did you see the presentation of their BMZ1 rig.
its like a mirror of a s19

can you spot the difference


even the fan is cheap made in  china fan
https://jslfan.en.made-in-china.com/product/OClJyDHbpjWs/China-Ec-Fan-92-92-38mm-110V-230V-LED-Auto-Light-Computer-Use-Axial-Fan-Cooling-Fan.html

it was images like this that first made me doubt the news from 'tomshardware' was even legit.
but apparently it is legit.

some people like to 'air gap' their exchange deposit away from their actual cold store.
that way they are not using the same screen/system as they are when logging into websites.

EG phone app for own personal stash and normal pc to log into services
thus copying/pasting is not possible, and writing out address is inconvenient especially if you make a spelling mistake, you can end up sending funds elsewhere

the main thing is dont just scan a QR code and send funds to it instantly., instead check what you scan matches the address of the service you want to deposit to.

also dont just look at the first 8 characters
for instance bc1q is pretty much always going to be in segwit addresses and then its pretty easy for someone to 'vanity gen' many addresses that contain the same next 4 characters

so look at the whole address and make sure they look the same (usually better to start at the right side of the address rather then the left side) when comparing

you dont need a professional to do it. just get a plate of metal and a sharp object/tool from a DIY shop

the next concern is where to put the plate after its engraved.
some bury it. some put it out in the open.

just remember where you put it

so i thought id help the refugee's in poland via actual products they need, by doing my research with a local charity that actually does have distribution set up and organised to get to poland next week

in my area they are doing a 'drop off point' where people can drop off things like:
phone chargers, powerbanks, torches, walkie-talkies, batteries, sleeping bags, blankets, long life food, clothing etc

so i used a known electrical equipment company that accepts bitcoin and bought a whole load of the electrical stuff
about 100x of each of the 5 first items in list above

should be delivered to the local drop off point by Thursday, then off to poland by next week

next step is using a food/clothing store that does high stock amounts of long life food/clothing, and get an order done to deliver to the drop off location
i personally dont like giving financial funds to charities/organisations, because once they receive it they may waste it on non-essential stuff, or hoard it via excuses of planning how to spend it.
(most charities only put 10% of funds into the frontline purpose advertised, rest is wasted on admin/advertising/logistics and investments)

a commodity is a raw material used to make other products.
gold sits on 2 markets. commodity because of its material features. and asset because of its investment features
bitcoin is only an asset. but shares the same investment features as gold

traders are the shakers of a market.
a market price is only set/changed by only those in the market making orders. holders/hoarders do not affect the price at all because they are not trading to make market order to affect the price.
coins being moved around addresses (circulating the network) are not even part of the 'supply' of the market
neither are the institutional holders just using coin in custody as a savings account
the only market shakers are those with coin active on market orderbook

as for demand
if say in 2012 an average buyer only wants to buy in $600 a month. he in 2012 would get 100coins. even if there are only 10.5mill coins in circulation
if say in 2022 an average buyer only wants to buy in $600 a month. he in 2022 would get 0.015coins. even if there are 19mill coins in circulation

in this instance the demand is the same. the circulation supply has grown. but the market orderbook supply is now smaller supply per orderline

what you find is most traders only do orders for amounts that average ~$600 because orders of over $1k usually pop a red flag of limits that generate reports.
yep its the tax office criteria of red flagging trades of certain amounts that actually cause more of an impact to how much 'demand' a market order row has.

according to silly people. silly things can be said...

