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756
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Bitcoin / Mining / Re: i need answer
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on: March 22, 2015, 12:01:13 PM
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if i understood correctly, you want to know which company existed before the current one, in mining?
you is near. which company existed before if existed , similar bit-x and hashnest ? before was similar company such us bit-x and hashnest if nowaday this company is best and never will destroy ? this i know. example: cex.io Existed for a long time Easy to understand. If you're looking for a pool? To mine with? Any pool is ok as long as you don't keep btc with them. If you're asking for a trusted hardware provider? Bitmain should work. If you're asking about a company's history? Hashnest sure. However hosted mining has not been profitable for many. I have had dealings Bitmain and is a good vendor of hardware. I have no experience with bit-x |
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759
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Economy / Speculation / Re: Wall Observer BTC/USD - Bitcoin price movement tracking & discussion
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on: March 21, 2015, 09:36:12 AM
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...The bitcoin system does not create any real wealth (food, homes, cars, boat rides, haircuts...) ...
You are mistaken, bitcoin (the network) is a service, just like hairdressing. It fulfills the needs of small fraction of the society, although with a stupid waste of computing power / energy. As long as dark markets and like will continue to use bitcoin, it will have intrinsic value. When / if they will stop, only then the value will converge towards 0. "Intrinsic value" is difficult to define and measure; but, anyway, for the purpose of evaluating the contribution of a currency to society one should not count the purchase power of the currency itself as real wealth. It is true that bitcoin, if it works as planned, should have a positive contribution to society: namely, it should reduce the fees of certain payments and money transfers. (Those fees transfer some real wealth from society in general to the banks and other financial intermediaries. While this process does not destroy real wealth, it may be argued that it is morally wrong, because the amount of wealth transfered is too high considering the service rendered by the bank.) However, this hypothetical positive effect of bitcoin will be very small compared to its "pyramid effect", the unwarranted transfer of wealth from late adopters to early adopters; and will probably be much smaller than the wealth destroyed by mining. Currently, mining costs about a million dollars per day. Most of that amount corresponds to destruction (consumption) of real wealth (mainly electricity and equipment), the rest being real wealth transfered from new investors to the miners (as minig profits and salaries). Allowing for changes in price and profitability, I would guess that, since it started in 2009, bitcoin mining has destroyed (consumed) at least 500 million dollars of real wealth. The total amount of bank fees saved in that interval cannot be more than 50 million dollars. As for the "pyramid effect", I have no idea of how it could be determined, but it too must be in the hundreds of millions. And I cannot see these proportions changing much over the next 20 years. Your argument as to the cost of mining destroying wealth is not new and in your case may be disingenuous in its use. I seen this attempt at misinformation before however there is no "destruction" of economic value as the payments are still in circulation just not in the BTC economic network. Until those that sell us the electricity begin to use and hold BTC. At this time moving Fiat value into bitcoin is becoming simplified however due to "issues" real or imagined that value is leaving the BTC economy and going back into Fiat when we pay for the electrical service fee's. Update: I wanted to add that the concept used to equate BTC to the "pyramid effect" is shared if you were to equate Berkshire Hathaway Inc. to a "pyramid effect" and all costs to maintain the trading servers and techology including the effort to maintain its value equates to wealth "destruction". Berkshire Hathaway Inc.(NYSE:BRK.B)"145.53 +0.65 (0.45%) Mar 20 - Close NYSE real-time data " |
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760
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Economy / Speculation / Re: Wall Observer BTC/USD - Bitcoin price movement tracking & discussion
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on: March 21, 2015, 09:25:22 AM
