Octopus Overlords

LordMortis wrote: ↑Wed Jan 17, 2018 11:06 am Now I need to know what Mississippi was.

LordMortis wrote: ↑Wed Jan 17, 2018 11:06 am Now I need to know what Mississippi was.

Moliere wrote: ↑Wed Jan 17, 2018 11:10 am

LordMortis wrote: ↑Wed Jan 17, 2018 11:06 am Now I need to know what Mississippi was.

Please report your findings as I was wondering the same thing.

But the drop in price hasn’t had much of an effect on the massive amount of energy the Bitcoin network devours or its emissions. In fact, as of Tuesday, electricity consumption from Bitcoin rose to a record high of 42.1 terawatt-hours, according to Digiconomist, Alex de Vries’s Bitcoin analysis blog.

That’s roughly the energy used by all of New Zealand, a country of 4.7 million people. It brings the rate of carbon dioxide emissions from Bitcoin up to 20 million metric tons per year. And it’s not showing any signs of slowing down.

Mining bitcoins — or verifying transactions to get coins — is a hugely energy-intensive process because of all the electricity needed for computational processing. About 80 percent of mining costs go toward electricity.

Carpet_pissr wrote: ↑Fri Jan 19, 2018 9:31 am If I still worked at my previous company, I could easily find out when prices are expected to fall/normalize, but alas...

A group of big financial institutions wants to use the blockchain to help resurrect the packaging of home mortgages into securities, a business that almost destroyed the global banking system in 2008.

Credit Suisse Group AG, U.S. Bancorp, Wells Fargo & Co. and Western Asset Management Co. said Thursday that they successfully tested the distributed ledger technology as a way to make it easier to track securitized home loans.

stessier wrote: ↑Fri Jan 19, 2018 10:27 am

Carpet_pissr wrote: ↑Fri Jan 19, 2018 9:31 am If I still worked at my previous company, I could easily find out when prices are expected to fall/normalize, but alas...

How would you find that out? It seems to all depend on Bitcoin prices and if you knew how to predict those, you wouldn't have to worry about video card prices.

stessier wrote: ↑Fri Jan 19, 2018 10:27 am

Carpet_pissr wrote: ↑Fri Jan 19, 2018 9:31 am If I still worked at my previous company, I could easily find out when prices are expected to fall/normalize, but alas...

How would you find that out? It seems to all depend on Bitcoin prices and if you knew how to predict those, you wouldn't have to worry about video card prices.

Carpet_pissr wrote: ↑Fri Jan 19, 2018 1:51 pm

stessier wrote: ↑Fri Jan 19, 2018 10:27 am

Carpet_pissr wrote: ↑Fri Jan 19, 2018 9:31 am If I still worked at my previous company, I could easily find out when prices are expected to fall/normalize, but alas...

How would you find that out? It seems to all depend on Bitcoin prices and if you knew how to predict those, you wouldn't have to worry about video card prices.

It's what we did...big data, shit ton of on the ground level experts in manufacturing plants in Asia to know how much production for parts was available, if shortage, expected prices, etc.

stessier wrote: ↑Fri Jan 19, 2018 1:59 pm

Carpet_pissr wrote: ↑Fri Jan 19, 2018 1:51 pm

stessier wrote: ↑Fri Jan 19, 2018 10:27 am

Carpet_pissr wrote: ↑Fri Jan 19, 2018 9:31 am If I still worked at my previous company, I could easily find out when prices are expected to fall/normalize, but alas...

How would you find that out? It seems to all depend on Bitcoin prices and if you knew how to predict those, you wouldn't have to worry about video card prices.

It's what we did...big data, shit ton of on the ground level experts in manufacturing plants in Asia to know how much production for parts was available, if shortage, expected prices, etc.

Right, but it's not about making enough cards, it's when will the Miners decide that the value no longer makes it worth buying more cards. I don't think Big Data is going to help there.

Cryptocurrency scams are still thriving, but they’re attracting more attention, multiple reports over the last week suggest. The shadiness cited demonstrates the power of misinformation in a sector crowded by everyday investors eager to make a quick fortune. Regulators are making their initial moves to reign in the unruly crypto landscape, but many novice investors continue to be fooled into trusting con artists who are essentially peddling tea leaves.

Last week we saw more rumblings of a coming global regulatory wave, with news that South Korea is still considering a ban on crypto exchanges and that China will be blocking domestic access to centralized trading platforms. (Some believe the reports helped drive down the price of bitcoin.) In the U.S., two cease-and-desist letters from state securities authorities also brought down an exchange called BitConnect, which had long been criticized as a Ponzi scheme. New York’s Commodity Futures Trading Commission also announced on Friday that it had filed three lawsuits against cryptocurrency companies that were allegedly defrauding their customers.

