besty

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Posts by besty

• 
  48

  Bitcoins - anyone here mining?

  by Jim_TX in

  1. social
  2. current

  howdy!.

  it's been a while since i've poked my head in here.... i was just curious if anyone on the forum is involved with bitcoin mining?.

  i am, and am having fun doing it.

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  besty

  @simon - The $20 does change in value - just slowly enough so you don't care, and thats in the West. In the developing world its not always that slow.
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  48

  Bitcoins - anyone here mining?

  by Jim_TX in

  1. social
  2. current

  howdy!.

  it's been a while since i've poked my head in here.... i was just curious if anyone on the forum is involved with bitcoin mining?.

  i am, and am having fun doing it.

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  besty

  @Simon - I agree with you that people need to spend BTC ,not just speculate and hoard. But then you can't also criticize retailers efforts to help them do that, as you did earlier :-) In terms of 'wasted energy' I think people will look back and say - gosh how did we live before the car the Pc the Internet the mobile phone the bitcoin protocol?

  @jwfacts - the Bitcoin protocol electronically and reliably solves an old problem for the first time. "How can two strangers trust each other without a middleman acting as broker?" Paper money solves this problem nicely - we dont need to know each other to exchange a £20 note and we both understand and agree on the value of it. (you could argue the issuing bank acts as a middleman guarantor) Once you can establish trust between unknown people without a middleman all sorts of innovation becomes possible https://bitcoin.org/en/innovation
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  87

  Brett King (Jehovah's Witness) Releases Video of why he removed his ill son, Ashya, from a UK hospital

  by jwleaks in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  .

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14etqn9zpwk .

  jw leaks.

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  besty

  best wishes to the wee lad and his folks - I'm convinced they are doing all they can to ensure he makes it 100%

  SIDEBAR - the situation certainly will feed the anti-establishment paranoia of the rank and file - win-win for the Watchtower - victim child who lives and they are not to blame <this time> = result!
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  48

  Bitcoins - anyone here mining?

  by Jim_TX in

  1. social
  2. current

  howdy!.

  it's been a while since i've poked my head in here.... i was just curious if anyone on the forum is involved with bitcoin mining?.

  i am, and am having fun doing it.

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  2. 
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  besty

  I should say in the table above BTC returns neatly adds up to 100% after 12 months which off course is not the case - it gets to 100% when you turn off the miner.

  Until then you would have a longer and longer row of 9's.

  If you build your own spreadsheet or use the calculator at https://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/calculator you can make a more informed decision based on your hardware, electricity costs etc.
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  16

  KM Online Now

  by konceptual99 in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  even more of what you don't want to read is online.

  the km are now online under wol.

  http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/lv/r1/lp-e/0/20397

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  besty

  Information Control - it might look like slackening control but the reality is its a new rule to remind you who holds the leash and which end you are at :-)
• 
  48

  Bitcoins - anyone here mining?

  by Jim_TX in

  1. social
  2. current

  howdy!.

  it's been a while since i've poked my head in here.... i was just curious if anyone on the forum is involved with bitcoin mining?.

  i am, and am having fun doing it.

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  2. 
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  besty

  One of the basic concepts with mining is 'difficulty' - this is an adjusting factor set by the algorithm every 2 weeks to ensure that an even number of bitcoins are mined every 2 weeks irrespective of how much computing power exists in the ecosystem.

  This creates an arms race where more and more compute power is deployed until it becomes uneconomical except at scale or with new generation chip designs. (sidepoint - 22nm is the current generation of chips commonly available from Intel etc except certain BTC ASICs are shipping with 20nm chips - to Simon's point of 'doing something more useful' :)

  below is an example of how difficulty can bite the miner hard. After 10 weeks at 15% difficulty a 1TH miner will have earned over 50% of what it is ever going to earn, ever. After 6 months it is at 83.5% etc. Diminshing returns and the cost of electricity will determine when you turn it off.

  Difficulty	15%
  GH	2 week period	GH to earn 0.1BTC per day	BTC earned	Running Total BTC	% of total
  1000	1	7000.00	0.20	0.20	13.4%
  1000	2	8050.00	0.17	0.37	25.0%
  1000	3	9257.50	0.15	0.53	35.2%
  1000	4	10646.13	0.13	0.66	44.0%
  1000	5	12243.04	0.11	0.77	51.6%
  1000	6	14079.50	0.10	0.87	58.3%
  1000	7	16191.43	0.09	0.96	64.1%
  1000	8	18620.14	0.08	1.03	69.1%
  1000	9	21413.16	0.07	1.10	73.5%
  1000	10	24625.13	0.06	1.15	77.3%
  1000	11	28318.90	0.05	1.20	80.6%
  1000	12	32566.74	0.04	1.25	83.5%
  1000	13	37451.75	0.04	1.28	86.0%
  1000	14	43069.51	0.03	1.32	88.2%
  1000	15	49529.94	0.03	1.34	90.1%
  1000	16	56959.43	0.02	1.37	91.7%
  1000	17	65503.35	0.02	1.39	93.2%
  1000	18	75328.85	0.02	1.41	94.4%
  1000	19	86628.18	0.02	1.43	95.5%
  1000	20	99622.40	0.01	1.44	96.4%
  1000	21	114565.76	0.01	1.45	97.3%
  1000	22	131750.63	0.01	1.46	98.0%
  1000	23	151513.22	0.01	1.47	98.6%
  1000	24	174240.20	0.01	1.48	99.1%
  1000	25	200376.23	0.01	1.49	99.6%
  1000	26	230432.67	0.01	1.49	100.0%
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  48

  Bitcoins - anyone here mining?

  by Jim_TX in

  1. social
  2. current

  howdy!.

  it's been a while since i've poked my head in here.... i was just curious if anyone on the forum is involved with bitcoin mining?.

  i am, and am having fun doing it.

