2%?  Maybe a decade from now.

I think 1 in 1 million posted above is a lot closer to reality than 1 in 50.

I don't disagree with anything.  The same scenario can happen for those who exercise stock options for example.  It happens.  The only way to hedge yourself is to ensure you have the USD to cover the taxes and make payments throughout the year. 

Something like I mined 1 BTC today.  It is worth $x, my costs are estimated to be $y (electricity + ammortized hardware).  My gain is $x - $y and thus my taxes are going to be 25% * ($x - $y).  I will put aside that money now.  If it don't have enough I will sell coins now to ensure that I do.

Agreed it is dumb but honestly it isn't going to make that huge of a difference.  The chip itself (as opposed to entire system) isn't going to use more than 300W (or less) each so you are talking 900W spread out over a large area with significant airflow.  More airflow means lower temp rise (less thermal energy per unit of air).  The air will be warmer but it isn't going to be 20C burn your hand and melt the capacitors warmer.

Agreed.  Honestly I wish companies would just sell modules because so far none of them have had particularly good complete rig designs.

BFL case of fans?  We don't even need to go any further.
KNC uneven airflow and rats nest of cables because we decided to make the case too small to fit the PSU internally (I get why they didn't want to ship a PSU but come on make the case wider).
HF radiators on the front.
Cointerra lets get almost everything perfect and then have the power supply intake on the side which will be restricted airflow at best in a datacenter rack.

Now none of these are fatal flaws but honestly just give me the boards.  It cuts down on shipping, it cuts down on assembly, and let me build my own rig.

What 1500W?  Honestly the location of the radiator doesn't matter that much.  Think of an aircooled board (like KNC) the air on the downstream side of the board is going to be just as warm.  Does that mean the downstream VRMs, and caps, and etc are going to be destroyed, hardly.  The radiators are OEM versions of Corsairs HydroCool setups and lots of people put those radiators on the intake side of computer cases (because that is the only place it will fit on some cases) and they work just fine.  Corsair even recommends that as an acceptable mounting location.

The air will be warmer (maybe 5C warmer) but it isn't like the air on intake side of radiator is ice cold and the exhaust side is hot enough to melt plastic.

That being said Cointerra's rig looks very nice.  Only thing I would change would be three fans across the front and ducting air from the front to the PSU so it doesn't need to breath from the side (which in a datacenter rack is going to be non-optimal).

The "good news" is that your capital loss doesn't disapear.  You can keep applying $3,500 of it until it is either gone or you die.  However yes what you described could happen.  I would guess most miners are not paying taxes on mined coins.  Still if you want to play by the book I would sell enough of the coins to cover your tax liability and put that money aside (and be sure to make quarterly tax payments) that way you are covered.

No there aren't.  They already profited from the fraud.  Still even if they did it wouldn't undo the fraud.


They don't have to.  Now that they lied to their first customers, made additional millions from that deception, and are in a place to deliver in volume they will simply lower the prices to be competitive.  It doesn't matter if their original customers got screwed over, it doesn't matter if not a single one ever buys from them again.  Miners really just look for the best value "today".  Just look at Avalon & BFL.  If the price is right for future units people will buy them.  HashFast doesn't have to "make it right" to move units.  They simply have to deliver future units at a competitive price.

Making it right to the people they defrauded would be pointless.   The right thing to do is not defraud your customers.  Once you have already done that it is beyond stupid to "make it right".  Who would do that? 


Of course they can.  

They have refused refunds even for those who placed orders prior to 15 AUG when the "31 DEC guaranteed delivery" was snuck in.
They have refused to provide additional MPP.
They have refused to ship MPP early.

They have refused to provide a partial refund for the time value.  "Dec" units will ship right after "Oct" units yet were priced much lower.  HF "could" refund the difference since honestly there is now no difference between a higher priced "Oct" unit and a lower priced "Dec" one. 


HashFast is clearly indicated they are sticking with their terms (even illegally retroactively changed after the fact terms) and their fraud.  They won't delivery anything extra or anything early.  People like you say we should be happy with what they (haven't) delivered.  Why would they deliver more if they are doing everything right already?


I think my reputation is a little better than yours so sorry to be direct but I don't give two fucks what you think ... about anything.  If you start praising me well that probably means I have done something wrong so I better take a hard look at myself.  Still I think I have helped you drag this off topic enough so this will be my last post.

I don't want to do it =/= impossible.

If you verified your customers are non-US then you would be compliant with US laws.  If you don't claiming it is "impossible" won't be a defense.  Not wanting to verify your customers to comply with US laws doesn't make it impossible.

Of course they would.  The action against Full Tilt Poker began with an undercover agent in New York engaging in illegal gambling.  He logged into Full Tilt, deposited funds, and played poker in violation of US law.  The "sting" was recorded and documented and used as evidence.  The fact that the site didn't prevent it was material to the case against FTP.