but lets deal with this topics sentiment
if you look at the bitcoin rich list

                                                                                 total coins           total % coins
coin per address         addresses   % of addresses         per allotment      per allotment
(0 - 0.00001)             3145471     7.73% (100%)         14.89 BTC           0% (100%)
[0.00001 - 0.0001)     7688153    18.91% (92.27%)     335.80 BTC         0% (100%)
[0.0001 - 0.001)        10265767   25.24% (73.36%)     3,957 BTC          0.02% (100%)
[0.001 - 0.01)            10012480   24.62% (48.12%)    38,049 BTC         0.2% (99.98%)
[0.01 - 0.1)               6204172     15.26% (23.5%)      200,671 BTC       1.06% (99.78%)
[0.1 - 1)                    2532879     6.23% (8.24%)        784,850 BTC       4.14% (98.72%)
[1 - 10)                     671964      1.65% (2.01%)         1,707,922 BTC    9% (94.58%)
[10 - 100)                 130095      0.32% (0.36%)         4,253,747 BTC    22.43% (85.58%)
[100 - 1,000)             13638       0.03% (0.04%)         3,894,554 BTC    20.53% (63.15%)
[1,000 - 10,000)        2041         0.01% (0.01%)         5,270,202 BTC    27.78% (42.62%)
[10,000 - 100,000)    80             0% (0%)                  2,149,201 BTC    11.33% (14.83%)
[100,000 - 1,000,000)4              0% (0%)                  664,320 BTC       3.5% (3.5%)



it appears that 84 top addresses has 2.6mill (18.33%) of coin
but this is not 84 PEOPLE out of 40million
its 84 addresses out of 40mil addresses
where by those 84addresses themselves represent millions of customers using an exchange as custody
infact these 84 addresses are exchange coldwallets
infact most of these addresses are majority exchange hotwallets where each address
represents more then 1 person

as for the 21million addresses that combined have just 4.3k (0.02%) of coins
again these are not 21million people. its 21mill addresses
where by those 21mill addresses maybe several addresses owned by single people. not 1 address per person and not several people per address

topic creators "2% own 92%" is a fudged number that currently today sits at "2.01% of 94.58%" but is not 2% of PEOPLE
its 2% of addresses(or as he says 'accounts') but those 2% of addresses represent MILLIONS of people using custodial services
where by addresses do not equal number of customer accounts

fun fact
                                                                                 total coins           total % coins
coin per address         addresses   % of addresses         per allotment      per allotment
[10 - 100)                 130095      0.32% (0.36%)         4,253,747 BTC    22.43% (85.58%)

did you know that there is one known person that owns over 1million btc of this 4.25million allotment. where by he has lots of 50btc coins spread over many thousands of addresses. his name is satoshi. he is the biggest sole owner whale of all...
custodian services are not whales. they are fisherman. capturing lots of whales and sharks and minnows

anyway.. as for predicting things..
the only thing you can predict is this
when the is a bubble (large 2x-3x) sudden rise in a short period that cant be explained by any sustainable hashrate cost increase.. then expect those looking to profit to take that opportunity and sell at the rise. meaning expect all sudden and large rises to correct back down

and bitmain can easily do a 50% discount
also the price is also speculated.

im also reading into the SEC filing of GRIID that this announcement is supposedly linked to
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1830029/000119312521342985/d236832dex992.htm

ok details are there

Bitmain Antminer S19j XP       21.5 J/TH   140 TH/s   3010 W
Intel Bonanza Mine 2 (BMZ2)   26 J/TH   135 TH/s   3510 W(speculated)

still behind bitmain
also intels version eerily looks too similar to bitmains design.

you would have thought intel would make something atleast a little aesthetically pleasing and different design to bitmain

for jokes:
"isnt he supermans pet dog"
verbal conversation has the same pronunciation. whether written spelling is K or C.. dont grammar knitpick. its a JOKE!

other simplistic answers
"value store without a bank account"
  just needs a public address, you create yourself. to be shown to a sender

"allows you to be a trader without the need of a portfolio manager/tradedesk/agent"
 many ways to trade without needing to sign up and have transactions logged by businesses

"remittance without the policy/limitations of western union/moneygram/transferwise/venmo/paypal"
 send to anyone direct, not via third party services

"offshore value store without the need to set up shell companies/foreign diplomacy"
 if value is not in a US bank, the US cant direct freeze it at source

"financial trust fund without the need of a lawyer"
 multisig can be set up by family/friends without others nvovled

"inheritance without the need of a will"
 multisig with locktimes

Nato is like a paid membership.
to benefit from its services(soldiers) members need to pay.
and those that pay into the membership benefit from its services

ukraine is not part of nato and so is not paying for nato services.
if nato started doing things out of the kindness of their heart and helped countries not in its membership, it will quickly escalate that the members that do pay realise that they too can get help without paying.

