For the Apollo miner binary itself, you can find all the updates here: https://github.com/jstefanop/Apollo-Miner-Binaries/releases

For the Single Board Computer (Bitcoin node, etc), you can find all the updates here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5340015.msg57091052#msg57091052

Based on the doco, there was a death certificate (last name misspelt), and a verbal interview with the doc who was there when the CEO was announced dead. Also, there was a funeral with closed casket. It's all very suspicious, but apparently it looks like he is actually not alive any more. The suspicion is also about the wife, because only about a week before his death he signed a will leaving her everything, and the night of the funeral she was drinking and partying with friends. She didn't appear in the doco.

It really is a personal choice. Conferences are not for everyone.

Matt Habel is doing an auction at scarce city for his Bitcoin Mandala #5 out of 21:




The level of detail is amazing:


Sharing it here since I think some of you guys might be interested in getting this awesome collectible:

https://scarce.city/auctions/bitcoin-mandala-5

The new M50 series of MicroBT's WhatsMiner has been announced.

Here's the announcement video:





Here are the stats of these miners:

• WhatsMiner M53: 226TH/s, 29J/T, 6554W
• WhatsMiner M50S: 126TH/s, 26J/T, 3276W
• WhatsMiner M50: 114TH/s, 29J/T, 3306W

Here's a closer look at the WhatsMiner M50S (M50 looks similar):


And here's a closer look at the WhatsMiner M53, the fastest one:


They look quite interesting for the industrial miner, but probably not for home use at 6.5kW+ of power

In terms of price, the M50S is sold for about $11k, and the M50 for about $9k (both sold out at the moment).

Source: https://www.whatsminer.com

I reckon Block Inc will be the ones offering a home solution with these chips.

Jack Dorsey from Block has been saying he wants to make an open source home miner, so this is probably going to be it.[1]

[1]: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/13/jack-dorsey-block-officially-building-an-open-bitcoin-mining-system.html

In my mind it's slowly happening already.

It's slow in the beginning, but then everyone adopts the technology very quickly. Similar to what happened to the smartphones. The first few years it was a bit difficult to use, the hardware wasn't as good (the first Nokia smartphones for example), but the technology was there. You could use maps, surf the web, etc, but it was complicated. It took Apple and Google a few years to actually end up with an easy to use and fast device. It's now commonplace. Everyone uses maps, and surfs the web on their phones today. It will be the same with Bitcoin.

We already see this starting to happen in El Salvador. They are using lightning wallets there for every day purchases. Other countries will follow. Eventually it will be as pervasive as credit card payments, and it will be normal to pay with lightning.

Also, more and more creators of goods and services are accepting Bitcoin only (or giving incentives to pay in Bitcoin)

Here's one example:

I think one of the things that will make Bitcoin more common worldwide is creators of goods and services offering them only through Bitcoin (or maybe with a discount incentive).

Here's one example:


If someone wants a design from him that person will have to pay with Bitcoin, making it a bit more common. If this is repeated all around the world, it will make Bitcoin being adopted worldwide.

If you've got the Apollo BTC Standard (instead of the full), then the only thing you need is the binary for Linux (Apollo-Miner_linux-x86_64). You can run that from your Ubuntu 20.04 machine, and it will mine with your USB connected Apollo miner.

Based on the help output from the binary, it looks like it only supports mining from one pool:


This is the only binary that can be used with this miner. It's not open sourced, so AFAIK no other miner software can be used with the Apollo BTC.

Just because a software is open source doesn't mean it can't do unwanted things.

Also, I'm not sure how you're able to confirm the firmware running in your hardware wallet is actually the source that has been published openly. Maybe you can flash it yourself? Not sure most people would do that. Most people would start using the hardware wallet. Maybe they would generate their own keys outside of the wallet, but not sure if they would re-flash the wallet with their custom firmware as well.

At some point you do need to trust, otherwise you won't have enough time or expertise in all the necessary areas to verify everything you use.