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  besty

  my thoughts on a couple of Simons points: (my main request is that people recognize that BTC is more than a currency and stop defining it in their heads in those terms)

  1 - "its a waste of electricity which is harmful to the environment and could be doing something more useful instead"

  I agree that clean power for the Internet is important. Greenpeace has rightly begun holding large companies feet to the fire on this issue. http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/Global/usa/planet3/PDFs/clickingclean.pdf Facebook seem to be in the lead on this, followed by Google and Apple. In the same way that fossil companies should not be allowed to sell their products with no regard for dumping waste byproducts into the atmosphere, Internet companies should not be free to consume dirty electrical power to the detriment of society at large. The company I am involved with is committed to 100% hydro energy and free air cooling for maximum efficiency - thats why we have built our Bitcoin mine near the Arctic Circle.

  Who gets to decide what future technologies may be useful? Nobody really knows how digital currency is going to turn out. History has plenty of examples (eg the car, the PC, the Internet) which were derided as being only for geeks with no clear benefits for the rest of us.

  2 - "nobody uses e-wallets"

  http://www.coindesk.com/blockchain-passes-2-million-bitcoin-wallets/ 3 companies are claiming over 4m wallets between them. Yes we are in early adopter phase and yes the technology has to become much more seamless. Its not a reason to write it off though. You could have made the same argument about P2P downloads of music files a few years back. (Install Kazaa, find and setup your downloads from multiple peers, wait, save file to PC, transfer to MP3 player..etc - now we watch HD 5.1 content via Netflix on our TV's as easily as watching terrestial TV, but it had to start somewhere) Typically the technology to do cool stuff is really around for years before mass market adoption - it takes investment from large companies and/or VC's to get the ball rolling and that exists for Bitcoin today. Marc Andressen is a prime example http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/05/21/marc-andreessen-in-20-years-well-talk-about-bitcoin-like-we-talk-about-the-internet-today/

  3 - "large retailers are only doing it for show"

  Speculation m'lud :-) the large retailers I deal with have no time for show for its own sake. they are intimately concerned with profitability and consumer experience. Some of that experience may be theatrical in nature and yes - some companies do want to appear to be on the cutting edge. Show for shows sake - not in my experience. The Bitcoin halo effect is well reported on where retailers accepting BTC gain new customers who spend more on average. Sensible retailers will both want to offer consumer choice and keep track of potentially significant trends. I don't see a downside to either of those early-stage objectives.

  4 - "low cost transaction fees aren't low cost at all, and anyway credit cards can offer a better deal if they are forced to"

  If all that BTC achieves is making payment processors offer a better deal then OK no harm done :-) this statement also recognises the rip-off that has been taking place for years. Western Union and Moneygram are charging ~15-20% to allow migrant workers to send money home in the fiat ->WU -> fiat process. If BTC custs those fees in half or more we will have achieved plenty. I agree that the transaction fee-less concept needs mass adoption and for people to start living (at least partly) in a BTC economy. There is not much point in transferring small amounts of fiat into BTC and back again. But today, in practice not theory, I can transfer 0.00000001BTC or 10,000BTC without significant fees to any other BTC wallet in the world.

  *Makes note to check back in 5 years.
• 
  48

  Bitcoins - anyone here mining?

  by Jim_TX in

  1. social
  2. current

  howdy!.

  it's been a while since i've poked my head in here.... i was just curious if anyone on the forum is involved with bitcoin mining?.

  i am, and am having fun doing it.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  besty

  Cointerra along with KnC and other hardware manufacturers seem to have decided to stop selling ASICs and simply run their own mining operations and sell mining capacity as a service - cloud mining. (as well as stockpiling coins of course)

  So in the link posted above the Cointerra box available for immediate delivery has been running in their own datacentre and they are now selling 'as seen' as its end of life for them personally. You decide :-)
• 
  48

  Bitcoins - anyone here mining?

  by Jim_TX in

  1. social
  2. current

  howdy!.

  it's been a while since i've poked my head in here.... i was just curious if anyone on the forum is involved with bitcoin mining?.

  i am, and am having fun doing it.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  besty

  The consensus seems to be that hobbyist mining for short term profit is over unless you have access to very cheap electricity. Of course playing with trainsets doesn't neccessarily make financial sense either, and as a way to learn about digital currency mining is a great start.

  For example https://cointerra.com/product/terraminer-iv-used-bitcoin-miners/ offers a 1.6TH/s machine for $1500 and its probably going to cost $200 per month in electricity minimum. You can model some scenarios here https://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/calculator but its difficult to see how this can make money unless BTC rises in price or difficulty turns flat or negative.

  If you are bullish on BTC then maybe simply buying some and using it to make purchases is a good start.
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  48

  Bitcoins - anyone here mining?

  by Jim_TX in

  1. social
  2. current

  howdy!.

  it's been a while since i've poked my head in here.... i was just curious if anyone on the forum is involved with bitcoin mining?.

  i am, and am having fun doing it.

  1. 
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  besty

  what equipment are you running Jim_TX