Concerning the state of bitcoin, mining, and centralization

[shemzij]

Hey all,

I am new to this community, I have watched it for a while but for once I couldn't find some one who asked the exact question that I wanted and so I figured I would make an account and ask.

I have held off starting to mine due to the large upfront cost and the speed of which hardware goes semi-obsolete. I have invested in bitcoin because I am interested in a decentralized currency (for obvious bullshit fiat currency reasons). I have been reading Satoshi's posts and books about bitcoin for a while and I loved his ideas and I'm thrilled by the fact that the bailouts were an extra push for him to release bitcoin (who wants their government to be able to print stupid amounts of money on a whim? Not this guy.)

Now I have recently been perturbed by the fact that the mining has become controlled by major players such as Bitfury and the other mega farms. I am wondering whether or not bitcoin is a legitimate thing anymore in terms of the future. If any one company has too much control of the network I am under the impression that the legitimacy of the currency is devalued because it is susceptible to manipulation (exactly like fiat currency).

Questions:
1) Is it worth getting into mining if I were to buy 20 Antminer S7's and profitability calculators say I would only pay 33% of my revenue in electricity? Or does the halving of released bitcoins + the difficulty level shooting through the roof negate any reason to jump into mining?

2) I have looked at bitcoin as the answer to the impending fiat currency crash for a while now but the commandeering of the bitchain has shaken my faith in the system made for the people. Is there any reason to fear the legitimacy of bitcoin because of the loss of control of the bitchain to corporate interests?

3) Is there another currency that cannot be commandeered such as one that limits mining to one per IP or any particular corporate interest protection?

Thanks for spending time to respond.

[VirosaGITS]

1) Is it worth getting into mining if I were to buy 20 Antminer S7's and profitability calculators say I would only pay 33% of my revenue in electricity? Or does the halving of released bitcoins + the difficulty level shooting through the roof negate any reason to jump into mining?

2) I have looked at bitcoin as the answer to the impending fiat currency crash for a while now but the commandeering of the bitchain has shaken my faith in the system made for the people. Is there any reason to fear the legitimacy of bitcoin because of the loss of control of the bitchain to corporate interests?

3) Is there another currency that cannot be commandeered such as one that limits mining to one per IP or any particular corporate interest protection?

Thanks for spending time to respond.

1)Maybe, but it is a bit risky, the difficulty is raising sharply, which means you probably wont get a satisfying return before the BTC halving. At which point your profit is purely speculative on whether the BTC value go up. In this path holding most of the BTC you mine would be the way to go, but very risky as well.

2)The blockchain is not loss or put in control of corporate interest. Thats the point of a decentralized network, however the centralization of the hashrate is somewhat of a concern.

3)Not really, a coin can be ASIC resistant, but discussing Altcoins in the Bitcoin board is against this board's rule.

[notlist3d]

1) Is it worth getting into mining if I were to buy 20 Antminer S7's and profitability calculators say I would only pay 33% of my revenue in electricity? Or does the halving of released bitcoins + the difficulty level shooting through the roof negate any reason to jump into mining?

2) I have looked at bitcoin as the answer to the impending fiat currency crash for a while now but the commandeering of the bitchain has shaken my faith in the system made for the people. Is there any reason to fear the legitimacy of bitcoin because of the loss of control of the bitchain to corporate interests?

3) Is there another currency that cannot be commandeered such as one that limits mining to one per IP or any particular corporate interest protection?

Thanks for spending time to respond.

1)Maybe, but it is a bit risky, the difficulty is raising sharply, which means you probably wont get a satisfying return before the BTC halving. At which point your profit is purely speculative on whether the BTC value go up. In this path holding most of the BTC you mine would be the way to go, but very risky as well.

2)The blockchain is not loss or put in control of corporate interest. Thats the point of a decentralized network, however the centralization of the hashrate is somewhat of a concern.

3)Not really, a coin can be ASIC resistant, but discussing Altcoins in the Bitcoin board is against this board's rule.

