Wall Observer BTC/USD - Bitcoin price movement tracking & discussion

[Last of the V8s]

Problem I see with Ethereum is that there's nothing you can run on the network that you can't run much cheaper on Ethereum classic. And with less chance it will get reversed by a bunch of whining cry-babies.

Good point. But then you are sane and technically-minded. Etherhuffers all worship the Vitalik and derive their value from him. They aren't bothered with technical niceties, and they probably like it that he could save them if need be.

[d_eddie]

Problem I see with Ethereum is that there's nothing you can run on the network that you can't run much cheaper on Ethereum classic.

Or bitcoin, Real Soon Now(TM). The Gas model is flawed anyway.

And with less chance it will get reversed by a bunch of whining cry-babies.

Good point. But then you are sane and technically-minded. Etherhuffers all worship the Vitalik and derive their value from him. They aren't bothered with technical niceties.

They will be. Just give it time.

[JayJuanGee]

Where have all the big blockers gone?

Since there are no walls to watch, and price discussion gets boring during sideways skating, let's talk about an issue that I'm afraid will resurface in due time: blockchain spam.

At the moment, the situation is peaceful. Spam has vanished, and tx fees are back to sane levels. There have been several explanations offered for the end of spam, most of which are plausible or have some merit. It might be that it was too costly to sustain the attack. It might be that someone is moving shop. It might be the attackers became afraid to push LN towards success. It might be that Coinbase withdrew support by fixing their unforgivable withdrawal arrangement (either intentionally or simply as a consequence of other choices).

The point is: most of the people on this forum believe they know who the attackers were and why they did it. For the time being, they are defeated. They might or might not have another try at it. I am concerned with a future when some more powerful opponent delivers a spam attack - backed by the full financial power of a small (or large) nation. That could be an expensive way to shut up the bitcoin network, but it can be fairly successful, especially If you can eat up the loss and hide it inside a large budget by slightly cooking the books.

I think we need someoneto come up with a partial solution to the spam problem. My guess is: if such a remedy is ever found (which I'm totally not confident about), it will be a game theory person to deliver it.

It would be pretty unlikely that these spam attacks would go away any time soon, and sure the smaller fishes such as Roger and Jihan backed by some financial and government institutions could be part of it, and sure bigger fishes could try larger and more long term sustainable attacks (even if they are engaging in them at a loss), yet I would imagine that core continues to learn from these attacks - and seems like the system remains pretty robust, even during the spam attacks and even during those periods in which we had to pay quite a large amount of transaction fees making any kind of micro transaction infeasible.

By the way, before December, whenever my BTC transactions got delayed and caught up in spam,  they would revert back to me after a few days.  This time around, I had three low fee transactions that I sent in early December that were stuck for more than 6 weeks, and I was getting ready to work out an agreement with the intended recipient to send those transactions again, which would have likely cost me a decent amount of money - including some financial risk, too.  Anyhow, before I made such proposal to send again, the transactions went through (about a week ago).  Whew!!!!

[JayJuanGee]

When world famous economic professors are reduced to trolling bitcoin on twitter, surely that's beyond the "then they fight you" stage ?

Isn't this now "then we win" ?

[https://i.imgur.com/ml0yWO6.png[/img]

Check this guy's twitter feed. He's obsessed.

Yep... another famous economics professor who seems to be "misinformed" at best.

[sirazimuth]

Here's another load of superficial tosh he wrote:

http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/why-bitcoin-is-a-bubble-by-nouriel-roubini-2018-01

He's got half a million followers. A good place for a "healthy debate"

well at least he didn't mention tulips, so there's that
(idk, maybe he did, I only scanned that drivel, tbh)

[HairyMaclairy]

I recall that there are some folks researching into ways that they can either use the heat or generate some additional electricity from the mining heat by-product.

I have had some discussions with power station engineers.  The crux of it is that low grade heat (anything that is not hot enough to boil water) is considered a waste product and dumped to the atmosphere.  And these are fancy, high efficiency co-gen plants. 

 So it seems pretty unlikely that they will be able to generate electricity if not producing over 100 C (which I assume not).

My information is about 8 years old so it is possibly out of date.  

[RoomBot]

Ethereum keeps creeping up and taking over market share. Will ethereun slowly take over bitcoin? Kinda seems like its possible

Just wait till they want to use it for real transactions  

Demand for Cryptokitties is strong bro  

I hear cryptotitties will overtake it tho? https://www.producthunt.com/upcoming/cryptotitties

Don't talk titties to me, man. One thing I sorely miss from the everyday ATH season!

On second thought, it's actually a pair of things.

Binary 

[RoomBot]

Yeah, i hope on my holiday its going to go the other way 

Have a great vaca~!  I sent you some $Merit.

Don't blow it all in one place.   

[RoomBot]

Here's another load of superficial tosh he wrote:

http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/why-bitcoin-is-a-bubble-by-nouriel-roubini-2018-01

He's got half a million followers paid bots.

FTFY

[jojo69]

looking like a sideways breakout is in progress until early feb ...

We have a rising log support currently 9700ish (GDAX) that we risk breaking if we are sideways too long

[HairyMaclairy]

Wheee ?

[jojo69]

RED ALERT!

ENGAGE 1 MINUTE CANDLES!

FUD shields full forward

[bitserve]

I recall that there are some folks researching into ways that they can either use the heat or generate some additional electricity from the mining heat by-product.

