Cryptocurrency miners are renting Boeing 747s to ship graphics cards

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jul 31, 2017, 9:08 AM UTC

taw55 wrote: post #98

LeoPanthera wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to assume that mining is the point of a cryptocurrency, and I don't think it is. Even Satoshi, when he was still around, predicted that mining would eventually be out of reach of the normal user. But you can still "take part" by using it for what it actually is - a currency.

The big problem with cryptocurrencies is that they're really not currencies... I don't know anyone who would want to use BC for anything other than speculation. Speculation that undermines the stability of the currency, which isn't conducive to use as currency. There are proper cryptocurrencies that don't require mining but they don't seem to get nearly as much attention.

Post by isoprophlex » Mon, Jul 31, 2017, 9:35 AM UTC

chx wrote: post #19

This just sounds grandiose but really, renting a 747-400F is not such a big deal. This http://www.opshots.net/2015/04/aircraft-operating-series-air... article gives a figure of 24-27000 USD an hour. You need it how long? Ten hours? Twelve? Using a random card Amazon gives us a box size of 13.4 x 9.5 x 3.1 about 400 cubic inches. Say http://www.cargolux.com/our-expertise/cargo-equipment/aircra... we have 21 347 ft^3 t…

Post by patrickg_zill » Mon, Jul 31, 2017, 9:38 AM UTC

quickthrower2 wrote: post #89

fnovd wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What good are your altcoins when the developers/miners give up on the project? A bar of gold is always a bar of gold, no matter what the price of gold is.

A bar of gold is pretty useless though.

Post by lmm » Mon, Jul 31, 2017, 9:51 AM UTC

rothbardrand wrote: post #76

freeflight wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just the electricity, it's major wear and tear on lots of hardware with no real purpose. This get's worse the more different currencies there are and the more people are farming them. While I like the basic idea behind Bitcoin, I really don't like this development of "Let's invent a couple of dozen more of those!". It also shows the ugly face of how what we as human societies actually value. While I haven't…

You say "no real purpose" but what you mean is "a purpose I don't value". That's fine, don't do it. The problem comes when you think that people doing things you don't like is somehow wrong. People have attempted to make scientific computing good for proof of work-- GRIDCoin is an example. But it doesn't work for actually securing the network, due to the nature of how blockchains work. You're free to work or mine or…

Post by kalleboo » Mon, Jul 31, 2017, 10:35 AM UTC

freeflight wrote: post #54

Thriptic wrote: post #20

I'm consistently surprised at how tepid AMD's embrace of mining has been. If I was them and noticed that my product was literally sold out everywhere because of mining, I would embrace it, open a mining division, and immediately get to work trying to create specialized hardware optimized for mining. The fact that they seem to be pretending that this use case does not exist and stubbornly declare themselves to be excl…

I think AMD's problem is manufacturing capacities. They can't even properly fulfill the current demand of gamers and miners, you want them to start a completely new line specialized just on miners? Where are they supposed to manufacture these chips? It would also be wasted effort on AMD's part as the cards are selling like crazy anyway and once the cryptoboom stops there's still plenty of gamers left to buy them.