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Cryptocurrency miners are renting Boeing 747s to ship graphics cards

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Re: Cryptocurrency miners are renting Boeing 747s to ship graphics cards

#151

Post by Shorel »

throw2016 wrote: post #138
KGIII wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know that trees are pretty much the definition of a renewable resource, right? As in, I have a large sustainable forestry operation and they are cutting trees down as I type this. I own it, I don't do the work. That wood builds your house, provides heat, provides jobs, makes dowels, and makes paper - depending on what is harvested. And, it will be able to do so in perpetuity. The process is called TSI and is even…

The value of wood derives from utility. You can see and understand the utility of wood and yet do not see the absurdity of cutting down trees and burning them as 'proof of work' for zero utility simply because 'you' want to use it as a medium of exchange and speculation? This is what current crypto currencies are doing. How long before people notice you are wasting wood for no purpose and put a stop to your activitie…

The value of trees is much higher than the commercial value of their wood.

Re: Cryptocurrency miners are renting Boeing 747s to ship graphics cards

#152

Post by placeybordeaux »

fnovd wrote: post #35
placeybordeaux wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is even worse than Gold because you can't just hold when market crash. Could you elaborate?

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 always a bar of gold, no matter what the price of gold is.

A cryptotoken is still a cryptotoken as long as the network is propagating tx & blocks. The whole point of them is that they continue to function regardless of if the "developer" is around.

Re: Cryptocurrency miners are renting Boeing 747s to ship graphics cards

#153

Post by freeflight »

TheCondor wrote: post #125
freeflight wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem comes when you think that people doing things you don't like is somehow wrong. I should have clarified that more: As I said before I have no issue with the basic concept behind cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin is a great thing and will hopefully do even greater things in the future. And of course, everybody is to free to do with their time and resources as they please, never suggested otherwise. What I have an…

isnt that just competition? Whats wrong with that?

Competition is not always the best approach, especially for a currency. I'd rather see a unified and simplified monetary system than "cryptocurrency wars" where vast amounts of "wealth" would just suddenly vanish into thin air, as a myriad of different currencies would struggle for relevance.

It's not like we haven't learned these lessons before in the real world, we have, plenty of times. That's why it's so surprising how keen we seem to be on repeating them in a digital format for the sole sake of having yet another speculative vehicle from which we can deduct some imaginary "economic growth".

Re: Cryptocurrency miners are renting Boeing 747s to ship graphics cards

#154

Post by usrusr »

Shorel wrote: post #151
throw2016 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The value of wood derives from utility. You can see and understand the utility of wood and yet do not see the absurdity of cutting down trees and burning them as 'proof of work' for zero utility simply because 'you' want to use it as a medium of exchange and speculation? This is what current crypto currencies are doing. How long before people notice you are wasting wood for no purpose and put a stop to your activitie…

The value of trees is much higher than the commercial value of their wood.

Not when they are cut down and burnt to operate a blockchain that runs on smoke signals.

Re: Cryptocurrency miners are renting Boeing 747s to ship graphics cards

#155

Post by Shorel »

usrusr wrote: post #154
Shorel wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The value of trees is much higher than the commercial value of their wood.

Not when they are cut down and burnt to operate a blockchain that runs on smoke signals.

Yes, it still is.

Externalities* apply here. Global warming is one of them. Increased vulnerability to desertification is another effect.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality

Re: Cryptocurrency miners are renting Boeing 747s to ship graphics cards

#156

Post by quickthrower2 »

sumedh wrote: post #110
quickthrower2 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bar of gold is pretty useless though.

Not in India, we are the largest importers of Gold.

That's a tautological argument though. It's useful because we import it.

Re: Cryptocurrency miners are renting Boeing 747s to ship graphics cards

#157

Post by sumedh »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #156
sumedh wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not in India, we are the largest importers of Gold.

That's a tautological argument though. It's useful because we import it.

No we import it because its useful. Indians think gold is a safe haven because we consider it as an investment and of course most Indian women want to put on gold bling during marriages and festivals.

Re: Cryptocurrency miners are renting Boeing 747s to ship graphics cards

#158

Post by usrusr »

Shorel wrote: post #155
usrusr wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not when they are cut down and burnt to operate a blockchain that runs on smoke signals.

Yes, it still is. Externalities* apply here. Global warming is one of them. Increased vulnerability to desertification is another effect. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality

Maybe I was being too literal: once burned, that value is gone. We agree on the cost of burning.

Re: Cryptocurrency miners are renting Boeing 747s to ship graphics cards

#159

Post by hueving »

pmorici wrote: post #131
hueving wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I don't have any insight into what they are currently up to because that scaling apparently involved hiring a eastern European engineer on the cheap to masquerade as a customer to try and obtain confidential hardware design details from me so he could rip off my product for them. Sounds like an interesting story here. How did you out him/her?

It was pretty transparent, almost comically so. My business makes adapter boards that let large mining operations reuse power supplies from old server equipment to power their mining operations. Each power supply has a different pin-out and way to turn it on and off many are proprietary and don't have publicly available data sheets. I figure out how they work and design an adapter board with the required logic to ope…

Fun, thanks for sharing. The world of cutthroat SHA calculations. :)

Re: Cryptocurrency miners are renting Boeing 747s to ship graphics cards

#160

Post by [deleted] »

pmorici wrote: post #131
hueving wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I don't have any insight into what they are currently up to because that scaling apparently involved hiring a eastern European engineer on the cheap to masquerade as a customer to try and obtain confidential hardware design details from me so he could rip off my product for them. Sounds like an interesting story here. How did you out him/her?

It was pretty transparent, almost comically so. My business makes adapter boards that let large mining operations reuse power supplies from old server equipment to power their mining operations. Each power supply has a different pin-out and way to turn it on and off many are proprietary and don't have publicly available data sheets. I figure out how they work and design an adapter board with the required logic to ope…

[deleted]
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