Is that Laurentia Pool solo? I haven't seen it. And why would it be better to use that one instead of ck-solo?

Here are some birthdays stored in the blockchain:

It was funny while it lasted, but it won't be a useful tool for long term.

I think the current situation of the forum with merits, activity, and ranks is working quite alright. And although it's a bit tough for newbies in the beginning, if you constantly post quality content you can rise up the ranks quite fast, just as we saw in the case of n0nce, who has been in this forum for less than a year and already was accepted at one of the most prestigious signature campaigns.

There are many implications depending on how you conduct your business, and where it's located.

One area that you have to look is if you're allowed to operate legally in your area with whatever you're offering. No idea where you guys are or what you're doing, so you need to figure this out first.

The other area is financial. Basically there are many different types of companies that you can create, depending on the country you are. Each one comes with different pros and cons.

I recommend you to contact someone that can help you locally as rules are different everywhere. Check out your local tech startup scene, they usually have people there that can help you out with these kinds of questions.

One million and fifty five thousand years.

By that time some interesting things will happen:

Betelgeuse, one of the top ten brightest stars in our sky, will have exploded in a supernova. It will be so bright that it will be visible on Earth in day time. [1]

A couple of Uranus moons, Desdemona and Cressida, will probably have already collided with each other. [2]

inlovewiththedj will probably have obtained his vanity address. [3]

[1]: https://earthsky.org/brightest-stars/betelgeuse-will-explode-someday
[2]: https://astronomy.com/news/2017/09/uranus-colliding-moons
[3]: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5112311.msg59427656#msg59427656

I think I would use a Bitcoin ATM in the future, when Bitcoin is more widely accepted.

Comparing this to a cash ATM, these days I only use them whenever a shop tells me they only accept cash, and not cards. I've noticed this is getting a bit more common recently with inflation and increasing fees from card companies.

In a similar way, in the future when most businesses accept Bitcoin, I would use the Bitcoin ATM for the few businesses that accept fiat only as I won't be carrying any fiat payment mechanism at that time.

Germany's cybercrime forces have stated that Hydra Market has been operating since at least 2015 with around 17 million customers, making it one of the largest darknet marketplaces in the world.

With help from the US, they seized 543 bitcoins while shutting down the operation:


This was a very large marketplace, with more than one billion euros a year being transacted in the platform:

The new Intel Blockscale ASIC is being marketed as a "custom ASIC for blockchain acceleration". That means that Intel provides a reference ASIC chip and other companies are able to develop a working miner based on their own needs:


Here are the specs for the chip:



For reference, the fastest USB miner, the GekkoMiner Compac F, hashes at about 300 GH/s at 15W.

The key message is that the Intel chipset will be customizable by the companies, allowing them to create different types of miners, for example a quiet home miner, or a high performance industrial one:


When would anyone be able to get these chips?:


It seems that Jack Dorsey's Block new miner will be based on this chipset:


Having an open source miner with this Intel chip would be great. Also, I would like to see a USB miner with this chipset.

And to organize this development into the future, Intel has created a New Custom Compute Group: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/newsroom/opinion/thoughts-blockchain-custom-compute-group.html

They showed an official death certificate from India, although it had his last name misspelt.

One journalist/reporter went to India to investigate, and interviewed the doctor. He described what he saw, and how the CEO was revived a couple of times until it couldn't be revived any more. This is all based on verbal information from the doctor given to the reporter.

The funeral was done with a closed casket, so most people didn't see the body. The wife is said to have seen the body in the funeral.

That's pretty much it. The people affected in this are now demanding to exhume the body. The wife didn't appear in the documentary. Maybe there's something legal about it, or maybe she just didn't want to appear.

I think it's worth watching the documentary, I didn't know the details of this and they covered it all quite nicely.

Not everything is about making money though. When running these devices at home you're decentralizing the network a bit more, and you're getting experience mining Bitcoin with real ASIC devices. Plus, if you run them solo, you also have a built-in lottery running for you every day.