Hello all,

Sometime in the last few days, I stumbled across a website that is offering offshore/blockchain corporation formation. I can't recall the name of it any more and I failed to bookmark, but I know that it offered registration of companies in various tax-friendly countries, including Cayman and the blockchain with several other options. If someone could find it and leave their wallet address, I'd be very appreciative!

Thanks!

In addition to the anecdotal evidence of people losing their wallets, we know that about 2000 BTC were burned during the Counterparty proof of burn. It's possible that similar processes could increase the number of "lost" bitcoin.

You are confusing inflation with price appreciation, and your claim is based entirely on a timeframe that you selected to fit your bias.

Just as easily, you could say that Bitcoin price has appreciated by greater than 4x per year and be equally correct.

There is inflation in the money supply of Bitcoin, which was and is known (since it wasn't heavily pre-mined like other coins), math-based, predictable, and FALLING over time. Because industrial miners are profit-focused, they are selling virtually immediately to lock-in current price to pay the bills, rather than speculating about future value. This causes somewhere between 0 and 3600 BTC to be sold daily onto the market, creating natural downward pressure on price.

After seeing the overwhelmingly jubilant attitude of the community in the wake of Butterfly Labs being shut down, I thought it would be good to examine how effective the FTC is in doing its job of "Protecting America's Consumers". Perhaps it will shed some light where it really belongs - not on a company that may or may not be scamming customers, but on a regulatory agency that provides very little protection, enforcement, or benefit, at great cost to the consumer.


According to the FTC's website, in 2013 there were just over 2.1 million complaints filed against companies. These 2.1 million complains led to 79 consumer protection actions filed, 137 consumer protection orders obtained, and 24 antitrust enforcement actions.

In other words, the FTC filed action once for every 25,000 complaints received, or obtained an order just once for every 15,000 complaints. In the case of Butterfly Labs, action was filed after less than 400 complaints filed, or less than .0002 of all complaints filed in 2013. Clearly, either consumer complaints are not a good indicator of action that should be or is taken, or there is some other reason for action after so few (relative) complaints. Unfortunately I didn't have actual data showing the the companies actions were taken against and how many complaints were filed against them, so we can't be sure if this is an anomaly or average.


The FTC proudly boasts that, in 2013, "767,744 consumers received redress totaling over $23.27 million." Doing some simple division shows that on average, consumers received about $30.00 as a result of FTC's action.

The department had an estimated 2013 budget of $300 million. If, instead of operating, the FTC were shut down and every person that filed a complaint had been given a proportional share of the budget, the result would be that each person filing a complaint would have received over $140, or almost 5x the money they actually received as a result of the FTC's actions. If only those who were given redress were paid, that number would almost triple, to $390.


Even if Butterfly Labs is/was a scam, it would seem pretty evident that the FTC does very little to stop scams, and very little to help people recover from them financially. It costs 13x more to operate than it pays back to consumers.

Even though it may seem like a win for Bitcoin that action was taken, it serves only to perpetuate dependence on the state as a way of life. It sets a dangerous precedent - similar to the BitLicense proposal - that Bitcoin companies will be treated more harshly than other companies, and that action will be taken against them faster than with others. The community screams and whines at the suggestions from New York, yet cheer for this action taken from Washington. Let's not forget that BFL was shipping and issuing refunds. Until the FTC stepped in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhYJS80MgYA


all numbers taken from: http://www.ftc.gov/system/files/attachments/stats-data-2013/statsdata2013.pdf or other FTC documents on their site.

QFT. Wrong direction for Bitcoin.

Yes, because regulation by fiat is EXACTLY what BTC is about. Wait....

I'm not blaming anyone for my actions and as a self-actualized individual I accept fully the responsibility of my own decisions. I assure you I have no need to "wake up" because I am not asleep. Nobody forced me into this arrangement, and nobody did for you either.

I'm not saying I had a "blissful experience", but apart from basically giving a company a 9-month, 0% interest loan I wasn't materially damaged. At least, I had every indication that I *probably wouldn't* have been until the FTC stepped in. Now, who knows if I'll ever get the rest my money back. I already received a refund for one of my orders. There's no reason to suspect I wouldn't have for the others.

I'm not sure if you read the terms of your agreement to preorder, but mine did say there were no refunds. Even knowing this, I asked for a refund as well on the chance that I could have received one, but I can't fault them for saying no - I agreed to those terms when I sent them my money. I also never said they were honoring refunds always, but they did begin for all orders starting August 19th, and earlier orders before then.

