PoW = economics of scale and division of labor guarantee eventual centralization.
Not necessarily: a byproduct of mining is heat. It's hard to get rid of the heat in large centralized operations. In small operations less so, it may even be useful in some cases. At some point mining cost will mostly be energy, not hardware. I've recently encountered a weird situation regarding solar electricity production (pretty decentralized in germany, where I live): in certain cases the array produces excess electricity which can neither be used locally nor fed into the grid for profit (due to stupid laws and regulations). Usually what is done in such cases is the electricity is just injected for free to the grid... what a waste economically, right? Well, if you have some cheap asics (so cheap that you can just have them laying around idle if not needed) you can make good use of the excess electricity. What you are describing is a mis-pricing of investment/expenses. Just because a regular home miner severely undervalues his time invested in maintaining the equipment or the heat generated, those factors aren't immune to the economics of scale. Eventually the huge hot ASIC box gets thrown out because it barely breaks even while for the industrial miner a huge hot ASIC box is just a small expense line in one of 1000s running in a huge warehouse. Also there is no excess electricity. Either it is subsidized somehow ie someone else is footing the bill or again the cost is simply mis-priced by the miner and eventually that cost will come to the forefront and the small time miner will be pushed out by larger commercial players. You can't escape the benefits of division of labor. I don't quite get why you say "there is no excess electricity". Another example (apart from the one I brought up) is excess electricity generated by wind that cannot be delivered for various reasons, mainly lack of demand at the time and/or lack of power line capacity. Electricity cannot be stored very efficiently, so production has to basically match demand minus dissipation. I'm just arguing that maybe crypto mining can fill the lack of demand once mining hardware is cheap enough to be able to switch it off at times when energy is too expensive. It would provide sort of a guaranteed base demand for electricity that can be decentralized as needed as long as there's a network connection. I used to laugh at this idea, but I changed my mind and now think it's a possible outcome with commoditized cheap asics. |
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i'm pleased to say that on 7/4 at a party, i was able to send demo BTC to the iPhone of a CEO of a biotech company.
i'd never browsed the iPhone app store before but simply searching "Bitcoin" brought up loads of stuff including a few wallets. he was thoroughly impressed and had actually approached me about Bitcoin since he knew i was involved back when the price was around $80. he now gets it and will be entering the space i'm sure.
i've been waiting to be able to do this for the longest time and it is a powerful way to demonstrate the utility of Bitcoin to anyone with a smartphone now.
I remember someone telling a story that happened at a golf club or something (was it Antonopulous?). Not sure if true, but it goes like this: he sent a large chunk of coins (thousands worth a million $ or so) to the next guys phone and then around the table and back to him. Apparently it made quite an impression on the attendees to hold a million worth of Bitcoin on their gadgets for a short period of time. It's a slight bit risky and takes some balls to do this, but it sure gets people to think. |
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If you view the purpose of an economy as producing prosperity and well-being for the people by using resources (natural ones, energy and labour), I wouldn't call what we currently have "efficient": many people are forced to work in slave-like conditions, we're using up natural resources at an increasing pace, polluting the life on this planet and the lives of many cannot be called prosperous or even good. I argue that this inefficiency and other negative implications of the way our economy currently functions are largely a result of the type of money we use and propose the use of Bitcoin as a solution. I believe widespread use of cryptocurrency as a store of wealth and for payments can have very positive effects for our well-being, both for the people individually and as a whole, including non-human life. Might be a naive dream, but I'm willing to try it out. |
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Cool. I loved lebings original. Watching.
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In my opinion, spending just for the sake of spending is not a formula for wealth creation. Savings, investment and wise spending are what makes everyone wealthier.
Inflation is a terrible hidden tax for those on a fixed income and punishes savers. The ones who benefit are the ones who get to spend the newly created money first before the general increase in prices.
Well said, man. |
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I would argue there are different kinds of growth: - Artificial type of growth (generated by injecting newly generated money into the economy).