so nato will not help directly by going into ukraine to help ukraine, otherwise they wont be able to afford to keep it running in the future

ofcourse nato will help at the borders, but this is more so to defend the nato member countries that border ukraine.
ofcourse if any russian plane or tank tries using/accessing those nato bordered countries, nato will stop them.
but nato wont directly stop anything happening inside ukraine

even in war, its still business minds not moral minds at work.
unions would rather protect the business contracts, rather than protect anyone at harm not part of the contract.

but with that said. if the UN were to step in, using human rights act as their reason to protect ukraine directly. this too can diminish the need of nato. because if countries can be protected by the UN, why pay for NATO.
this is why there needs to be a fine business contract balance of who/when/how outsider countries help other countries.

the only way this will change is if all nato nations got together and said something like:
"in this one exception we will aid a country not part of our membership, because they are a prospective future member"
but, that is not happening yet.(and maybe it will never)

this however does not stop individual countries from getting involved personally. EG US jumping into middle eastern countries to defend the western property at risk by the middle east(well that was their excuse for the last few wars in the world)

this though could escalate(at world scale) a small skirmish, to become a full blown world war if too many countries get involved

the bitfinex heist coins are in the possession of he authorities

it is true that giving funds over to a custodian means you are not in control. because you are not a key holder to just 'spend' them back to yourself on a safer key. you have to request the custodian to spend them to you.

if they are obligated/or just decide to not authorise your request, you wont get coins back
(scammer exchange with fake 'we been hacked' mottos to pretend they cant give coins because they lost coins)
(court order to freeze account)

however it must also be noted that people need to have some self control about their own security.
as some believe just having key control is the absolute sole need of security and nothing else needs to be done

by needing extra self control of security i mean, not advertising your real life association to the coins.
examples of how coins were still taken even on peoples individual keys:

dread pirate roberts was found and cybercrimes teams accessed his files
bitfinex thieves had private keys on a cloudstore file
drug addict doped up father to then steal his wallet
scammers/hackers get people to download trojans
soon to be ex wife claims 50% custody of coins in divorce
pickpocket snatches phone wallet out of pants
face to face meetup goes bad, someone brought a knife
SWAT smash front door in and find hardware wallet under pillow

its true that no one can brute force your value away from you from the network side. but people can brute force:
your front door of your house
your PC
a couple of your ribs/cheekbones to get to your coins

so take control of your coins and also ensure people cant take control of you via threats

the trucker fundraiser is where there are some private key holders. but the courtcase was not instigated by government making a claim. it was actually by a few citizens of ottowa making a claim. whereby even without those plaintiffs having key access. they have put penalties onto the key holders that if the coins move the keyholders can be fined and/or put in prison.

so its not just the government you have to worry about. you should be cautious with what you tell your jealous/greedy neighbours too

the price has remained in the $37-$42k range for the last month. even before the conflict.
infact its at $39k which is higher than in january and higher then days before the conflict last week
(21st feb $37k.. first day of invasion 24th)
it was at $38k on invasion day and now at $39k

so dont panic.
..
there are other factors at play changing the value dynamic of bitcoin. that are more affecting things than the stuff happening in the ukraine
new asics are operating, the network hashrate is at ~190exa for the week instead of 200+exa the week before

using last gen asics the mining cost and thus baseline value where cheapest region on earth to mine was $37.5k
using new gen asics the mining cost and thus baseline value where cheapest region on earth to mine is $28.3k

so because those getting small batches of just released next gen asics, some are making more profit and able to sell for less and still profit

also the higher cost countries like america. which had a last gen cost of mine of $43k so they prefered to buy coin rather then mine when price was below their cost
now can mine for $32.7k, so now they have switch positions from a buy to hoard, to a mine to sell position.
..
as for market influence
those actually in ukraine are not looking to sell their bitcoin to have Ukraine currency. they are actually trying to change their ukraine currency into other things like bitcoin, to store while they try to escape ukraine

there are only a few 'minnows' that are selling up to get small amounts of ukraine funding to cover any immediate costs of living/escape