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Dear "Stolfi", I have come across the page: http://www.ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/bitcoin/2014-02-17-HowToMakeSomeEasyMoney.htmlIt appears you formed the impression around February 2014 that bitcoin is a pyramid scheme. Since that date, however, you have thoroughly educated yourself on the technology, tacitly admitting that it constitutes an advance in CS and in economics. In any case, you no longer think being a pyramid is one of bitcoin's top six drawbacks. The bitcoin prootocol was a promising solution to an old distributed computing problem, yes; and the blockchain started by Satoshi on 2009-01-03 was a technical experiment to test it, yes. But the experiment revealed some serious problems, which were not clearly seen at the time, and still have no solution in sight. Economically, as a "deflationary decentralized pseudonymous irreversible currency", bitcoin still makes no sense to me. As an investment, I believe that it is fairly well illustrated by that money-making circle on my website. The bitcoin system does not create any real wealth (food, homes, cars, boat rides, haircuts...) Unlike the dividends and valuation of typical company stocks, any proft that one can make from bitcoin, wether by short-term trading or long-term "hodling", will be someone else's loss. If bitcoin crashes, or never rises above the current levels, the losers will be obvious -- namely, all those who bought high and had to sell low, or will die holding the bag. When an investor uses his sweat-earned 260 $ to increase his holdings by 1 BTC today, he is either giving that money to a Chinese miner, or is paying for a bottle of fine French wine on Risto's table, or a new pair of designer ties for the Winklevoss twins. But even if bitcoin "goes to the moon", the mansions and lamborghinis that the bitcoin holders will acquire, when they finally start spending their bitcoins, will not have been created by bitcoin. By spending those tokens, the bitcoin holders will take real wealth from society, without giving any other real wealth in return. In that case, the losers will be harder to pin down, because (as in my money-spinning circle) the loss will be diffuse and moving from hand to hand. Still, the total loss of the "others" will be equal to the gain of the holders. So, in either case, the economic effect of bitcoin will be the same as that of any pyramid or ponzi scheme: it will only transfer real wealth from the late adopters to the early adopters, without creating any real wealth by itself. Ponzi schemes are usually planned and managed by one person, which is not the case of bitcoin; but that not an essential difference. As some Indian economist aptly put it, "bitcoin is not a deliberate ponzi". I believe that Satoshi did not intend bitcoin to be a pyramid scheme, and that it only became one a couple of years later, when other people started viewing (and pushing) it as a serious investment, rather than a computer experiment. To the extent that people like Risto, Sielbert and the Winkles are still selling it as a way to get filthy rich without working, even with due risk warnings, it is still a pyramid scheme. Would you consider removing HowToMakeSomeEasyMoney.html?
Of course not. EDIT: Actually, whether bitcoin flops or goes to the moon, the losses of the losers will be much greater than the profits of the winners, because a huge amount of real wealth will be consumed by mining. Thus, in that aspect, bitcoin is not just a ponzi, but an egregiously stupid kind of ponzi. This is ridiculous. Around half my income comes in the form of bitcoin payments for copywriting and communications work with clients around the world. Payments are typically $50-300 each. Without bitcoin, it would be utterly uneconomical to transfer those amounts through the traditional banking system. There's clear value there to me: the ability to access global work, without which this month I'd have trouble paying my mortgage and feeding my kids. And yes, to pre-empt your next point, I do pay my mortgage in fiat. But I also keep some in bitcoin, because it's the best way of paying for goods and services globally, like the gigs on Fiverr I've been using to create material for communications campaigns using professionals around the world, and because the punitive bank rates make it smart to keep the money in the system rather than going via fiat. Some of those people, I imagine, will do the same, and some of them are only able to access the work I give them because I pay in bitcoin, rather than be extorted by a fiat transfer. Ever tried sending $5 across continents by fiat? A clue: Fiverr wouldn't be called Fiverr any more. And so the bitcoins go round, providing a useful and valuable service as a fast, cheap means of international currency transfer. I love that you're so engaged and enthusiastic about proving bitcoin is a ponzi/scam/will never work, etc. Really. But while you're pontificating about why it can't work, you seem not to realise there are people like me who are able to pay the bills and create real value for other people because it does work. These arguments against BTC have no truth to them. ALTS at this time? Sure. What makes BTC valuable is far greater then what makes it week. As far as end users and BTC, the price to USD as long as its stable for 1 to 2 hours is all that matters. However a higher valued BTC to USD is welcomed as it would lessen BTC exposure to market manipulation that we have seen alts suffer from. |
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