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Is this the most value-dense information on Earth?

blog.perfmode.com

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Re: Is this the most value-dense information on Earth?

#31

Post by toomuchtodo »

rtkwe wrote: post #20
toomuchtodo wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.usmint.gov/about_the_mint/fun_facts/?action=fun_f... Amount of present gold holdings: 147.3 million ounces. The gold is held as an asset of the United States at book value of $42.22 per ounce. http://www.bloomberg.com/markets/commodities/futures/metals/ COMEX Gold Value: 1,250.40/per troy ounce 1 ounce = 0.911458333 troy ounces $167,875,968,689 USD You are correct. Selling that much gold at once would deci…

I'd find it really odd if the ounces they reference aren't troy ounces, which is the true de facto for precious metal weight quotes. To the true matter though is that valuing things by their liquid value is problematic especially when their liquidity isn't ever really going to be utilized.

I sent a tweet to @usmint to find out. I'll update my post accordingly.

Re: Is this the most value-dense information on Earth?

#32

Post by jere »

jsharpe wrote: post #27
jere wrote: post #21

>Thus, each individual bit protects USD $631,212... USD $631,212 per bit That seems a rather flawed way of viewing the density, since that key represents 2^256 possible combinations. So if you take a way a bit, the density by that measure goes up 0.3%. Practically speaking, it should double. Why don't we instead calculate the density as the expected value of guessing one combination. In other words, let's say I have…

I agree that that makes a lot more sense in a way, but there is another interpretation. Suppose you are omniscient but that you have a terminal illness, and have 256 time units left in your life to give value to your heirs. Due to your illness, you can only communicate by blinking. If you can give one bit of information per time unit by blinking, what is the information you can give your heirs that will maximize thei…

Brevity is the soul of wit.

Omniscient? Well, I'm not very creative, but you should be able to get off at least half a dozen lottery picks in that.

Re: Is this the most value-dense information on Earth?

#34

Post by adventured »

There are financial holdings worth 100+ times that bitcoin wallet. Likely protected by a lot less than 100 times the security of a 256 bit key.

Apple's hedge fund, Braeburn Capital, likely qualifies. It's arguably the largest hedge fund in the world. Gain access to their network and you could wreak serious financial havoc.

Re: Is this the most value-dense information on Earth?

#35

Post by Eliezer »

clarkm wrote: post #23
whatshisface wrote: post #2

Considering that anyone trying to sell that much bitcoin at once would pretty much crash the currency, how much is it really worth? Perhaps some kind of revolutionary mathematical fact could be worth even more? This is a very interesting question. EDIT: A lot of people responding to me seem to be trying to contradict my argument by pointing out that if it was true, it would be true for almost everything. I don't get…

That argument proves too much [1]. The same can be said for almost all stock, e.g. Bill Gates could sell of his shares of Microsoft and crash the stock price. [1] http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Proving_too_much

No he couldn't. Microsoft shares have intrinsic earnings, and while the stock price might go down, I wouldn't expect them to go down far enough to generate predictable excess returns. Lots of people want predictable excess returns and they have enough money to buy all of Gates's shares and then some.

Re: Is this the most value-dense information on Earth?

#36

Post by adventured »

whatshisface wrote: post #2

Considering that anyone trying to sell that much bitcoin at once would pretty much crash the currency, how much is it really worth? Perhaps some kind of revolutionary mathematical fact could be worth even more? This is a very interesting question. EDIT: A lot of people responding to me seem to be trying to contradict my argument by pointing out that if it was true, it would be true for almost everything. I don't get…

Unless you think bitcoin is going to disappear in the next 6-12 months, it's worth a lot.

You could easily liquidate out of that entire position over the next six months without crashing the bitcoin market. In fact, the added liquidity might help lessen the volatility.

Re: Is this the most value-dense information on Earth?

#37

Post by downer94 »

alexeisadeski3 wrote: post #25
downer94 wrote: post #5

Bruce Schneier once equated the security of a 256 bit private key by comparing the energy needed to brute force all possible combinations of 256 bits to the amount of energy harnessed for one year by a Dyson Sphere built around the sun. So maybe there's a correlation, in the sense of knowing the GPS coordinates of Fort Knox, and targeting it with an ICBM?

Isn't the gold at Fort Knox already off the market? Would destroying it really alter the value of existent non-Knox gold that much? How much?

Well, what if you just ransom it? Targeting it is hardly destructive.

Re: Is this the most value-dense information on Earth?

#38

Post by downer94 »

perfmode wrote: post #15
downer94 wrote: post #5

Bruce Schneier once equated the security of a 256 bit private key by comparing the energy needed to brute force all possible combinations of 256 bits to the amount of energy harnessed for one year by a Dyson Sphere built around the sun. So maybe there's a correlation, in the sense of knowing the GPS coordinates of Fort Knox, and targeting it with an ICBM?

link: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/09/the_doghouse_...

That's the one!

Re: Is this the most value-dense information on Earth?

#39

Post by jsharpe »

jere wrote: post #32
jsharpe wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that that makes a lot more sense in a way, but there is another interpretation. Suppose you are omniscient but that you have a terminal illness, and have 256 time units left in your life to give value to your heirs. Due to your illness, you can only communicate by blinking. If you can give one bit of information per time unit by blinking, what is the information you can give your heirs that will maximize thei…

Brevity is the soul of wit. Omniscient? Well, I'm not very creative, but you should be able to get off at least half a dozen lottery picks in that.

That's a good point. You'd have to restrict to information available to someone at the current time, and not based on future randomness (like winning lottery numbers). Otherwise, you could make (effectively) unbounded money by just specifying the stock symbol of a company that gains the most in value in the next year.

Re: Is this the most value-dense information on Earth?

#40

Post by perfmode »

adventured wrote: post #34

There are financial holdings worth 100+ times that bitcoin wallet. Likely protected by a lot less than 100 times the security of a 256 bit key. Apple's hedge fund, Braeburn Capital, likely qualifies. It's arguably the largest hedge fund in the world. Gain access to their network and you could wreak serious financial havoc.

It is probably the case that there are multiple cryptographically-secured security layers standing between an anonymous internet user and the innermost layer of such a system.
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