I have had some discussions with power station engineers.  The crux of it is that low grade heat (anything that is not hot enough to boil water) is considered a waste product and dumped to the atmosphere.  And these are fancy, high efficiency co-gen plants.  

 So it seems pretty unlikely that they will be able to generate electricity if not producing over 100 C (which I assume not).

My information is about 8 years old so it is possibly out of date.  

In theory it could be used in a preheating (to around 50 centigrade) stage of a larger process... but yes electric heating is dumb, inefficient and probably not really worth it to integrate in a power generation plant.

It would maybe make some sense in some very cold places where the heat could perhaps be used for central heating though.

[toknormal]

RED ALERT!

ENGAGE 1 MINUTE CANDLES!

FUD shields full forward

Yeah. Price and On Balance Volume have been telling opposite stories lately. $7500 incoming. Then $5k, then $2k, then moon after that ; )

[smartcomet]

Dot-com Bubble Vs Blockchain Bubble

Date: 1997-2001 | 2009-?
Marketcap: 6T | ? (0.6T now)
Survivors:  eBay, Amazon.com  |  Bitcoin, ?

Will coinmarketcap be 10T, and BTC be 6.6T(Gold marketcap)?

[Last of the V8s]

Dot-com Bubble Vs Blockchain Bubble

Date: 1997-2001 | 2009-?
Marketcap: 6T | ? (0.6T now)
Survivors:  eBay, Amazon.com  |  Bitcoin, ?

Will coinmarketcap be 10T, and BTC be 6.6T(Gold marketcap)?

briefly.
then moon.

[JayJuanGee]

I recall that there are some folks researching into ways that they can either use the heat or generate some additional electricity from the mining heat by-product.

I have had some discussions with power station engineers.  The crux of it is that low grade heat (anything that is not hot enough to boil water) is considered a waste product and dumped to the atmosphere.  And these are fancy, high efficiency co-gen plants.  

 So it seems pretty unlikely that they will be able to generate electricity if not producing over 100 C (which I assume not).

My information is about 8 years old so it is possibly out of date.  

In theory it could be used in a preheating (to around 50 centigrade) stage of a larger process... but yes electric heating is dumb, inefficient and probably not really worth it to integrate in a power generation plant.

It would maybe make some sense in some very cold places where the heat could perhaps be used for central heating though.

Yes...even though many of us likely realize that heat generation is going to come in handy in really cold locations; however, it seems that your preheating idea has to be worth something, even if such preheating is not bringing the temperature to an actual boil (that generates steam with some the current powerful electricity generation methods)...  and I suppose that part of my point is that if there is ongoing research into such lower heat thresholds, there could be ways to generate energy with temperature thresholds that are below boiling   

- I feel like I am devolving from BTC price speculation down to random brainstorming regarding energy generation speculation with little to no grounding.   

[jojo69]

Yes...even though many of us likely realize that heat generation is going to come in handy in really cold locations; however, it seems that your preheating idea has to be worth something, even if such preheating is not bringing the temperature to an actual boil (that generates steam with some the current powerful electricity generation methods)...  and I suppose that part of my point is that if there is ongoing research into such lower heat thresholds, there could be ways to generate energy with temperature thresholds that are below boiling   

- I feel like I am devolving from BTC price speculation down to random brainstorming regarding energy generation speculation with little to no grounding.   

Lots of industrial processes produce waste heat.

If it is not worth implementing co-gen on a fucking aluminum smelter it sure as hell is not going to be on a mining farm.

Not criticizing, Jay, I find a lot of folks, particularly idealists, frequently speculate about all sorts of possible energy sources, but the reality is that if it was economic to do it the market would.

We can't even really harvest solar and wind yet without subsidies.

[bitserve]

Yes...even though many of us likely realize that heat generation is going to come in handy in really cold locations; however, it seems that your preheating idea has to be worth something, even if such preheating is not bringing the temperature to an actual boil (that generates steam with some the current powerful electricity generation methods)...  and I suppose that part of my point is that if there is ongoing research into such lower heat thresholds, there could be ways to generate energy with temperature thresholds that are below boiling  

- I feel like I am devolving from BTC price speculation down to random brainstorming regarding energy generation speculation with little to no grounding.    

Yup, same feeling here, it would be better if we would let that to the experts... but I guess some "random brainstorming" during this "slow" BTC movements isn't that bad.

Problem with the preheating idea is that it is in fact just A pre-heating. As in ONCE. After that you come up with just below boiling temperature that is too high to cool the chips so you cant do it again. Maybe using ethanol (which boiling point is around 78.5 C) and asics that could run efficiently at over 90 C there could be some reasonable margin, but I doubt it.

Using it as central heating... well... maybe the infrastructure costs are higher than the gain. Electrical heating is VERY inefficient, as in 3-4 times less efficient than a simple heat-pump system.

If there are no "transport" cost as in someone that runs several miners at home in a very cold place... well, then yes, he can "reuse" some of the heat even if it is inefficiently generated... But I can't see how it would be worth it to integrate into a more complex system. Not saying it is completely impossible though.

It is better the current trend of making more efficient miners so that less heat is wasted in the process. Maybe it will come a time in which they don't even need active cooling except for massive mining plants.

Oh well... it is easier to just keep watching Bitcoin action to try see where it is going

[explorer]

We can't even really harvest solar and wind yet without subsidies.

We can, its just that coal/nuke/dams are paid for(subsidized) by future generations, and current society doesn't count that in any way.