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What sort of advice are you looking for?
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Seems I just lost connection to the pool. Anything going on?
EDIT: Things are kicking back online now.
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Cash
Alt-coins
Mining Equipment
Stocks/Bonds
Cigars
VPN Service
Physical Bitcoins
Gift Cards
And now with Overstock, this list will grow immensely!
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this is starting to look like a ponzi
It's been a Ponzi from the start, but people look past it once they see their payments come in  |
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Do you own any altcoin? Why?
I focus mostly on investing in Litecoin, while mining some of the other random coins every once in a while to try something different. Litecoin was the first true alternative to Bitcoin because of the framework it was built on, and just about everything since then has been a copycat. As a disclaimer though, I do own a 'few' Litecoins as of right now, though a farfetch from the few thousand I used to hold mid-2012. |
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I agree with just about everything in your post, and every industry has its good and bad participants.
My qualms with Wall St. stem from the 'Greed is Good' attitude; doing whatever it takes to make a Dollar can lead to chaos if enough effort is put into it. Maybe it's just me though, since my philosophy doesn't revolve around greed. My goal is to build up something from scratch and earn enough money to invest back into society...I don't need to hoard every penny I make.
This is sort of where my abhorrence for Wall Street and their view on Bitcoin come into play. Everything I've read or seen so far has been (for the most part) members of the Investment community looking to capitalize on Bitcoin as an investment vehicle instead of a global currency. They buy it up / hoard it, and then wait because eventually they'll make a hefty profit on their investment. They're not going to Overstock.com to make a few purchases, nor using their coins to purchase items on the Bitcoin Store, nor investing in hardware (though I'm sure a few are) or developing new ways to get Bitcoin to the mainstream (other than touting their new investments). Their contributions to the currency have been to provide people with money a new way to make more money.
But is there anything wrong with all that? I don't know. I can only piece together so much with the information I'm given.
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It's like I'm having flashbacks to this time last year when Josh released that ASIC "timeline" to get the chips out. Seems they're about on schedule for June delivery then! |
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The FBI wouldn't dump the coins to market since that's not how they operate when dealing with seized assets. BurtW put it best in the other DPR thread: 1) Yes the ownership is or will be, of course, contested. So they cannot sell them until that is settled.
2) He probably had to turn over the keys in order to contest the ownership and/or to cut a deal. In any case AFAWK the FBI does control the two addresses.
3) They will not sell them until everything (ownership, guilt, etc.) is all settled and appealed.
4) When they sell them they will not use any exchange, they will auction them off just like they do all other seized assets (gold, cars, boats, houses) through their already established methods and protocols.
5) I expect that they want the most USD they can get (not the least) - as this all goes directly into their budgets.
6) These people are not stupid and (for the most part) they do follow the law or their own internal regulations. We are not talking about the CIA or NSA here.
7) They do not give a shit as to what Bitcoin is, whither a currency, asset, "digital gold" or whatever. That is not their job. They just want the most USD they can get to line their budgets.
I could be wrong. I would be willing to bet on this but the event (sale of the BTC) is so many years in the future that placing a bet is not very practical. I wish I could in order to just shut up the hundreds of threads on this same subject every day, day after day. It gets very tedious.
I guess I could bet "The FBI will not sell or otherwise dispose of the DPR coins in the next year" but who would be stupid enough to take the opposite side on this bet?
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[...]
Expenses will be reduced. Since all MintSpare expenses are being paid in US dollars, having the value of bitcoin rise would require less bitcoins to pay for expenses.
[...]
