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Mining Bitcoin with pencil and paper: 0.67 hashes per day (2014)

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Re: Mining Bitcoin with pencil and paper: 0.67 hashes per day (2014)

#371

This is somewhat off-topic but I'm going to ask here because it's really hard to find "trusted" information regarding BitCoin and Ethereum mining online - it seems everyone's trying to make a commission or running a scam: Is it true that one cannot (or should not for their best interest) mine BitCoin/Eth without being part of a pool, unless one has a datacenter or warehouse full of GPUs dedicated to mining? If that's…

You can mine solo, but you are effectively playing the lottery. If you get lucky, you'll earn much more than in a pool, but if you don't get lucky you get nothing.

And since it's effectively lottery with amount of computer power you can have at home, you're going to need to be extremely lucky.

Re: Mining Bitcoin with pencil and paper: 0.67 hashes per day (2014)

#372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't aware of those ones, thanks. It's a shame they're not even in the top 100 by volume.

Ripple has still the fifth biggest market cap. If you look at the five biggest coins by market cap (excluding USDT which is just digital Dollar) then three of them use proof of stake, Cardano, Polkadato and Ripple. Ethereum is actively transitioning to proof of stake. Bitcoin is the ONLY outlier. Though also the biggest market.

Ripple is not proof-of-stake. It uses traditional consensus with trusted validators. It's basically a fiat currency that is run by a corporation to benefit them.

Re: Mining Bitcoin with pencil and paper: 0.67 hashes per day (2014)

#373
post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that high value (and the volatile prices) is entirely the problem (coupled with other issues like the extremely low potential number of transactions per second). As it stands, Bitcoin will never be anything other than an investment vehicle. Maybe another cryptocurrency will be a suitable replacement for fiat, but right now and for the foreseeable future, crypto is still too niche, too complex and volatile. At mos…

Bitcoin plays a role in the crypto ecosystem. It's like gold. Ethereum is like the finance industry and things like DOGE are like currency. The value will be pegged to BTC, making it the foundation for the ecosystem.

>and things like DOGE are like currency. The value will be pegged to BTC, making it the foundation for the ecosystem. I disagree. It is more realistic for existing currency based stable coins to become the currencies. For example countries like the US will create a cryptocurrency pegged to the dollar, China with the Yuan, and Europe with the Euro. Currently USD pegged stable coins are the most popular.

Re: Mining Bitcoin with pencil and paper: 0.67 hashes per day (2014)

#375
post #374
post #53

Author here; I was surprised to see this on HN today. Let me know if you have any questions!

Is it true that you mined coins on the Apollo Guidance Computer?

Looks like it, http://www.righto.com/2019/07/bitcoin-mining-on-apollo-guida...

Re: Mining Bitcoin with pencil and paper: 0.67 hashes per day (2014)

#377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure I understand your question. You can compare BTC to the S&P 500 yourself to see which has offered a far better return over the past decade.

one example: 500$ to 1M in 1 year on tesla calls. 50k to 15M in GME calls in less then 1 month if you were lucky. It's all gambling but to say bitcoin is the best source of wealth/gambling shows your lack of experience. Where would you put your money now that bitcoin is 50k? I want to compare that to my stock + calls on random meme stocks. (also vs s&p)

Ridiculous examples. BTC has been consistently up for a decade (or USD has been plummeting that long, depends how you look at it).

> Where would you put your money now that bitcoin is 50k?

BTC of course. USD is only going to continue to drop.

Re: Mining Bitcoin with pencil and paper: 0.67 hashes per day (2014)

#378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we imagine a deflationary currency encourages savings over consumerism... That doesn't sound so bad.

From everything I’ve read, it tends to stagnate society. Why buy a car when you can just hold onto your money and tomorrow you can buy a house? Why buy a house when tomorrow you can buy a mansion. No value is produced because there is little incentive to invest into anything since just holding onto your money is a safe investment.

This is only a problem in a deflationary spiral, which is just as problematic as an inflationary spiral. Gold is deflationary and the industrial revolution was kicked off while most of the world was still on the gold standard.

Re: Mining Bitcoin with pencil and paper: 0.67 hashes per day (2014)

#379
post #176
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, companies do not create new money. They create goods and services in order to generate value/profit.

Banks are companies and their service is to create new money.

Banks that are for-profit companies add to the money supply (via loans) but don't 'create new money' in the same sense as mining Bitcoin.

Mining bitcoin is most similar to a central bank printing/issuing money (except it's issued to the person that can waste the most electricity or show proof of stake rather than being issued selectively by the central government).

Banks can add to the money supply by lending out money which has been saved in them by others, but there is nothing unique to fiat currencies about this, and the same can be done with Bitcoin or other crypto. I suspect you wouldn't say that 'banks can create new bitcoins without mining', but that's the same thing as saying 'banks can create new money without printing it'.

Re: Mining Bitcoin with pencil and paper: 0.67 hashes per day (2014)

#380
post #282
post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Transaction rate is the only possible way to judge the value of a monetary system. A system where you essentially can't transact is economically dead. The health of an economy is measured by how quickly money flows in it, not in how wealthy a dragon sitting on a pile of gold can get. It can be a speculative system, but that's far less useful than being a monetary system. Bitcoin is a terrible currency in the same way…

Not true. For example a monetary system might be valuable because it supports high transaction volumes even at a low rate, or because it has high costs to attack. > The health of an economy is measured by how quickly money flows in it Bitcoin isn't an economy. It is just a small part of the overall economy

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