- Growth financed by investment of existing money (usually savings)
On paper using an aggregate view they look the same: GDP increases. However they differ in sustainability and effect on the economy: the first one is kind-of "fake". It might not have been done without the new money being printed, so whatever was done with that money is less economically viable. At the same time it has the effect of "removing" value from projects that are economically viable (due to the reduced value of the existing money). It results in misallocation of capital that will correct at some point and in addition distorts price signals, making the economy less efficient. The second type of growth ("real growth" if you will) is more sustainable. There was a viable economic reason the investment was made (otherwise it wouldn't have been made). Of course also these businesses / innovations can fail, but they should turn out to do so at a lesser rate. Essentially growth generated by inflation is "fake paper growth". It's like blowing air into a balloon: it get's bigger, but doesn't gain weight. just my 2 satoshis |
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First we waited for the downtrend to end. Then we waited for the rally to start, according to the calendar.  Then we were waiting for the auction. What are we waiting for now?  The Winklevii ETF "COIN" to be activated on the 11th What's on the 11th regarding COIN? 11th of what? You're probably joking, right? EDIT: I was of the impression they could be lucky to get it online this year. |
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Just use BTC or satoshi (0.00000001) like in:
I just bought a car for 10 BTC!
The new Final Fantasy game will cost only 15000 satoshi!
Using mBTC, uBTC, μBTC is just unnecessary, sounds like a different coin and it will confuse a lot of people.
Coinedup and a few other sites are guilty of using mBTC.
1 satoshi is the smallest unit of BTC that's all people should have to learn. If you want massive user adoption you have to simplify things.
how is that simpler than 1 bitcoin is 1 million BITS? Actually you mean 100 million BITS? Actually no. 0.01 BITS = 1 satoshi Argh! I stand corrected and BITS is the same a uBTC ... I much prefer uBTC as that is something I can EASILY understand. u = micro = 10 -6. Yeah, BIT is just another name for uBTC. Initially I was opposed to "bits", because, well, we had the much more cleanly derived uBTC (and also mBTC). Then it dawned on me that "micro-bee-tee-cee" just had too many syllables and not everyone would value a clean derivation using metric prefixing. So I fell in love with "bits". 1 syllable, easy to pronounce, connotations with the digital world and money, future-proof, simple enough to handle / understand. I acknowledge there can be confusion (you are a good example), but it can be overcome. I'll continue supporting the "bits" proposal. |
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Just use BTC or satoshi (0.00000001) like in:
I just bought a car for 10 BTC!
The new Final Fantasy game will cost only 15000 satoshi!
Using mBTC, uBTC, μBTC is just unnecessary, sounds like a different coin and it will confuse a lot of people.
Coinedup and a few other sites are guilty of using mBTC.
1 satoshi is the smallest unit of BTC that's all people should have to learn. If you want massive user adoption you have to simplify things.
how is that simpler than 1 bitcoin is 1 million BITS? Actually you mean 100 million BITS? Actually no. 0.01 BITS = 1 satoshi |
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Just use BTC or satoshi (0.00000001) like in:
I just bought a car for 10 BTC!
The new Final Fantasy game will cost only 15000 satoshi!
Using mBTC, uBTC, μBTC is just unnecessary, sounds like a different coin and it will confuse a lot of people.
Coinedup and a few other sites are guilty of using mBTC.
1 satoshi is the smallest unit of BTC that's all people should have to learn. If you want massive user adoption you have to simplify things.
how is that simpler than 1 bitcoin is 1 million BITS? |
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If possible to, can you please somehow prove that deflationary financial system can be sustainable aswell?
Hey, I have an idea: let's just try it out! |
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But I believe that also deflationary system can work. People will still buy things they need, although not as much.. Causing joblessness etc I wouldn't mind working a little less. |
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So how long until Israel makes a preemptive strike on Iran given the current state of geopolitical events?