Nato will not get involved inside the Ukraine because ukraine is not a member of nato

many people think that NATO is some humanitarian group helping out any country in need. but they are not. they are a member service, helping out only those that are members. (just like a gym membership)

if they started helping out those that are not members, then the existing members see no benefit in paying to be members if they can get the same support/service without paying to be a member. so nato has to not help out non-members too much. or it will see other countries not see the need of paying for membership.
(yep they run it like a business)

so nato will not go into ukraine and defend it.
instead nato stand on the outside in neighbouring countries that are part of nato/international waters. and so nato will defend those neighbouring member countries and stop russia from using those countries as a pass through.

nato are not giving free aid/defensive weapons to ukraine. ukraine have to buy them from nato.

hmm. seems some love the Fox news imagery

St peterburg is like london circa 1995 architecture
however
moscow is like london circa now, it even has more population then london
many people think this is how they see moscow

though this is how others see moscow


if your watching news reports where a reporter has deliberately stood in a ancient architectural area, maybe the other story they are telling is that they want viewers to see "russia" as ancient

you know. like those charity aid TV adverts that show shanty towns in ethiopia.
yet if they were to pan the camera around they would see the shanty towns border large city scapes.
this is the ethiopia you will never see on an oxfam/foodaid charity advert


.. much like how countryfree specifically tried to pick st petersburg, rather than moscow for comparison, to make it seem like everything in russia is like st petersburg

im not for russia or asia, but i atleast have an open mind to look beyond the propaganda

---

as for picking an outlet for international funds

look into the BIS and their M-bridge. linking russian and chinese CBDC
the BIS is like the brics equivalent to the amero IMF

bitcoin is just that solution you ask of.
.. your just 12 years behind how your solution plays out
EG within a fortnight a person has 2 computer. then a fortnight later 4 computers. then 8 then 16
and all of a sudden he has a whole garage of computers
then needs to set up an industrial warehouse of computers.

then someone smart comes along and invents a special computer that does the job of 100 computer for the cost of 1 computer
then that evolves into 1000pc rating for cost of 1, then 10,000rating for cost of 1.. and so on and so on

in your narrow view of "CPU only"
do you realise that a CPU can only mine at like 10mhash.
meaning if we had say 100mill CPU mining at 400w each
40,000,000kwh =40GW/h = 350.4TWH/y
yep just 100million people mining around the world with 1 pc each would use 8.75x power consumption than the current network
=11.429m to be on equal power consumption to now
but here is the thing
because hashes are based on a lower difficulty in your CPU utopia. them 100mill at 10mhash each =1petahash
meaning if someone was quietly making an asic in private for 12 years and enhanced it to being 110thash .. they only need 10 asics to over run the 100m users
or if we go with the 11.429mill users with 1 PC each. that smart guy secretly developing asics for 12 years only need 1-2 asics to overwhelm the network

i meant that the mica has been "in progress" since 2019. with a date of actual implementation in 2025. meaning this announcement is not causing any actual delay to the 2025 time table. and if they just keep announcing 'no decision' for the next 2 years, it changes nothing to the schedule plan.

EG if the implementation was for feb2023.. well. then they would have needed to adjust the implementation date to allow a years grace before it becomes active after a later vote. but because they have until 2025 anyway. they  can reconsider many times until 2024

there may be another opportunity to vote in april2022. but that too can be reconsidered. point being they can keep it 'in progress' for 2 years and not be deemed as 'stalling'/delaying

we can all hope they remove certain parts and vote it in, in april2022 without the bans..so we can be at ease of expectation of 2025
 or they can keep it up in the air like a smoggy cloud for 2 years keeping the 'possibility' of a ban existing

but it wont push down the number of miners running. because there are many factors at play to keep them interested

EG
if there was a law that made it so a location/premises limit was 10gwh
a asic single farm of 20GW will just set up 2 locations of 10GW to stay within the law
its not that miners give up when hitting their location limit. its that they set up alot more locations. thus decentralising the geo-laws that try to limit miners

also the propaganda of the reward halving.. lets handle that
EG (describing one propaganda worse case view)
if bitcoin transactions were stuck to only doing say 4000tx/block and each tx was 250bytes at 10sat a byte for the next 15 years at total of 0.1btc a block in fee (1mb tx utility(witness scalefactor cludge))
2024 Reward 3.125 fee 0.1 = 3.225
2028 Reward 1.5625 fee 0.1 = 1.6625
2032 Reward 0.78125 fee 0.1 = 0.88125
2036 Reward 0.390625 fee 0.1 = 0.490625
yea your think oh no. miners will stop mining

