly, what happens to your blockchain machine(s) once the mining income has tapered off? Do you just switch them off or is there some money to be made by acting as a blockchain machine?
You mean you have a working implementation which scales properly for billions of users?Nope, didn't think so.
yes, let's just critisize and dismiss an embryonic technology...
Technologies like Ethereum offer a lot more possibilities than bitoin, mining speeds are faster for one thing.
This is like criticising early versions of the web as a waste of time, but look what it has turned into now.
People suggest that this is blockchain 1.0, which will probably crash and burn due to crazy expectations and speculation, and then blockchain 2.0 will appear and a new paradigm will begin...
There's been a fair number of instances of games etc being delivered with built in bitcoin mining software, they don't need to cheat to gain access, you actively choose to install the software 🙁
So, its been an interesting bag of responses.
I fully expected some people to either not understand, or feel that it was a waste of resources and money.
I was skeptical, but Amazon, Google, and multiple IT suppliers now accept Bitcoin, so it is a fully 'working' currency.
To explain slightly more I am currently mining for Dash, Ethereum and Sia, but when I am paid out of the 'pool' I am paid in Bitcoin.
And to clear up even more, I will then sit on this Bitcoin for the foreseeable future. I am certain Bitcoin will fall towards the end of the year to around $4000 each, but then after that all reports are showing a slow and steady rise.
If you choose to believe websites such as [url= https://cointelegraph.com/news/keiser-envisions-100000-bitcoin-high ]THIS[/url], [url= https://www.quora.com/How-much-will-1-bitcoin-be-worth-in-2026-27 ]THIS[/url] and [url= https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/investor-predicts-bitcoin-price-to-hit-27k-in-four-months/ ]THIS.[/url] Then investing a few thousand £ now, could well be worth it. My intentions are to re-coup my initial investment, and have the equipment owe me nothing, and then keep the miners earnings from that point as a future investment.
I'm not going to talk £ numbers on here, if anybody wants to know anything in more detail please email me and I can provide a tad more info.
But my ROI on all equiment at the moment looks to be around 60 days. That factors in all electricity costs from actually powering the equipment, and cooling all equipment.
Is the income from mining virtually guaranteed for a certain hardware setup until it tapers off?Secondly, what happens to your blockchain machine(s) once the mining income has tapered off? Do you just switch them off or is there some money to be made by acting as a blockchain machine?
This is an interesting question, the first answer is yes. The exact amount per day is not guarantied, but the income is. To an extent anyway.
There are so many different currencies, that if one of my current choices suddenly starts to become unprofitable, I will start a different variation of the mining script on the same equipment.
I am not looking at this with rose tinted lenses, this could all crash tomorrow. But i am a tiny tiny player, so I am relying on larger multi million pound investors who have much more to loose, being right!
A slightly tangent has been the co-location of mining equipment. I have a couple of parties sending me over equipment to install and run here.
Obviously this based on profit after all electricity and device care is put into place, but I have the facilities to store and run the equipment. So for people who want to buy into the mining concept, but don't want to keep a loud/warm unit at home, I offer the environment for it to run in.
I still haven't had enough details to give a report on the miners income, hopefully after a full weekend running, I should know if it was a good investment!
Lastly, the regards to the environmental aspect.. Really?
Yes, it uses electricity. I am trying to be as conservative as possible, but like it or not, this is a real life currency and something that I believe will become the norm in a few years time.
The comment with regards to high street banks is very valid.
Can I just invent my own and put 10 trillion there
You can invent your own like quite a few have done:
https://coinmarketcap.com/all/views/all/
Handyman - how much did all the kit cost?
My thoughts are if BTC gets to 10,000 that will be a barrier broken and I can see some big investment jumping on board.
chiefgrooveguru - MemberI have no words for what an environmentally ridiculous and appalling thing cryptocurrencies are...
Hey...what's that money in your pocket made from?
Ok. So all a bit Wild West at moment. Over 1300 cryptocurrentcies listed on Mudsharks link. Guess a bunch will crash and burn and we left with something more stable, not just a massive speculation. Still don't get bits, will have to watch the documentaries on it.
Ewan - Member
Handyman - how much did all the kit cost?
I think in total I have spent around £7K
BUT that does 14 extra graphics cards, which got purchased on impulse and will be sold. Leaving my actually investment at around £5.5K
£14/day for £5,500 investment - pretty good work if you can get it and you're prepared for the risk. 3% interest is only £170 odd per year over 3 years.
Murray,
The £14 a day is currently only on the GPU system.
I’m still waiting to find out the return on the ASICS system. The GPU system probably cost around £1300 all together.
I did already have windows COA’s, SSD’s and Ram, so it’s not a ‘true’ cost.
So rather than stealing data the hacker was stealing CPU cycles, very clever, especially if you do this at scale.
There are various examples of people scanning github etc for accidently uploaded credentials for AWS/Azure/other cloudly stuff and then spinning up a shedload of instances to mine away before they get noticed and shutdown. The costs incurred in some cases are pretty scary.
Cryptocurrencies and its variants (such as ethereum smart contracts) are interesting but I think in many cases they wont survive contact with reality for long. As a software developer I am a tad cynical about the faith put into smart contracts etc.
Looks like 10,000 is going to come sooner rather than later.
Anyone who bought early yesterday or Friday is sat on a 10% plus profit.
If anyone wants to spec me a system for around 5k. I could drop a bit of cash your way.
It's needs to be able to edit films too , if that's feasible?
$10,000!
I have no words for what an environmentally ridiculous and appalling thing cryptocurrencies are...
The big players that I've seen on mining forums are hooked up to cheap plentiful renewable electricity for obvious reasons - eg the big Chinese ones built right next to hydro dams, solar farms etc. I guess some might be mining with public leccy made in other ways though.
