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Bitcoin backlash as ‘miners’ stress power grids in Central Washington

seattletimes.com

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Re: Bitcoin backlash as ‘miners’ stress power grids in Central Washington

#231

Post by Sir_Substance »

stordoff wrote: post #218
Sir_Substance wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If the seller doesn't know, it doesn't count as Bitcoin usage — just another Visa transaction. You've got some strong arms on you my friend, moving those goal posts so far so fast. I pay with bitcoin. Stuff arrives in the mail. I am using bitcoin.

If I sell some gold, then use the proceeds to buy from Amazon, I haven't bought anything with gold from Amazon. Yes, you are using Bitcoin, but not to buy from Amazon--it's just another layer on top, it's just another (largely unnecessary) transaction in addition to the existing transaction.

A reminder to yourself and acdha, the original assertion was:

>Cryptocurrencies have been around for 9+ years, and there has been literally 0 use for it apart from conning rubes on the internet.

So...

>Yes, you are using Bitcoin

Yes, I am. I don't understand why you two are so angrily and bitterly agreeing with me.

Re: Bitcoin backlash as ‘miners’ stress power grids in Central Washington

#232

Post by pmorici »

detuur wrote: post #213
pmorici wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The majority of the demand is almost certainly from industrial sized operations in warehouses and not rouge miners overloading residential electrical circuits.

I'd say that's baseless speculation, considering the amount of people who treat bitcoin mining as a grow-op. Sure, the industrial operations are the ones getting articles and showcases and blog posts, but at the same time I've seen plenty of news articles of police busting some kid for scamming/drug charges and catching him with 100 gpus in his room.

More like basic math and direct experience. My business sells power supplies to this industry. Say the average home or apartment has 200 Amp electrical service (24 Kilowatts). A typical miner takes about 12 Amps meaning you can run about 16 units maximum on home electric service. 16 units isn't really enough to reach the scale you would need to be long term profitable in the industry. That isn't to say there aren't a few fools who don't realize that and are running a small scale operation out of an apartment but this article is citing requests for _Megawatts_ of demand from single customers. That is unquestionably industrial scale.

Anecdotally i've shipped a ton of equipment to Wenatchee and every operation I've done business with has been in an industrial warehouse.

Re: Bitcoin backlash as ‘miners’ stress power grids in Central Washington

#233

Post by syshum »

briandear wrote: post #84
syshum wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, In America we still have freedom... ;) So no the government will not regulate if I have 42U rack (like do right now behind me as a Homelab no mining) Getting more power to your place is between the power company and property owner not the government, I can get as much power feeds as the power company will sell me, and generally they will only ask question related to saftey. Want 400amp service to your Garage, no…

Why is this being downvoted? Are there people on HN that actually think the government should tell people what they can do in the privacy of their own home? What a bunch of totalitarians. Perhaps the government should be able to dictate who people can sleep with or what media they are allowed to consume. Why are there so many people comfortable with letting governments dictate freedoms when those freedoms aren’t harm…

>>Why is this being downvoted? Are there people on HN that actually think the government

Yes, HN has a long history of being Authoritarian. Libertarian views are not welcome here.

Re: Bitcoin backlash as ‘miners’ stress power grids in Central Washington

#234

Post by syshum »

stordoff wrote: post #116
briandear wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is this being downvoted? Are there people on HN that actually think the government should tell people what they can do in the privacy of their own home? What a bunch of totalitarians. Perhaps the government should be able to dictate who people can sleep with or what media they are allowed to consume. Why are there so many people comfortable with letting governments dictate freedoms when those freedoms aren’t harm…

It being "in the privacy of their own home" isn't sufficient to say that the government shouldn't regulate it -- there are good reasons for certain activities to be regulated (that's not to say the government should be able to regulate ALL activities). I can run a sewage treatment plant next door to you in the privacy of my own home, but I doubt you'd be happy with it, and the same is true here--there are externaliti…

>>I can run a sewage treatment plant next door to you in the privacy of my own home,

Aside from this hyperbolic statement being completely unfeasible and moronic on its face, provided there is not clear, articulable danger to my person or my propery you should be allowed to do anything you want on your property, including running BitCoin Miners.

if you cross into posing a direct and articulable danger to others then that can be address on a case by case basis, but the comments I was responding to were going on about "commercial use of property" and how they could not believe in the US a person was allowed to run any mining equipment in a residential home. No where did any the commenters I was replying to stated any articulable dangers they were concerned with.