By partnering with a cryptocurrency issuer, Arsenal should be able to capitalize on the digital coin sector buzz. For CashBet, the partnership clearly makes sense as Arsenal is one of the best known football brands in the world.

Dr. Mike Reaves, CEO and Founder of CashBet, explained they are actively targeting the global, multi-billion dollar marketplace of online gaming with their ICO for CashBet Coin.

One of Japan’s biggest cryptocurrency exchanges said that about $400 million in NEM tokens were lost after the coins were sent “illicitly” outside the venue, spooking investors in a country that’s still wary of digital-token exchanges four years after the collapse of Mt. Gox.

After hours of speculation, Coincheck Inc. co-founder Yusuke Otsuka said during a late-night press conference at the Tokyo Stock Exchange that the company didn’t know how the 500 million tokens went missing, but the firm is working to ensure the safety of all client assets. Coincheck said earlier it had suspended all withdrawals, halted trading in all tokens except Bitcoin, and stopped deposits into NEM coins.

The U.S. is trying to regulate cybercurrency offerings. It’s still unclear whether it has the authority to do so.

Federal judges in Brooklyn, New York, are about to rule on the question. In doing so, they could determine whether Bitcoin and other stateless currencies are securities that can be regulated like stocks or bonds. Courts across the country are likely to consult these rulings when considering other cybercurrency cases.

“If it’s not a security, then what is it?” said Peter Henning, a former SEC and Justice Department lawyer who is now a professor at Wayne State University Law School.

In what is believed to be the first criminal case focusing on an initial coin offering, Brooklyn businessman Maksim Zaslavskiy was charged in a case unsealed in November with promoting digital currencies backed by investments in real estate and diamonds that U.S. prosecutors said didn’t exist. The Securities and Exchange Commission also sued.

U.S. District Judge Raymond Dearie said he’ll allow Zaslavskiy’s lawyers in both the criminal and civil cases to challenge whether ICOs can be considered a security under U.S. law. The government has until March 19 to file its argument that cybercurrency is a security.

“If the judge makes the determination that this is not a security, he’d dismiss the criminal case,” said Mildred Whalen, Zaslavskiy’s criminal-defense lawyer. “He recognizes this is a fundamental issue in both cases. It’s all completely new territory.”

No-commission stock trading app Robinhood will let you buy and sell Bitcoin and Ethereum without any added transaction fees starting in February, compared to Coinbase’s 1.5 to 4 percent fees in the US. And as of today Robinhood will let all users track the price, news, and set up alerts on those and 14 other top crypto coins, including Litecoin and Ripple.

“We’re planning to operate this business on a break-even basis and we don’t plan to profit from it for the foreseeable future” says Robinhood co-founder Vlad Tenev. “The value of Robinhood Crypto is in growing our customer base and better serving our existing customers.”

Every few days, 200,000 strangers come together online to buy little-known cryptocurrencies, also known as altcoins, at exactly 2 p.m. Eastern time. Then, anywhere from 30 to 120 seconds later, they sell them en masse (or at least try to). Those who buy and sell at the right time can potentially make out like bandits.

Welcome to the wild world of altcoin “pump groups,” where participants believe they are the wolves, but they’re actually probably the sheep.

Iceland is facing an "exponential" rise in Bitcoin mining that is gobbling up power resources, a spokesman for Icelandic energy firm HS Orka has said.

This year, electricity use at Bitcoin mining data centres is likely to exceed that of all Iceland's homes, according to Johann Snorri Sigurbergsson.

He said many potential customers were keen to get in on the act.

"If all these projects are realised, we won't have enough energy for it," he told the BBC.

He added that he expects Bitcoin mining operations will use around 840 gigawatt hours of electricity to supply data centre computers and cooling systems, for example.

He estimated that the county's homes, in contrast, use around 700 gigawatt hours every year.

pr0ner wrote: ↑Mon Feb 05, 2018 4:22 pm Bitcoin is below $7k now.

Max Peck wrote: ↑Mon Feb 12, 2018 12:39 pm Bitcoin energy use in Iceland set to overtake homes, says local firm

Iceland is facing an "exponential" rise in Bitcoin mining that is gobbling up power resources, a spokesman for Icelandic energy firm HS Orka has said.

This year, electricity use at Bitcoin mining data centres is likely to exceed that of all Iceland's homes, according to Johann Snorri Sigurbergsson.

He said many potential customers were keen to get in on the act.

"If all these projects are realised, we won't have enough energy for it," he told the BBC.

