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The Bitcoin hash rate has increased by 28.2% over the last month

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Re: The Bitcoin hash rate has increased by 28.2% over the last month

#81

Post by VMG »

a_humean wrote: post #79
VMG wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you say the suspicion is justified in, say, Venezuela or Zimbabwe?

Well their citizens have the option of using an alternative currency such as the USD or Euro or whatever if their leaders really screw up, and it doesn't seem right that you should lock out policy tools from developing countries just because the occasional despot or incompetent screws up fiscal and monetary policy. Eventually many of these countries or regions, with luck, will mature into stable states with competent…

> Well their citizens have the option of using an alternative currency such as the USD or Euro or whatever if their leaders really screw up

Only on the black market, realistically.

I'm sure the leaders will do a much better job if they know the populace has alternatives to switch to.

> Not be locked into a limited child's toy tool set just because their predecessors were less than competent.

Bitcoin isn't taking away anyones money printing machine. It just makes pushing the lever less attractive.

Re: The Bitcoin hash rate has increased by 28.2% over the last month

#82

Post by VMG »

icebraining wrote: post #57
VMG wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know any other "imaginary points" that are scarce and can be transacted in an open system?

There are many things that I believe not to exist, which doesn't mean they've be useful if they were, in fact, to exist.

Do you think money is useful? How about digital money?

Re: The Bitcoin hash rate has increased by 28.2% over the last month

#83

Post by schmichael »

hasch wrote: post #73
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And still no discussion on the value of pissing away our planets energy reserves, just to create imaginary points in a paranoid game. In one view, all the electricity burned to make bitcoins is a crime against the planet.

miners do more than just burning energy, and without this mechanism, the price can't be justified. a really forward looking perspective is, how a structure on top could be created to leverage bitcoin without mining. if you figure out something clever, you can call yourself the saviour of the planet :-)

> miners do more than just burning energy, and without this mechanism, the price can't be justified

The price is based on utility of the commodity and speculation about its future utility, not mining costs. Put another way: more hash power does not raise the value but more value may raise the hash power (by making it profitable for less efficient miners to mine).

> how a structure on top could be created to leverage bitcoin without mining.

There's lots of activity around alternatives to bitcon's proof-of-work based mining: proof of stake, proof of activity, etc. Just search "proof of work alternatives"

Re: The Bitcoin hash rate has increased by 28.2% over the last month

#84

Post by icebraining »

VMG wrote: post #82
icebraining wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many things that I believe not to exist, which doesn't mean they've be useful if they were, in fact, to exist.

Do you think money is useful? How about digital money?

Thing is, digital money already existed - when my employer pays me, he's not physically handing me an envelope of bills or even writing a check. It is, and has been for quite a few years, digital money.

Re: The Bitcoin hash rate has increased by 28.2% over the last month

#85

Post by brighton36 »

wlesieutre wrote: post #35
eganist wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, unless you replace furnaces with bitcoin mining hardware. But then again, I'd rather replace a furnace with a more productive set of hardware anyway.

A couple of things: 1) With electric heat you have to account for the energy production and grid transmission being around 30% efficient. Even though an electric heater or bitcoin miner is converting electricity to heat 100% efficiently, a majority of the thermal energy released in the power plant was already thrown out as waste. 2) Even using electricity, a heat pump beats the electric heaters. They're 2-3x as "effi…

no one is a fan. Not even the people who need to use bitcoin. If you feel strongly about it, advocate for the reduction of KYC and AML constraints in the incumbent value routing systems.

Re: The Bitcoin hash rate has increased by 28.2% over the last month

#86

Post by Synaesthesia »

geertj wrote: post #36

Doing some back of the envelope calculations.. Hash rate is about 1,200 PH now. The most efficient ASIC miner today is the AntMiner S7 [1], which does 4.86 TH at 1.21 KW. This gives us a power consumption of the entire Bitcoin network of at least 300 MW. Actual power will easily be double that, given that not everybody is using the latest miner. So let's say total power consumption is about 600 MW. This is the output…

Every hour 25 bitcoins are mined, at a current value of $450, that's $11250. So if the total power expenditure of bitcoin hashing is 600MW, it would have to cost less than $11250/600 = $18.75/MWH for electricity to not mine at a loss, which is insanely cheap.

Therefore the hashing chips must be considerably more efficient than the latest commercially available products. I think the major players get hashing chips manufactured at scale on smaller nodes for significant power savings.

Re: The Bitcoin hash rate has increased by 28.2% over the last month

#87

Post by schmichael »

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #17
schmichael wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More electricity is being burned to do the same amount of work. I know that sounds snarky, but it's how proof-of-work systems like bitcoin work: "miners" all attempt to generate a specific hash which just means lots and lots of computation. The number of transactions per second the bitcoin protocol can handle is essentially capped and completely unrelated to hash rate as the difficulty of producing a correct hash is…

> More electricity is being burned to do the same amount of work. You're assuming hashrates and electricity consumption are 1:1, ignoring improvements in efficiency. > The number of transactions the bitcoin protocol can handle is essentially capped and completely unrelated to hash rate as the difficulty of producing a correct hash is adjusted based on the hash rate. That is true, but one must also consider that trans…

> You're assuming hashrates and electricity consumption are 1:1, ignoring improvements in efficiency.

You're right, but since the price of bitcoin has risen over the past month the increase in hash rate could be due to miners turning back on less efficient equipment that wasn't profitable at lower prices.

It's really impossible to know, but since the price is rising I think it's likely additional hash power would mean more mining equipment coming online -- therefore using additional power -- while leaving existing mining hardware but still profitable hardware running.

Re: The Bitcoin hash rate has increased by 28.2% over the last month

#88

Post by VMG »

icebraining wrote: post #84
VMG wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think money is useful? How about digital money?

Thing is, digital money already existed - when my employer pays me, he's not physically handing me an envelope of bills or even writing a check. It is, and has been for quite a few years, digital money.

And for a lot of applications trusted third parties are completely sufficient, but in many instances you're better off without.

Re: The Bitcoin hash rate has increased by 28.2% over the last month

#89

Post by icebraining »

VMG wrote: post #88
icebraining wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thing is, digital money already existed - when my employer pays me, he's not physically handing me an envelope of bills or even writing a check. It is, and has been for quite a few years, digital money.

And for a lot of applications trusted third parties are completely sufficient, but in many instances you're better off without.

And that's precisely where the disagreement lies.

Re: The Bitcoin hash rate has increased by 28.2% over the last month

#90

Post by Shorel »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #8
schmichael wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More electricity is being burned to do the same amount of work. I know that sounds snarky, but it's how proof-of-work systems like bitcoin work: "miners" all attempt to generate a specific hash which just means lots and lots of computation. The number of transactions per second the bitcoin protocol can handle is essentially capped and completely unrelated to hash rate as the difficulty of producing a correct hash is…

And still no discussion on the value of pissing away our planets energy reserves, just to create imaginary points in a paranoid game. In one view, all the electricity burned to make bitcoins is a crime against the planet.

It could be argued that the electricity burned to make and watch reality shows is an ever bigger crime, in both terms of total energy wasted and the utility to the human species.
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