Following up to this statement, are initial expenses (salaries, rent, utilities, web/graphic design, etc) paid using investors' Bitcoins (converted to USD)? |
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The 'Gazelle' of Bitcoin! I like the idea, and it's certainly a service which I will use as often as I can. However, this isn't something I will be investing in, but possibly for different reasons that have been voiced here already (I've only perused the thread so far). The two biggest problems I have are: 1) The initial founder (or founders if there are silent partners) isn't putting in any of their own capital to seed the startup, or at least none that has been noted or accounted for in the financials thus far. Without an initial seed, granting investors 20% of the company seems a bit far-fetched. This also makes the offer more like a 'Kickstarter' campaign than an investment in a company, and runs the risk of reducing pressure on the company to perform as expected. 2) The big issue: Bitcoin price fluctuations
Our offers are locked to the dollar amount at the time the offer was given. If Bitcoin’s value rises or falls, MintSpare’s offers would be adjusted accordingly.
MintSpare expects to have each product sold and switched back into Bitcoins within a two-week period. We admit that this could, and most likely will occasionally eat into our margins. We’ve taken a few
precautions to offset this as much as possible.
● Less than 5% of our device models accepted were created before the year 2007. This makes for
a higher demand and in turn allows us to receive a faster turnaround.
● Elecronic’s offer margins were created to take into account Bitcoin’s fluctuation.
● MintSpare’s sell prices are very competitive and will ensure a fast turnaround.
● Once US Dollars are received, they will be exchanged for Bitcoin within hours, not days. We will
be using Coinbase for this until we’re able to mainly operate through our own E-Commerce
storefront.
Once the MintSpare Bitcoin based E-Commerce store is online, this problem will be heavily mitigated
since a significant portion of accepted electronics will be sold there for Bitcoins directly. This will increase
MintSpare’s turnaround time up to 10-fold on the majority of received electronics (1-2 days instead of 14
days). The MintSpare Bitcoin based E-Commerce store will be operated by MintSpare and all
shareholders shall directly benefit from its sales.
In addition, with Bitcoin’s growth, MintSpare expects the currency’s volatility to diminish and allow
MintSpare to secure its margins with less risk involved.
This is obviously to be expected, and certainly something I can't criticize. But what this means is that investing in MintSpare (or any other company tying their products/services to fiat) is a way to hedge against Bitcoin. As Bitcoin increases in value, MintSpare customers would receive fewer BTC for their items, and in turn MS would earn fewer BTC after converting USD from the sold product...leading to smaller dividends overall. Of course, the opposite could happen as well; lower Bitcoin price means more BTC to distribute after converting USD. I'm ignoring fluctuating Operating Costs in this example (I presume they're tied to USD as well). I can also appreciate the fact that MintSpare is touting "first to market"; holding that title certainly has its initial benefits (e.g. market share). The problem here comes when competition suddenly abounds. Should a second "electronics refurbishing" company come to market in 2014, it may not bode well for investors. Or, if the Bitcoin price stabilizes while media coverage and adoption increases, you run the risk of the actual Gazelle adding a Bitcoin payment option (it's quite unlikely at this point or in the near future, but still something to consider). Anyway, just my 2 Satoshis. On another note, you may want to double check the Financial Projections chart in the prospectus. Your "Initial Costs" are incorrect. |
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I got his message. And I can't see any image for the captcha Image Verification failed!. Go back and try again Try IE or chrome. I couldn't see the captcha with Firefox either. Chrome/Firefox doesn't show unsecured content by default (e.g. the captcha) on a secured page. IE at least prompts you. |
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Might I suggest cloud hosting, depending on the nature of the current speific issue. Cloud hosting can help with specific data center server issues.
"Cloud hosting" is essentially just a synonym to "data center"... |
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Gigabyte HD 5870 Super OC Problem most likely is caused by unstable or damaged video card. Windows default drivers don't use specific acceleration features of card that might be malfunctioning. Also the 16-bit colors also might be OK. Try to lower overclocking to default HD5870 speeds, it might solve the problem or make it less severe. This was my next suggestion. Under the Catalyst Control Center >> Performance >> AMD OverDrive settings, you should be able to manually underclock the GPU. Start off with a little bit at a time to see if things get better. Another thing to note is dust accumulation. A build up leads to overheating, and with an already overclocked card that could pose a problem. He stated earlier that he swapped out the GPU with an NVIDIA card and the problem was still there.