He added that he expects Bitcoin mining operations will use around 840 gigawatt hours of electricity to supply data centre computers and cooling systems, for example.

He estimated that the county's homes, in contrast, use around 700 gigawatt hours every year.

LawBeefaroni wrote: ↑Thu Jan 18, 2018 11:20 am

But the drop in price hasn’t had much of an effect on the massive amount of energy the Bitcoin network devours or its emissions. In fact, as of Tuesday, electricity consumption from Bitcoin rose to a record high of 42.1 terawatt-hours, according to Digiconomist, Alex de Vries’s Bitcoin analysis blog.

That’s roughly the energy used by all of New Zealand, a country of 4.7 million people. It brings the rate of carbon dioxide emissions from Bitcoin up to 20 million metric tons per year. And it’s not showing any signs of slowing down.

LawBeefaroni wrote: ↑Mon Feb 12, 2018 12:51 pm Don't know if the article mentions it but Iceland generates like 90 percent of its electricity from hydro and geothermal. They have a lot of aluminium plants there because electricity is so cheap. Will be interesting (and sad?) if Bitcoin forces them to start having to use more non-renewable resources.

But in recent years it has seen a marked increase in the number of new data centres, often built by firms wishing to tout green credentials. Nearly 100% of energy in Iceland comes from renewable sources.

In Wenatchee, Wash., a bitcoin invasion is under way.

Home to hydroelectric dams that harness the flow of the Columbia River, north central Washington has some of the cheapest power in the U.S.

That has made the largely rural area best known for its apple orchards a magnet for bitcoin miners, who use powerful specialized computers to generate new units of cryptocurrencies—a process that requires vast amounts of electricity to run and cool thousands of machines.

“If you ask the guys at UPS or FedEx what they’re delivering to Wenatchee, I think they’d tell you it’s a whole bunch of bitcoin mining machines,” said Frank Kuntz, mayor of Wenatchee, which has a population of nearly 34,000.

If all the cryptocurrency mining operations in the works go forward, power demand could double in some areas and require expensive new infrastructure. That has become a dilemma for utilities that are figuring out how to deal with the deluge of requests without bearing the brunt of wild swings in cryptocurrency prices.

“We’re getting requests for service that are just astounding,” said Steve Wright, general manager of the Chelan County Public Utility District, which includes Wenatchee. “We do not intend to carry the risk of bitcoin prices on our system.”

Moliere wrote: ↑Mon Feb 12, 2018 1:10 pm On a related note: Bitcoin Mania Triggers Miner Influx to Rural Washington

“We do not intend to carry the risk of bitcoin prices on our system.”

Last week, the cryptocurrency community breathed a collective sigh of relief as two of the most relevant financial regulatory bodies in the United States signaled an unusual understanding of blockchain technologies and explicitly committed to a "do no harm" approach towards cryptocurrencies. In his remarks before the committee, CFTC Chairman J. Christopher Giancarlo told the body that "we owe it to this generation to respect their enthusiasm about virtual currencies with a thoughtful and balanced response, not a dismissive one." SEC Chairman Jay Clayton, while more skeptical about certain cryptocurrency applications and fundraising vehicles, nonetheless praised the technology's promise to "facilitate capital formation [and provide] promising investment opportunities." Both men outlined a regulatory path forward that, while still imperfect (as most things are), would be much preferable to many alternatives.

Contrary to some people's preconceived notions, bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are hardly "unregulated." By virtue of the flexible nature of these technologies—vicariously or simultaneously serving as alternative currencies, payment systems, registries, or even next-generation legal devices—cryptocurrencies touch upon the domain of several regulatory bodies. Thus, a panoply of separate policy guidance documents have emanated from bodies as diverse as the Department of Treasury, Internal Revenue Service, Federal Election Commission, and each of the separate states.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing. If properly constrained, the limited regulatory functions of these dispersed offices could be vastly preferable to the more expansive authorities granted to a hypothetical "Department of Cryptocurrency." The challenge, then, is to ensure that our policies indeed remain properly constrained. The according downside, of course, is that entrepreneurs and cryptocurrency users face regulatory uncertainty as they wait to see how different policymaking bodies will respond.

Salon is now offering readers the option to mine cryptocurrency to pay the online magazine’s bills, rather than viewing ads. On Sunday, the site began presenting visitors using ad blockers with the option to “Suppress Ads” in exchange for “allowing Salon to use your unused computing power.”

Punisher wrote: ↑Wed Feb 14, 2018 11:20 pm Does anyone here actually mine? Is it worth it? How do you do it? Just curious whats involved and if it's something I can just do on my PC (or with some minor purchases) I think I might want to give it a try.