The problem is that energy is generated by burning carbon. The problem is not how the energy is used. If you want to stop carbon emission, or at least slow it down, stop burning carbon.

How about the sizes of blocks?



Source: https://api.blockchain.info/charts/avg-block-size?format=csv

Nothing I wrote is false. New coins are made each day, but the cost of their creation does not affect the price. Try showing a flaw in my argument rather than just dismissing it as "misinformation".


If they choose to buy instead, the difficulty will fall, allowing other miners to mine and not buy
If they choose to mine, the difficulty will rise, causing other miners to stop mining and buy.
In both cases, the demand does not change, so the price does not change.


Miners will sell at a loss. They must sell in order to cover their costs. Also, if traders never sell at a loss, wouldn't the price still be at $20,000?

Bitstamp has a Lightning node.

Your analysis is based on creation cost, but creation cost does not affect supply, so it can't affect the price.

The production of bitcoins is predetermined by the protocol. It is not affected by the cost of creation. Since the production is predetermined, then the total supply is predetermined. Therefore, it follows that the creation cost does not affect the price.

You don't "activate" the coin. You redeem it by sweeping the private key into a wallet.

Note that he private key is in the "mini" key format, which is probably not supported by most wallets. If you can't find a wallet that supports the mini key format, then this page tells you how you can decode the private key: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mini_private_key_format#Decoding

It's fairly technical, but hopefully you can figure it out.

I'm skeptical. There are dozens of coins that have claimed to be used in the sex industry. I don't believe that any have had any significant level of adoption. I wouldn't invest any money before doing a thorough analysis.

Here is a picture of one of the Casascius coins that people have mentioned:


They can be traded in the collectibles forum: Economy > Marketplace > Goods > Collectibles

Me: Increased supply does not raise demand -- it lowers price.

That's an allegory saying how god myths are misinterpretations of unexplained phenomena.

Sorry for going off-topic.

Wow, for a "short" post, that was quite long. Here is my short answer: they are all trying to scam you. Don't send anybody any more money.

Sorry for using the word "hash" when I should have written "password key derivation function".

I was hoping for something more than "brain wallets are bad". Any sig campaign spammer can write that.

A brain wallet created using a good password key derivation function must be better than one created using SHA-256. How secure is it? If password key derivation functions are not good enough for brain wallets, are they good enough for passwords?

I was thinking that something like a PIN could be used as the salt. I would have no problem remembering a brain wallet phrase and an 8 digit PIN.


I don't think that memorizing a random 12+ word seed is feasible for most people.

The typical brain wallet is constructed by hashing a memorable phrase using SHA-256, and using the result as the private key. It is well-established that the typical brain wallet is not secure. This thread demonstrates that very clearly:

Collection of 18.509 found and used Brainwallets

Here is a good example from that thread showing that even a seemingly good brain wallet phrase can be cracked:


The basic attack against brain wallets involves generating a huge list of potential phrases, and then checking the blockchain for the addresses derived from the hashes of those phrases. The defenses against this attack are to increase the range of potential phrases and to make it slower and more expensive to check them.

The cracked brain wallet above demonstrates to me that the benefit of increasing the potential range is limited. That is basically because a human's ability to create meaningful and memorable phrases is limited. For this reason, we have to accept that although a carefully chosen phrase is important, it is not sufficient, and it is also necessary to make it slower and more expensive to check the hashes of potential phrases.

The issue with SHA-256 is that it is very fast, and it is easy for the attacker to generate the private keys for a large number of potential brain wallets. A typical PC can generate up to a billion SHA-256 hashes every second. SHA-256 is not appropriate for hashing brain wallet phrases (or any kind of passwords).

Now, there are certain hashing algorithms specifically designed to resist attacks on hashed passwords: bcrypt, scrypt, and argon2id, for example. They have these advantages:

• They are much slower than SHA-256. For example, Litecoin's configuration of scrypt is about 1000 times slower than SHA-256.
• They require much more memory, which limits the parallelization.
• They also generally include a "salt" parameter that limits the ability to use pre-generated hash tables.

My question for the experts: would switching to an appropriate hash algorithm such as the ones listed above be enough to make a brain wallet secure?

I think he is asserting that your results are filtered by the search algorithms because results that aren't found by the search algorithms won't be in the list, and changing the the algorithms will change the list. It would similar to the difference between lists based on cracked passwords and lists based on leaked passwords.


That is another great example showing how a brain wallet is not secure.

Eliminating the subsidy does not affect supply or demand of block space, so how can it affect the price?

The evidence contradicts you. The subsidy has been halved twice now, and rather than Bitcoin approaching death as the subsidy approaches 0, Bitcoin is growing. Also, there are coins that have no subsidy and are mined just for fees, and while they may ultimately die, it won't be because they have no subsidy.

You are confusing "production" with "supply". Even if no more coins are mined, there will still be a supply. There will always be people who are willing to sell their bitcoins -- that's the definition of supply.

Furthermore, demand (and price) would not "instantly rock up". Scarcity does not affect demand. People won't want to buy more bitcoins just because they are no longer produced.

It might be helpful to show your analysis. It is not clear how your conclusion is related to the transactions motive.



It seems to me that this is just an extension of #1 with a longer time frame and some uncertainty.



"All" is an exaggeration. The fact that all is not converted means that the actual effect can be quite different from your narrative.

Be honest with yourself. You got lucky. That's it.

Fixing the ratio at $100 per EH/s is completely arbitrary. You have no basis for that ratio.

Furthermore, the hash rate has risen much more quickly than the price because of technological advances, so the proper price varies wildly depending on when you fix it.

If you fixed the ratio a year ago when the hash rate was about 50 EH/s and the price was $7.5k, you would say that the current price should be $15k.
If you fixed the ratio two years year ago when the hash rate was about 10 EH/s and the price was about $8k, you would say that the current price should be $80k.
If you fixed the ratio 5 years year ago when the hash rate was about 0.3 EH/s and the price was about $400, you would say that the current price should be $120k.

You may care only about the security, but someone else might care about the convenience, and someone else might care about the privacy, etc. Different people value different things. Each person will determine the value of a bitcoin to them and will buy or sell based on that. A market takes all different those values and aggregates them into a single price.

The hash rate doesn't ultimately determine the security. The security is dependent on the cost of an attack, and (for any mining-based attack) the cost is ultimately determined by the value of the block reward.