Let me as you this, do you support zoning regulation on this like color of the home, if you have a garden on your front yard, the type and height of grass (or mandates that you have grass) etc etc etc etc

Re: Bitcoin backlash as ‘miners’ stress power grids in Central Washington

#235

Post by dahdum »

mark_edward wrote: post #228
dahdum wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are going to forego energy neutrality, why stop with the bitcoin miners? Could they charge controversial businesses like adult entertainment more as well? Since they sell excess above local prices, all local usage drives up local prices.

Energy neutrality? Every utility has differential industrial and residential and commercial pricing, and energy discounts are super common for localities to lure development. China is the extreme end, where some places actually get free power, but even here there's all kinds of discounts our special rates. What do you think Amazon is trying to get cities to grovel for? Special tax discounts, energy rates, whatever th…

As far as I know differential pricing is based on classes like industrial vs commercial and applied fairly. Incentives for development are super common of course, and controversial in themselves.

This would be different though, targeting a business to pay more than other commercial enterprises. That's a targeted disincentive, and if not structured generically and applied fairly it's bad policy. Seems hardly different than Comcast deliberately slowing Netflix down, not to extract revenue, but to put them out of business.

Re: Bitcoin backlash as ‘miners’ stress power grids in Central Washington

#236

Post by hourislate »

andirk wrote: post #132
hourislate wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I don't know where to begin with this Bitcoin crap; it's gotten crazy that so many naive people are into this plopping their hard-earned money into a well-functioning sinkhole. George Soros said it best, " All of financial history is one lie and deceit after another, your job as a speculator is to get on the lie while it is being propagated and get off before everyone finds out". I feel like a lot of folks are going…

Is there a basis to this claim that Bitcoin is a lie?

Is there a basis to the claim that it isn't? At this time it's anyone's guess. Bill Gates and Warren Buffet along with a handful of others seem to think it is, who am I to disagree with them. I'm indifferent since I don't have a dog in the fight.

Re: Bitcoin backlash as ‘miners’ stress power grids in Central Washington

#237

Post by casefields »

dvlsg wrote: post #97
mindfulplay wrote: post #33

It's hard to explain the levels of stupidity in this. - people trading 'coins' in the same way Pokemon / WWF kids trade cards. - thinking this is actually a long-term 'investment' strategy (well its idiots trading with each other ...) - to top it off, siphoning off electricity and giving a load of shitty excuses 'it could be like Seattle's. I don't know where to begin with this Bitcoin crap; it's gotten crazy that so…

I find myself hoping it implodes sooner rather than later. Purely selfish on my part - but I would like to be able to buy a new graphics card some day. I'm already dreading the insane scramble when Nvidia announces their new cards (likely this summer).

Such a crab mentality. Yikes.

Re: Bitcoin backlash as ‘miners’ stress power grids in Central Washington

#238

Post by casefields »

UncleMeat wrote: post #193
josu wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment applies to any revolutionary technology. Let's substitute cryptocurrencies with "the internet" in 1999: - people trading 'stocks' in the same way Pokemon / WWF kids trade cards. - thinking this is actually a long-term 'investment' strategy (well its idiots trading with each other ...) - to top it off, siphoning off capital and giving a load of shitty excuses 'it could be like Detroit at the beginning of…

But people aren't telling me to invest in btc companies. They are telling me to invest in btc. That is fundamentally different.

No ones forcing you to do anything.

Re: Bitcoin backlash as ‘miners’ stress power grids in Central Washington

#239

Post by casefields »

slivym wrote: post #68
mondoshawan wrote: post #35

I don't quite understand something: why are the terms "unpermitted", "unauthorized", and "bootleg" used in the article? When I signed up with Seattle Public Utilities, I didn't sign an agreement saying I wouldn't mine or run servers out of my apartment.

Running industrial equipment off your local residential power grid is both against the terms and conditions of every power company under the sun and also incredibly stupid to do.

A few asics is not industrial equipment. Oh please.

Re: Bitcoin backlash as ‘miners’ stress power grids in Central Washington

#240

Post by casefields »

hapnin wrote: post #31

Miners could organize and generate some goodwill by offering to pay more for their power use. So that'll never happen.

Warren Buffet and other billionaires love to complain that they pay too little in taxes. They could band together and give the IRS more revenue yet they don't. If billionaires won't do the right thing, why the hell do you think small town Joe Schmoe should?
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