If it turns out they broke the law then yes, I absolutely would like to see justice meted out. However everything that has happened so far seems like a new company failing at customer expectation management, not a scam. That was my point. Just because they're taking longer to deliver doesn't mean they're being dishonest. I didn't say they weren't, just that from my perspective a scam wouldn't have responded/partially refunded my order at all.



Good point. I didn't actually give Bitcoin serious thought until March 11, 2013 (the day of the chain fork on version .8, which happened minutes after I finished my all-day download of the core client!), so unfortunately those weren't options for me anyway, but you're right. At almost any point buying BTC would have been better than mining, except under CPU/GPU conditions. Again, didn't learn that until after my first experience with BFL, but I still made a profit, so I'm not upset at the lost opportunity because it's too late to do anything about it.

Actually it would be worth $5,200 (1300/100 = 13 BTC). Yes, a way better return (and had I known I would have done things differently), but I paid in dollars, not BTC, which would have been even worse from an ROI perspective. (5 BTC returned on 13 BTC invested, ouch!)

In fact, it would appear that it is not profitable to buy mining equipment using BTC at all anymore, since no miner will be able to recoup the amount of BTC it would cost given current price and network growth, no?

They were issuing refunds and delivering product. That isn't the behavior of a fraudulent company. I'm not saying they're a wonderful company with great customer service, just that your interpretation is that they are scam artists and I have not experienced any behavior along those lines.

Perhaps you received far less than you paid because you purchased your miner when BTC were ~$100 each? In that case, you paid ~50 BTC for a miner that may have broken even? Unfortunate, but not their fault.

A lot of people are glad that BFL is "in trouble" right now. They believe it is and was a scam, and that everyone who ordered through them is getting what they deserved. I'd like to share my experiences with BFL.

I purchased my first mining rig through BFL in March of 2013, with the expectation that it would deliver in September. It finally arrived in October, and from my original purchase of $1300, I managed to mine about 5 BTC over the next ~6 months. Even with the delays in shipping, the BTC I mined were worth significantly more than the $1300 I paid for the unit, and even now had I not sold earlier, would still have resulted in a net gain of over 50% in 11 months.

It was for this reason, as well as the fact that I truly believed that the second time around BFL would have resolved their production issues, that I ordered some Monarchs. And I did so fully understanding and accepting that it was a preorder and that their dates were not guaranteed, like any adult who is responsible for their actions and has done their due diligence should. When production delays were announced the first time, it was understandable, but frustrating, but I had experienced them before and it was made clear at the time I placed my order that the dates given were estimates but may not be met.

However, as production delays continued, I admit was getting worried. In Bitcoin, after all, most people are aware that your money can just vanish at any moment. The day that Josh announced his final offer and they opened up refunds to all customers (pretty sure that was August 19), I requested an immediate refund for all of my orders. By the time they would have arrived, with the lack of performance they had promised, it was no longer worth it to own the monarchs. Many others must have felt the same. My request was handled virtually immediately, and I had a resolution promised within a few days.

I was quoted a refund time frame of 30-45 days, and on September 16 (less than 30 days) I received a full refund for the order I paid for with BTC. It turned out to be more BTC than I paid originally because of the USD price falling. The remaining orders I had paid via wire transfer, and should have been refunded in the next 2 weeks based on the 45 day timeframe. Now, their production may not be stellar, but every interaction I've had with their customer service team has ended positively for me.

Enter the FTC. Now, assuming the hearing on the 29th goes against BFL (and let's face it, it probably will), I may never get my money refunded. Not because of BFL, but because of the FTC and the actions of a few upset individuals. There was no indication that my money would not be refunded, and while I am disappointed at the production time of BFL, at no point have they acted in a manner of someone running a scam. I never would have received the first refund if that had been the case; it would have been easier to continually delay me. As far as I'm concerned there would not have been a problem unless I had not received a refund by October 3, which has yet to pass. I guess we'll never know how that would play out.

I would guess that most of the complaints filed were done so by impatient people who were upset that their orders didn't ship by the original estimated dates, and had BFL not been raided, their orders would likely have shipped over the coming weeks, just as they did with the gen 1 miners in 2013. From my view, the impatience of others has potentially injured all parties currently waiting for their products to deliver or their refunds to clear.