On asic's if there is money they will build it scrypt proved it. Right now SFards is mining LTC internally with the newest gen LTC machine.... no selling to regular customers except a very few.   But it was profitable enough they dumped some money to develop a next gen.  If any other algo ever had a coin that had huge profit's they would look into it... and chances are eventually make a asic assuming it is worth the R/D and dev.

On your fiat crashing... which country are you talking about?  Fiat is not really in competition with BTC.  So I would not tie them directly.   Fiat will always be a part of society for foreseeable future.  There are just some you would never be able to convince to use BTC.

On mining we need to know much more.  Jumping in with 20 miners is not easy... you need electricity that is cheap or decent, and 20 is a LOT of power.  Have you looked if you have a place that can even handle that much?  There is just so much to this part if you plan on mining with 20 miners somewhere you own.

[Amph]

33% is a bit step, i would try to avoid it, because of diff, and because whne the price of bitcoin will increse your antminer will be more worthless to resell

i can say you that there was only a coin that do that(limit hashrate per ip) it ws called mineral, coin but it failed after some time

[shemzij]

On asic's if there is money they will build it scrypt proved it. Right now SFards is mining LTC internally with the newest gen LTC machine.... no selling to regular customers except a very few.   But it was profitable enough they dumped some money to develop a next gen.  If any other algo ever had a coin that had huge profit's they would look into it... and chances are eventually make a asic assuming it is worth the R/D and dev.

On your fiat crashing... which country are you talking about?  Fiat is not really in competition with BTC.  So I would not tie them directly.   Fiat will always be a part of society for foreseeable future.  There are just some you would never be able to convince to use BTC.

On mining we need to know much more.  Jumping in with 20 miners is not easy... you need electricity that is cheap or decent, and 20 is a LOT of power.  Have you looked if you have a place that can even handle that much?  There is just so much to this part if you plan on mining with 20 miners somewhere you own.

As far as fiat currency goes I am convinced that the United States will see a crash within the year and bitcoin is an excellent form of currency.

Assuming that 20 Antminer S7's can produce 100 TH/s by profitability calculator which would result in a decent amount of profit but I'm more interested in a currency that actually matters. If anyone could point out my foolishness or anything I'm particularly missing I would be interested. The only thing that really holds me back from doing anything with this is the difficulty increase which is detailed in the graph in this link:

https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoin-mining-profitable-beginners-explanation/

Regards,

[alh]

On asic's if there is money they will build it scrypt proved it. Right now SFards is mining LTC internally with the newest gen LTC machine.... no selling to regular customers except a very few.   But it was profitable enough they dumped some money to develop a next gen.  If any other algo ever had a coin that had huge profit's they would look into it... and chances are eventually make a asic assuming it is worth the R/D and dev.

On your fiat crashing... which country are you talking about?  Fiat is not really in competition with BTC.  So I would not tie them directly.   Fiat will always be a part of society for foreseeable future.  There are just some you would never be able to convince to use BTC.

On mining we need to know much more.  Jumping in with 20 miners is not easy... you need electricity that is cheap or decent, and 20 is a LOT of power.  Have you looked if you have a place that can even handle that much?  There is just so much to this part if you plan on mining with 20 miners somewhere you own.

As far as fiat currency goes I am convinced that the United States will see a crash within the year and bitcoin is an excellent form of currency.

Assuming that 20 Antminer S7's can produce 100 TH/s by profitability calculator which would result in a decent amount of profit but I'm more interested in a currency that actually matters. If anyone could point out my foolishness or anything I'm particularly missing I would be interested. The only thing that really holds me back from doing anything with this is the difficulty increase which is detailed in the graph in this link:

https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoin-mining-profitable-beginners-explanation/

Regards,

If you are absolutely convinced that USD will crash, then your path is clear. Just take the $25K you would invest in Bitmain hardware and buy BTC as soon as you can, and skip the "Bitmain middle man".