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Bitcoin Bloodbath Nears Dot-Com Levels as Many Tokens Go to Zero

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31–40 of 43 posts

Re: Bitcoin Bloodbath Nears Dot-Com Levels as Many Tokens Go to Zero

#31
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's serious for miners, if I remember correctly - bitcoin is only profitable at ~7000$. But it's quite a bit below that now.

The profitability for Bitcoin production largely depends on power pricing. Here's one country-average based breakdown (from Feb 2018) - you can look at the $6000 down level to see where it's still profitable: https://cointelegraph.com/news/mining-margins-and-where-to-m... You can also use a mining calculator to do a real time spot-check of whether Bitcoin is profitable to mine or not as well (even if you have pretty…

Wow, thanks for the information! With that in mind, it seems that it will be a looong time until the bitcoin craze is over.

Re: Bitcoin Bloodbath Nears Dot-Com Levels as Many Tokens Go to Zero

#33

I have no idea if this will end the madness but I hope it will. Given bitcoin's vast energy consumption, the "production" of bitcoins produces enough pollution to be responsible for a significant number of deaths, amortized. [1] Thus I have zero sympathy with those who may lose money here. [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/shermanlee/2018/04/19/bitcoins-...

What about the number of deaths caused by possibility for governments to finance war efforts via money printing? Most notably both world wars.

Re: Bitcoin Bloodbath Nears Dot-Com Levels as Many Tokens Go to Zero

#34
post #33

I have no idea if this will end the madness but I hope it will. Given bitcoin's vast energy consumption, the "production" of bitcoins produces enough pollution to be responsible for a significant number of deaths, amortized. [1] Thus I have zero sympathy with those who may lose money here. [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/shermanlee/2018/04/19/bitcoins-...

What about the number of deaths caused by possibility for governments to finance war efforts via money printing? Most notably both world wars.

There's no evidence bitcoin serves as any real break again governments printing money or will any time soon.

The US suspended the gold standard to enter WWI. The US suspend bitcoin trading if it somehow did interfere with it's ability to make war.

Re: Bitcoin Bloodbath Nears Dot-Com Levels as Many Tokens Go to Zero

#35
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The profitability for Bitcoin production largely depends on power pricing. Here's one country-average based breakdown (from Feb 2018) - you can look at the $6000 down level to see where it's still profitable: https://cointelegraph.com/news/mining-margins-and-where-to-m... You can also use a mining calculator to do a real time spot-check of whether Bitcoin is profitable to mine or not as well (even if you have pretty…

Wow, thanks for the information! With that in mind, it seems that it will be a looong time until the bitcoin craze is over.

Well, it'll probably be a long time before the "bitcoin craze" is over since cryptocurrencies as a technology and an asset class are still in their infancy, but it's hard to say how long proof-of-work mining will last. Personally, I'm most closely following what the Ethereum guys are doing with proof-of-work (see: https://ethresear.ch/) but I'm also quite keen to see Chia's proof-of-space-time (an iteration of proof-of-capacity) or if something like proof-of-useful-work is possible. I think everyone's in agreement that PoW is expensive and wasteful, it's just a matter of developing//proving something that works better/cheaper...

Re: Bitcoin Bloodbath Nears Dot-Com Levels as Many Tokens Go to Zero

#36
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, thanks for the information! With that in mind, it seems that it will be a looong time until the bitcoin craze is over.

Well, it'll probably be a long time before the "bitcoin craze" is over since cryptocurrencies as a technology and an asset class are still in their infancy, but it's hard to say how long proof-of-work mining will last. Personally, I'm most closely following what the Ethereum guys are doing with proof-of-work (see: https://ethresear.ch/ ) but I'm also quite keen to see Chia's proof-of-space-time (an iteration of proof…

Bitcoin pow is intentionally useless. The reasoning is that if there were alternative uses, the value of those alternatives could fluctuate and negatively impact hash rate.

Re: Bitcoin Bloodbath Nears Dot-Com Levels as Many Tokens Go to Zero

#37

I have no idea if this will end the madness but I hope it will. Given bitcoin's vast energy consumption, the "production" of bitcoins produces enough pollution to be responsible for a significant number of deaths, amortized. [1] Thus I have zero sympathy with those who may lose money here. [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/shermanlee/2018/04/19/bitcoins-...

Cars produce pollution and nothing good comes from those either!

Re: Bitcoin Bloodbath Nears Dot-Com Levels as Many Tokens Go to Zero

#38
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about the number of deaths caused by possibility for governments to finance war efforts via money printing? Most notably both world wars.

There's no evidence bitcoin serves as any real break again governments printing money or will any time soon. The US suspended the gold standard to enter WWI. The US suspend bitcoin trading if it somehow did interfere with it's ability to make war.

Yes, the United States government could follow in the steps of great countries like Venezuela and north Korea.

No better way to validate it's usefulness than to ban it when you feel the pressure of competition.

Re: Bitcoin Bloodbath Nears Dot-Com Levels as Many Tokens Go to Zero

#39

I have no idea if this will end the madness but I hope it will. Given bitcoin's vast energy consumption, the "production" of bitcoins produces enough pollution to be responsible for a significant number of deaths, amortized. [1] Thus I have zero sympathy with those who may lose money here. [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/shermanlee/2018/04/19/bitcoins-...

In other news, some cryptocurrency is able to handle 7000 transactions per second on its entire network, on the power of a single windmill. [1]

Bitcoin is old tech. But there is some pretty cool stuff out there, if you care to look.

https://www.reddit.com/r/nanocurrency/comments/7ucw1a/the_en...

Re: Bitcoin Bloodbath Nears Dot-Com Levels as Many Tokens Go to Zero

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no evidence bitcoin serves as any real break again governments printing money or will any time soon. The US suspended the gold standard to enter WWI. The US suspend bitcoin trading if it somehow did interfere with it's ability to make war.

Yes, the United States government could follow in the steps of great countries like Venezuela and north Korea. No better way to validate it's usefulness than to ban it when you feel the pressure of competition.

At 5-10tps conventional bitcoin can never compete with USD. There are other reasons too.

But I think your argument is fundamentally incorrect. We had plenty of wars with gold backed currencies and we'd still have war if cryptocurrencies took over.

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