No longer than it takes an OPEC member to start trading oil for BTC? |
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your a bit well behind the times man! lol
and if your so sure it can be done, why dont you do it? im sure the nxt guys would put a hefty bet on with you that you or anyone cant do it.
If this is your answer to Peter R.s well-founded and well-explained critcism of PoS/nxt, then it's very easy for me to make up my mind. As for the supposed (not factual) bet you propose: they would have to give the potential attacker access to a key that used to have 51% stake at some point in the past first. I'm willing to bet they wont do that. |
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PoW = economics of scale and division of labor guarantee eventual centralization.
Not necessarily: a byproduct of mining is heat. It's hard to get rid of the heat in large centralized operations. In small operations less so, it may even be useful in some cases. At some point mining cost will mostly be energy, not hardware. I've recently encountered a weird situation regarding solar electricity production (pretty decentralized in germany, where I live): in certain cases the array produces excess electricity which can neither be used locally nor fed into the grid for profit (due to stupid laws and regulations). Usually what is done in such cases is the electricity is just injected for free to the grid... what a waste economically, right? Well, if you have some cheap asics (so cheap that you can just have them laying around idle if not needed) you can make good use of the excess electricity. |
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The 300k target is unrealistic expectation.
unrealistic?  It sure isn't incompatible with current facts. By that definition, we'll only know wether it has been a realistic expectation after the fact. You probably meant to say: "that 300k target is improbable from my point of view"? |
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justusranvier, please let us know when your article is published and thanks for test-posting here  I have a question: you say that coin issuance is not the problem solved by mining, distributed consesus is, and that the two just coincide. after explaining honest signaling you argue: The fact that mining calculations are completely useless outside the signalling system itself is what makes lies more expensive than telling the truth.
But isn't the fact that solving a block is being rewarded (fees, coinbase tx) also a part of making telling the truth less expensive than telling lies? So isn't the combination of consensus-finding and coin issuance (or at least some sort of reward) not merely a "temporary coincidence", but a necessity? |
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bfxdata.com shows USD swaps just jumped by 1.5 million to 30.5 million
best swap offer now 0.4475 %/day
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Chefin, vielen Dank für deine Buchhaltungs-Infos, auch die weiter oben. Ganz klar komm ich damit allerdings nicht...
Also jetzt mal im Ernst, wie macht ihr das?
Bei mir ist das unendlich kompliziert.
ich kauf BTC mit Fiat, NXT mit BTC, dann NEM mit NXT auf der ae, Karma mit BTC, dann verkauf ich iregndwas und kauf was anderes, usw....... und überall brauch ich den aktuellen Kurs.
Da dreht man ja durch. Die einzige Hoffnung ist ,das jemand ein gutes Tool geschrieben hat bis die Steuererklärung fällig wird.
was hälst du davon, wenn du dein geld das du reinsteckst aufnotierst(mehr brauchst du normal nicht) und am Ende des Jahres einfach alles was du an Euro hast zusammen zählst. Aus der Differenz ergibt sich Gewinn. Ja aber ist das denn so richtig? 1.1.2013: kauf 1 BTC für 10€ ("Kontostand": -10€) 1.11.2013: verkauf 1 BTC 800€ ("Kontostand": 790€) 31.12.2013: kauf 2 BTC 690€ ("Kontostand": 100€) nach deiner rechnung: "alles was ich an EUR habe: 100€) minus "reingesteckt" (700€) = -600€ Gewinn, also €600 Verlust. Stimmt doch nicht, wie ich meine: Gewinn ist €790 entstanden durch Veräußerung am 1.11.2013 (€800 minus €10 = €790€) Oder vielleicht noch klarer: 1.1.2013: Kauf 1 BTC für 10€ 1.11.2013: verkauf 1 BTC für 800€ 1.11.2013: kauf 1 BTC für 800€ meiner Ansicht nach entsteht hier ein Gewinn von 790€ obwohl mein "Kaptialfluss in EUR" über's Jahr gesehen negativ ist (-10€). |
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