Following up to this, one thing that wasn't mentioned was whether or not all GPU drivers were removed prior to the card being swapped. Having multiple driver conflicts can be a hell of a headache with surprising results. |
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I am using Catalyst Install Manager Version 8.0.915.0 and I have tried uninstalling and re-installing the drivers multiple times using the recommended driver-sweeper in safe mode method, still no change.
That's a bit old actually, since they're on v13.12 now. It may be worth an update to see if anything changes. |
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Couple of questions on this: Did this problem just start happening? Have you recently switched GPUs? What's the current AMD driver version you're using? Are there any updates for it? Based on the image, it looks like the GPU is mis-rendering the video output, which could mean a driver issue (especially if you changed GPUs). Never hurts to check: http://support.amd.com/en-us/download/auto-detect-tool |
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Determining whether to mine or just buy BTC is certainly a difficult choice. Along with the Genesis Block mining calculator that Crazyates already noted, I also like to use the Bitcoin Mining Profit calc: http://btcinvest.net/en/bitcoin-mining-profit-calculator.phpBoth calculators have their strengths and weaknesses of course. With $5,000 to work with, it may make more sense to buy coins and hold for the next few years. Mining is beginning the transition from a 'home based' operation to one centralized in a datacenter (or other dedicated structure) and run by groups of people with capital backing. Hardware purchase price (Fiat or BTC), Hardware queue / timeframe, energy costs, depreciation, storage/security, cooling, maintenance (if any), Bitcoin price (present and predicted), and network hashing speed / difficulty (present and predicted), are some of the items to be considered. In many cases so far, simply buying and holding Bitcoin has been a far more profitable venture than individually purchasing mining hardware, especially after accounting for the variables above. |
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[...] fork the blockchain so that the coins are in that address, then convice GHash.io and BTC guild[2] to jump on the fork. Everyone's coins stay the same, except the global bitcoin community fucks the FBI and gives back the bitcoins to their rightful owner. [...]
Ignoring the issues of tampering with evidence in an FBI investigation and instead focusing on the snippet above, everyone would need to download and use the new blockchain, not just the largest pools. Not to mention an act like this would completely undermine the concept of Bitcoin, making it worthless. |
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Returned home from travelling to find a nice box waiting for me. Coins look great! Certainly happy with my purchase!
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Given the types of equipment that are scheduled to ship soon, I'd put the March 2014 difficulty at about 5B. But then again, that's only if just about all manufacturers ship on time and within spec (KnC, Hashfast, CoinTerra, BFL, Bitmine, and others), especially for December orders.
Call it 3-4B conservatively, 6-7B as a ceiling.
Im not sure I can agree with that "ceiling". In the past 10 days, on average 300-350 TH was added to the network every day. If you extrapolate that linearly, so you assume no growth in shipping rate compared to today, 75 days x 0.35 PH = 26PH or almost another 4B difficulty, resulting in ~4-5B. That is conservative, especially if you consider in the past 10 days, I have no clue who has been shipping or deploying this hashrate, but for sure KnC werent shipping, nor was Hashfast, Cointerra, Bitmine, ActM or any of the other soon to be released miners. Its pretty safe to assume that when they all start shipping, hashrate deployment speed will go up, by a lot compared to today. Even if it just doubles compared to today, you would be well above your ceiling. Of course its anyone's guess if/when all those companies will actually deliver and in what volume, but for a worst case scenerario, even 10B might be a low estimate for the middle of March. You're quite correct, and I was just basing my guesses off already known info. For all I know, there are probably a few "secret" developers out there looking to get into the mining game in a big way...and I'm sure stuff like this will continue for as long as mining remains marginally profitable for people with the time and resources to complete their projects. I wouldn't be surprised if we saw 15B by March if random power keeps being added to the network...but I'd rather keep my hopes up  |
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