The whole thing is kind of interesting but there's going to be a tipping point at some point especially with so many copycat currencies. Personally I think you'd be mad to invest anything that would expose you to risk if it all goes worthless.
So... don't invest what you're not willing to lose?
However the power is generated this does seem an awful lot of electricity to be using.
[i]At those levels of electricity consumption, each individual bitcoin transaction uses almost 300KWh of electricity – enough to boil around 36,000 kettles full of water. [/i]
[url= https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/27/bitcoin-mining-consumes-electricity-ireland ]https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/27/bitcoin-mining-consumes-electricity-ireland[/url]
Technologies like Ethereum offer a lot more possibilities than bitoin, mining speeds are faster for one thing.
Hmm but the whole point is mining rate is adjusted to control the amount of bitcoins being generated. Ethereum etc. may allow a block to be mined faster but the rewards are less as a result
Isn't that a consequence rather than the point?
Once the cost/benefit ratio stops working people won't bother mining any more and then where will we be?
You'll be a virtual millionaire sitting on a mountain of bitcoin that you can't actually use because there are no machines running to process the transaction?Once the cost/benefit ratio stops working people won't bother mining any more and then where will we be?
Given that there are 1300 cryptocurrencies at the moment I wonder how people decide which ones to provide processing power for - presumably going for the most profitable is sensible.
Whilst I am no expert on Bitcoin, it is a fact that you cannot pick up a newspaper or open a web page or talk to someone without some sort of Bitcoin chat coming up. The level of interest in it is so high that barring a catastrophic event the price will only go up long term, and probably by a great great deal.
@andykirk - I'm old enough to remember Ferranti - lots of people saying buy it just before it went bust. That's the way bubbles work.
I also remember Clinton's new "always growing economy due to the internet" and Brown abolishing recessions.
Whether Bitcoin goes the same way is a different question but I wouldn't take the public noise as a sign that it will keep going up.
Blockchain is definitely an interesting technology and undoubtedly here to stay.
Bitcoin just looks like fevered speculation though, we are into greater fool theory / dutch tulip territory as far as trading goes. Its definitely a bubble. Mining them is not the same as trading them though
See also a certain quote about shoeshine boys giving stock tips in 1929....
My wife asked me about bitcoins last night after hearing about it on Radio 2.
Got me thinking about the greater fool thing as there's a lot of greedy little selfish baby boomers out there with a lump sum just arrived from their pensions, who are very easy to sell things to. Also, there's going to be a lot of PPI type organisations without much to do very shortly... Could this be the perfect greater fool about to fall in the bitcoin investors laps?
The arguments on all sides of this are not mutually exclusive. Bitcoin and other current crypto currency may be in the middle of a big bubble and will burst - but that does not mean that it will not lead to a big market consolidation and one or two currencies emerge. There do seem to be issued of scalability in current model to the levels needed to process the trillions of transactions handled by normal currency (iro processing grunt and power consumption) maybe 2.0 will advance that.
We've seen tech bubbles before, and market does consolidate to a few, very big, winners.
But ultimately bitcoin needs to create a fundamental want, meet a fundamental need or correct a fundamental flaw in the current sovereign currency world - and that is the case yet to be made I think
Interesting [url= https://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/policy/the-ridiculous-amount-of-energy-it-takes-to-run-bitcoin ]paper[/url] on blockchain from the IEEE. Two alteratives to Bitcoin's proof-of-work are mentioned - proof-of-time and proof-of-useful-work.
Anyone bought a crypto kittie yet?
So I just stumbled across this little nugget of joy:
I find this quite disturbingthe Bitcoin network is consuming power at an annual rate of 32TWh—about as much as Denmark.
Bitcoin prices seem to have gone ballistic over the last 24hrs - imminent crash, or just a blip? I guess that's the question.
I find this quite disturbing
Its problematic.
The big miners are based in just a handful of locations (mostly in China but think one in USA) where there is cheap power. Think is most hydroelectric but its certainly is a problem long term.
Bitcoin prices seem to have gone ballistic over the last 24hrs - imminent crash, or just a blip? I guess that's the question.
While there's demand it will just keep increasing.
A correction could be overdue but who knows.
It's the exchanges & wallets, not bitcoin that I don't trust...
@Stevet1 I don't think anyone knows. I lumped some speculative money in 5 weeks ago, and have made a 75% return. Bitcoin and Litecoin were tracking to same patterns, but the frenzy in Bitcoin specifically is obvious this week. Up 30% today!
The growth curve is exponential, so it could just be starting, or it might go pop in a minute.
How do you make money from this. its all well and good having numbers in accounts but with out a way to spend it whats the point?
30% today.......
If i'd had the guts to invest my new bike fund a few months back when they were ~£1k and cashed out today i'd now be mortgage free with new bike fund still intact.
Oh well........
tagnut69 - Member
How do you make money from this. its all well and good having numbers in accounts but with out a way to spend it whats the point?
You can't spend shares in Apple or whatever either. You sell them for GBP, or if you're using coinbase, EUR.
You can't spend shares in Apple or whatever either. You sell them for GBP, or if you're using coinbase, EUR.
Don't kid yourself the two are equivalent.
Apple shares are a lot more liquid and stable, they're also not regularly stolen from exchanges with no way to recover them. The market place, they trade in, is also highly regulated, basically very low risk compared to bitcoin.
footflaps - Member
Don't kid yourself the two are equivalent.Apple shares are a lot more liquid and stable, they're also not regularly stolen from exchanges with no way to recover them...
POSTED 55 SECONDS AGO # REPORT-POST
I didn't say or (mean to) imply that they were.