Let's put this in perspective. According to the FTC, there were over 2 million complaints filed in 2013 (http://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2014/02/ftc-announces-top-national-consumer-complaints-2013). Assuming the same number are filed this year (likely to be higher due to massive credit card breaches at target, home depot, etc.), the 300 complaints filed against BFL represent around 1/100th of 1% of the total claims filed (.00015). And these complaints were filed over at least the last 2 years, not just this year. Yet this is sufficient to shut down a business that by all indications was acting on terms that customers agreed to at the time of sale? This is alarming and disturbing, and is setting a very dangerous precedent. Compare these numbers to banks and lenders, which received over 150,000 complaints last year, yet how many of them are treated this way?

This is setting an extremely dangerous precedent. While BFL has certainly screwed up with their ability to deliver a relevant product on time, they have acted appropriately according to the terms of sale everyone who ordered agreed to, and the FTC should never have been involved.

No, there couldn't have been. There wasn't an internet full of ignorant people to spread it....

Nothing indicating this on bter or the nxt asset exchange.

I think this is a coinmarketcap.com issue....since it doesn't look like people are dumping.

edit: also supply is now listed as double of what it is on the nxt asset exchange; it looks like it's definitely on their end.

Any way you could send the android AND iPhone apps? I have one of each device (although android is a tablet, does this matter?

Thanks!

I really don't agree with the stated method as a measure of "transaction cost", since the "cost" to miners must be less than 0 in order to incentivize mining. If it were not, there would be only hobbyist miners, and we would not be seeing network hash rate growth currently. Maybe there's some cost for the solo miner using Antminers and spending more in electricity than the block reward, but they are mining with unprofitable hardware, inflating this measure arbitrarily. Those people don't increase the costs of transacting in Bitcoin at all. In fact, we could likely run the entire block chain on a single node today, if we could only find a trusted central authority.... /sarc. Anyway, "mining operating expenses" / # of network transactions is a poor measure of the cost to transact in bitcoin.

The true "cost" of transactions for comparison should be simply the transaction fees / amount of BTC transacted.

None of this even matters until the mining subsidy is removed in 100 or so years; at that point if transaction fee value is greater than the cost of operating a mining facility, mining will continue to grow until the cost of mining is no longer below the transaction fee reward (or more likely until an overshoot and correction), at which point the network will eventually reach equilibrium. The cost per transaction will remain roughly the same, since the network will self-adjust based on profitability of mining. This scenario would likely require a much higher purchasing power for BTC as well as a higher volume of transactions on the network.

But even if the subsidy were removed today, what would likely happen is people switch off hardware, increasing transaction fee payouts to the remaining players until equilibrium is reached in terms of transaction fees = costs. Either way, equilibrium is roughly reached, at which point the amount of BTC gained from transaction fees would have to be very close to the overhead cost of maintaining the network. Since transaction fees ultimately = cost, my suggested method above is a much more accurate way of stating the cost of transacting in bitcoin

TLDR - cost per transaction is actually almost nothing, still, and the $30, $17, etc. numbers are based on misleading definitions and incorrect assumptions.

Hello all,

I am attempting to run several Antminer U2s in tandem through a powered USB hub with a raspberry pi. I am using MinePeon 0.2.4.6 and bfgminer 3.10.

I am using a powered USB hub with a 12V 5A power supply found here: https://buyahash.com/shop/10-port-usb-2-0-hub/

When I plug one miner into the hub and run everything, it works fine. Adding a second miner tends to drop the speed of both, a third does the same even more, until by the time I have added a fourth I am down to ~1ghash on 1 miner and ~.3-.5ghash on each of the other 3. I'd like to eventually get up to 8-10 on the hub, which I believe should be doable given then amount of power it should provide.

I'm pretty sure the issue is power draw for each of the miners. I purchased a second usb powered hub of identical make (in case it was that specific unit), which did not resolve the issue. I have tried 2 other powered hubs with similar results, and have a fourth on the way. I don't believe it's a hardware issue at this point, since the one I'm using from buyahash seems to be of a high quality. I know there are other recommended options but I'd like to not have to spend $40-60 for a powered USB hub in the future.

Is there a way to increase the power draw through the config file? In my MinePeon dashboard under settings -> Miner startup settings it says:

#!/bin/bash
sleep 10
/usr/bin/screen -dmS miner /opt/minepeon/bin/bfgminer -S all -c /opt/minepeon/etc/miner.conf

Would I need to modify this text, or go in through the pi and modify the config file? Also, what would be the right text to add to help resolve this?

Thanks in advance!