If/when the US government wanted to do the same thing to a Bitcoin operator it would begin exactly the same way with a recorded gambling session by an undercover agent.

BTW I think the "morality laws" in the US are asinine but I also live in the real world and hate when people pass on claims like "just move the servers" and pretend that prior history doesn't exist.

HashFast blatantly lied about delivery schedule.  They didn't even have the chips from the foundry until after their "anticipated ship date".  HashFast 100% knew from day 1 there is no possible way they could ship in October.  Period.  They could have been honest and sold rigs for late Dec delivery and a much lower price.  But they LIED to their customers so they could charge $12+ per GH/s rather than $3 per GH/s.


There was no mention of 31 DEC anywhere on their website, their TOS, the contract, the order form, or the invoice prior to 15 AUG.  I have an entire copy of their pre August 15th website and TOS.  HashFast lied to customers and then changed the terms after the fact when they realized the existing terms didn't give them an "out" on that lie.  They lied because they wanted to sell "Oct delivery" units at Oct delivery prices.  They "could" have sold Dec delivery units but that would have required much lower prices.

It is fraud, no ifs, ands, or buts about it.

fraud (noun)
1. wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain.

They criminally deceived their customers using false claims in order to gain from that deception.  Oct delivery was not possible.  It wasn't that it was too optimistic, it is IMPOSSIBLE.  They knew that, made the claim anyways because $12 per GH/s means a lot more millions in their pocket then $3 per GH/s.


However if you provide an anticipated delivery date which is AFTER your contracted delivery date from the foundry then you have lied.  Not meeting a deadline is a different thing than promising a deadline which is utterly impossible.  The terms prior to 15 AUG had no mention of 31 DEC.  Period.  I have filed for arbitration.  I will never profit from that, the cost will only mean a larger losss but it is the principal of the matter.  They committed fraud to enrich themselves at the expense of their customers. 


Doesn't change the fact that HashFast lied to their customers to overcharge for products they had no ability to deliver.  They increased their selling price 400% at the expense of the customers they lied to.  The fact that you defend them makes you a tool.

Anyone thought about building a custom case. I was thinking about a better (non-rack) design which is visually appealing to turn the rig into a spouse friendly space heater, internally mount the PSU (and rats nest of cables) and at the same time improve cooling.

ASIC boards are ~5" wide.  Optimal airflow would be units side by side in a line. Now put the PSU (on its side) at the end.  This would make the case ~24" wide.

Standard PSU is about 7.5" deep plus you need some room for routing the cables so say 12". 

So imagine a wooden box 24" x 12" x 7".  The entire front and back would be a grill for improved airflow.  The fans includes are pretty crappy so I think by upgrading to some higher airflow (but still low volume) fans one could get rid of the "intake" fans.  If needed it should be possible to mount a fan on each side of the heatsink in a push pull config.

Excuse my horrible ASIC art but here is a top view.  Front and back are mesh screens.  Arrows indicate airflow.  PSU intake could be on the side of the case or if case is made larger draw flipped 180 to draw from the inside.

Still a rough idea at this point but wondered if anyone had considered something like this?

Exactly everything I said about blocks also applies to transactions just take the post and replace all occurrences of the word "block" with "transaction".


That would be impossible.  The first non-coinbase transaction could not have occurred prior to block 120.  What coins would it have involved?  The as of yet immature coins in blocks 1 through 119?

?  Both use 28nm, both use large multi-GH dies, both use watercooling (made by the same company) to handle the thermal load, both have comparable power efficiency.
That is a generation behind?  

That being said iCEBREAKER is just a tool.  HF completely fucked over its early customers (himself included) and it remains to be seen exactly when any customer will get product in their hands producing revenue. So the idea that he holds them out as some kind of superior champion is well ... just stupid.

Well that is my point.

PartyPoker for example blocked US player = no legal action.
FullTiltPoker did not block US players = legal action.

Just being in another country doesn't make you immune to US legal action unless you ALSO block US players you can't really do that unless you know your customers (name, address, residence information, etc).  Bitcoin doesn't really change that dynamic.  So if when the US decides to go after companies there are two routes:
a) block US players but that means collecting KYC type information (probably required for any legit company anyways).
b) go underground operating using TOR.

My point is that the idea of "just move servers" and keeping doing business as-is is hilariously naive.

Neither.  
If the wallet is unlocked the wallet will create as many new addresses to refill the pool back to 100 anytime it is less than 100 (default).
If the wallet is locked the wallet will not be able to refill the keypool and the number of addresses in the keypool will decline.
If the keypool has 0 addresses and you call getnewaddress it will fail.

Calling getinfo will show the number of keys remaining in the keypool.  Try experimenting with getnewaddress, getinfo, and walletpassphrase so observe how the keypool behaves.