BUT imagine if bitcoin transactions were NOT stuck to 4000tx/block at 10sat a byte for the next 15 years
2024 Reward 3.125 fee 0.2 = 3.325 (8000tx at 10sat/byte (2mb actual tx utility))
2028 Reward 1.5625 fee 0.5 = 1.9625(16000tx at 10sat/byte (4mb actual tx utility))
2032 Reward 0.78125 fee 1.2 = 1.98125(48000tx at 10sat/byte (12mb actual tx utility))
2036 Reward 0.390625 fee 1.6 = 1.990625(64000tx at 10sat/byte (16mb actual tx utility))

as you can see the amount of coin available per block to pay miners can still go up(via fee's)
and this does not need people to "pay more" individually. which would shy away alot of people from using it.
instead it would be more people, collectively pay

also factor in a variable of if bitcoin prices were to go up by 2x and tx count was to 2x
now  reward 6.25 fee 0.1 = 6.35= $254k   (btc=$40k)
2024 Reward 3.125 fee 0.2 = 3.325= $266k   (btc=$80k)
2028 Reward 1.5625 fee 0.4 = 1.9625= $314k   (btc=$160k)
2032 Reward 0.78125 fee 0.8 = 1.58125= $506k   (btc=$320k)
2036 Reward 0.390625 fee 1.6 = 1.990625= $1274k  (btc=$640k)

as you can see there are alot more variables that can keep miners interested. not just fee's but also the bitcoin price.
aswell as how even if some technical limit stops how small an asic chip can get vs watts/thash
people can still just multiply the number of physical mining rigs / locations
or if there was a location limit to power.  more people can mine in more locations for a slice of the $1.174m compared to a slice of a $254k

this Mica thing was not to be implemented until 2025. so its not a delay. its just a 'we dont need to decide yet'
they have until late 2024 to implement it. and always had until late 2024 to implement it.

meaning this stuff will keep popping up now and again until 2024 without it causing any 'delays'

that said.
i believe that the analytics sites that hyper inflated the TWH usage as 200THW and 58.6% renewable(actual numbers more like 40TWH and 75%+),
and they done so. so that next year they can redo the numbers and show a drop down to say 190TWH, then in 2024 a further drop to 180TWH
while increasing the renewable to 65% 75%  
to pretend they physically helped make bitcoin greener. where its actually just a number shuffle on paper to later appease any environmental concerns that they first advertised as a bad disaster.

its like shouting out that a orange is a acidic fruit that can damage health (we know its actually a health fruit from the start) and then later pretend they done something to an orange to make it a health fruit, to then release a report of its health benefits. pretending they triggered a revolution in fruit. where reality is the fruit remained a fruit and all that changed was the report

truth is bitcoin is not as bad as the analytics chosen to advertise.

fixed that for you, you forgot to include what their [lack of] ethics is concerned with
..
seems someone still has their eyes closed again, and living the dream utopia

ill remind him what is at risk.. and it is not a companies social reputation. but exploitation of the protocol

they're not fighting to report a company to some ethics board about some social drama(as much as doomad loves only social drama topics). they are fighting to stop the protocol from being exploited more than it has, more then some would like

but hey, he doesnt want people talking about the exploits.. so shh children go back to sleep. he doesnt want people talking about the risks to the protocol. so shh, dont say a word, he needs to sleep.

if people want to use a network that does allow people to have channels and balance and able to spend/receive that balance when that said balance is not even pegged/locked to any real btc confirmed transaction(using certain implementations, but becoming more universal). then stay asleep and dont worry.
else, for those that do want to be aware of exploits.
keep looking out for them. draw attention to them, dont let silly people try to tell you to not talk about protocol risks just so they can discuss social drama of personalities