Example:
Wallet has a keypool of 100

Lock Wallet. Keypool = 100
GetNewAddress. Keypool = 99
GetNewAddress. Keypool = 98
GetNewAddress. Keypool = 97
GetNewAddress. Keypool = 96
GetNewAddress. Keypool = 95
UnlockWallet. Keypool = 100
GetNewAddress. Keypool = 100 (generated as soon as used)
GetNewAddress. Keypool = 100
GetNewAddress. Keypool = 100
GetNewAddress. Keypool = 100
GetNewAddress. Keypool = 100
LockWallet. Keypool = 100
GetNewAddress. Keypool = 99
GetNewAddress. Keypool = 98
GetNewAddress. Keypool = 97
...
GetNewAddress. Keypool = 1
GetNewAddress. Keypool = 0
GetNewAddress. FAILURE. No address provided, keypool exhausted.
UnlockWallet. Keypool = 100

Simpler question: Wouldn't it be plugged in in order to have network connectivity and power?

The two most important factors are time to delivery and price (BTC/GH).  The price is high and the delivery date is far in the future.  IMHO it would be very risky with a good chance of a loss.

There is no IP address of the genesis (or any block).  The only thing a peer (any peer) can know for certain is the IP address that sent them the block which isn't necessarily the person who created it.

Example:  A hypothetical network has 5 peers/nodes; A, B, C, D, E.  

Now lets assume the following connections exist.
A is connected to B & E.
B is connected to A, C, & D.
C is connected to B.
D is connected to B & E.
E is connected to A & D.

Node A generates a block and relays it to B who relays it to C & D, and D relays it on to E.  Normally A would also relay to node E but lets assume A decides to be sneaky and doesn't.  Nothing requires A to relay a block to all nodes, A could even "relay" the block to E after a long delay making it seem like A learned of the block after E did.

There is no IP address in the block itself (and the blockchain is simply a list of blocks).  

Now each node can record an IP address of where they first "learned" of the new block but it isn't going to be the same for each node.

So who mined it?  Nobody knows for sure except A.
Node B only knows it first saw the block from Node A.
Nodes C & D only know they first saw the block from Node B.
Node E only knows it first saw the block from Node D.


Now this is a small, static, and simple network.  The real Bitcoin network has >100,000 full nodes active right now.  Not only is the number of nodes continually changing, many nodes are not online all the time, and when they reconnect they connect to random peers so the number of nodes, the unique list of nodes, the status of nodes, and the connections between nodes are in continual change.  Now consider that IP address can only be recorded by each node and only tells them where they first saw a block (or transaction).  Now consider that true IP address can be hidden by proxy, vpn, or tor.  Now consider that a node could create temporary relay nodes using vps and only relay to them who then relay to the rest of the network.  The originating node isn't known by any other node of the network.

For the OP the quoted section is utter crap, someone making up stuff to sound important.  The dumbest part is the genesis block isn't relayed.  It is hardcoded into each client.  It is how all clients can be assured they are part of the Bitcoin network.  Nobody relays it because everyone already knows it.  When you install a new client on a new computer the only node is already knows about is block #0 (the genesis block) and it builds the chain off that by requesting other blocks and verifying they fit the chain.

If you have a very long time horizon then probably the best thing you can do is to make periodic purchases.  Try to get a fixed dollar amount (not fixed BTC) amount on a fixed schedule and stick with it.  i.e buy $100 per week or $150 per month or whatever your budget will support.  People saying things like price is high right now isn't really helpful.  What is it goes up to $5,000 and then "crashes" back to $2,000 while you wait for "lower prices".  On the other hand you probably don't want to dump 100% of saved funds in right now.  By buying a fixed amount each month you can ride out the swings in price and avoid either panic buying or panic selling both of which almost always end up costing you a lot.

This will result in you automatically buying more BTC when the price is low and less BTC when the price is high.  The concept is called dollar cost averaging.  If you do this week in and week out it will lower your overall basis.  That being said Bitcoin should still be considered speculative you may also want to supplement it with contributions to a tax deferred 527 college plan.

Our company will be rolling out a service soon where consumers can buy small (up to $500) amounts of Bitcoins using cash at more than 50,000 locations in the US.  Perfect for this kind of small periodic purchases.

He claims he never received the goods.
He claims he never made this purchase a hacker used his account without his permission.
In reality a hacker DID use his account and you never talked to the account holder only someone who brute forced his secure password (sex123 or something stupid like that).

PayPal won't look at any "proof you have" they will rubber stamp a chargeback.  If PayPal does uphold the dispute in your favor he can report it to his bank that the ACH ("e-check" is an ACH) was unauthorized.  He has 30 days to do that and the bank will rubber stamp the reversal.  Bank take the funds from PayPal, PayPal takes the funds from you. 

Hopefully you get lucky, if you keep doing stupid things though eventually you luck will run out and you will get burned.