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

[empowering]

Moreover, no one really knows how hard it is to compute a valid block.  The trial-and-error method used by miners is just the most efficient method that we know; but there is no proof or other evidence that there is no better way.

Would you consider the fact that nobody has ever found a collision of sha256 function an evidence? There's no mathematical proof, but there's more then enough evidence that any other method is not even on the horizon. It's not only a Bitcoin issue, if any of modern hash algorithms would be compromised the whole cryptography would be hammered.

meh... why let a little something like that get in the way?   

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[Sitarow]

[Trolfi]

Moreover, no one really knows how hard it is to compute a valid block.  The trial-and-error method used by miners is just the most efficient method that we know; but there is no proof or other evidence that there is no better way.  There may well exist an agorithm that finds the right nonce for a block header in a few microseconds.  Or, worse, finds a block that has the same hash of another block but a different contents, including a specific transaction that is not in the first block.  Or finds the private key for any given address.  So, the theoretical "mass cost" of computing a valid block may be orders of magnitude lower than the trial-and-error cost.

Yes, we may also be brains in a vat. Or, you may walk outside and a piano may fall on your head. Also, the law of gravity may cease being in force tomorrow at 0:00 GMT.  

A lot of things may happen.

You should therefore stay at home and not take any risks at all. Except, of course, that may cause you to autocombust.

[tarmi]

longs going crazy on bitfinex.

go bulls!

[NotLambchop]

...
Yes, we may also be brains in a vat. Or, you may walk outside and a piano may fall on your head. Also, the law of gravity may cease being in force tomorrow at 0:00 GMT.  

A lot of things may happen.
...

Only one thing is certain:  UR an fagit.

[calme]

[_AquaRegia]

longs going crazy on bitfinex.

go bulls!

Too many longs, too much sell pressure = not good
What we need is a well-planned and real rise

[JimboToronto]

Good morning Bitcoinland.

Still over $260 I see.

One day at a time.

Mmmm. Coffee.

[tarmi]

longs going crazy on bitfinex.

go bulls!

Too many longs, too much sell pressure = not good
What we need is a well-planned and real rise

no, no.

this is "organic" growth before the 50 k auction.

[ChartBuddy]

Coin
Explanation

[JimboToronto]

What we need is a well-planned and real rise

Well-planned? Do you mean manipulation?

 

[billyjoeallen]

...
Anyone knows how many joules are tipically consumed today to create 1 valid block (25 BTC)?  
...

Assuming current market price is very close to electrical energy spent on mining, and price for that is a low 10 cents / kwh, I'm getting a guesstimate of ~227 GJ.

and how many joules are consumed by one Youtube video with a million views? How many by ALL youtube videos in one day?

[re-actor]

Kraken - Europe is leading today?
More buying going on there then usual....

[ElectricMucus]

...
Anyone knows how many joules are tipically consumed today to create 1 valid block (25 BTC)? 
...

Assuming current market price is very close to electrical energy spent on mining, and price for that is a low 10 cents / kwh, I'm getting a guesstimate of ~227 GJ.

and how many joules are consumed by one Youtube video with a million views? How many by ALL youtube videos in one day?

This raises the question what amount of energy would be wasted if Bitcoin had a similar sized userbase as youtube.

[Sitarow]

[Trolfi]

There may well exist an algorithm that finds the right nonce for a block header in a few microseconds.

There may. And whoever finds it, is rich. The incentive could not be any clearer.

Et pourtant . . .

[noobtrader]

...
Anyone knows how many joules are tipically consumed today to create 1 valid block (25 BTC)?  
...

Assuming current market price is very close to electrical energy spent on mining, and price for that is a low 10 cents / kwh, I'm getting a guesstimate of ~227 GJ.

and how many joules are consumed by one Youtube video with a million views? How many by ALL youtube videos in one day?

This raises the question what amount of energy would be wasted if Bitcoin had a similar sized userbase as youtube.

bitcoin will survive even if there are only few miner

[oda.krell]

bitcoin it is worth its weight in gold.

You're being facetious of course

Well, yes and no.  An immaterial currency can be issued at will; it is the ultimate "fiat money".

(Before you scream "21 million": that bitcoin limit is "guaranteed" only by  fuzzy arguments about a complicated economic game, not "by math", and could be changed if the right players agreed to it.  Moreover, any kid can duplicate the amount of bitcoins in existence by creating a hard fork of the blockchain and starting to mine it on his laptotp.  Anyone who has bitcoins will gain an equal amount of those "series B" bitcoins, accessible through the same private keys, and could trade them independently of his old bitcoins by duplicating his wallet and downloading the kids's client software. Whether those "series B" bitcoins will get a significant market value is a market(ing) question, not a technical one.  And, of course, there are the altcoins.)

We can in principle associate some minimum weight to abstract units that are the result of computation, right?

Yes, with current technology there is in theory a minimum amount of useful energy that needs to be disspated (turned into waste heat) in order to perorm any logical operation.  That energy can be expressed as mass by Einstein's equation m  = E/c^2.   For example, a 10 watt lamp in one second burns 10 joules, which is equivalent to (10 kg m^2/s^2)/(300'000'000 m/s)^2 = 0.00000000000000011 kg, or 0.1 picogram of matter, if I didn't miss some zeros.  (Quantum computing may get around this limit somehow, but it is not known whether it will ever be usable for problems like this.)

The theoretical minimum energy cost of computations is quite small, much less than the cost that can be achieved with current technology.  But even if we use the actual cost, the mass equivalent of the cost of creating 1 bitcoin will be fairly small. Anyone knows how many joules are tipically consumed today to create 1 valid block (25 BTC)?  

However, the cost of creating something in the first place is only an upper bound to its "intrinsic value".  There are examples of huge civil engineering works that cost billions to build, were never used, and cost millions to demolish -- that is, had negative value.  (The dams built by Saddam Hussein to drain the marshes in Southern Iraq may be one example.  The Iridium communications infrastructure may be another.)  The computing the nonces of orphaned blocks costs as much as computing  those of surviving blocks, but those nonces are worthless (except perhaps to cryptographers, who may have a use for them).

Another upper bound for the "intrinsic value" of something could be the cost of duplicating it.  The cost of duplicating a bar of gold is the same as creating the first one.  For a banknote, printing an extra copy is much cheaper than printing the first one because all the plates and equipment are reused.  For information, the cost of duplication (theoretical and in practice) is extremely small.  

It can be argued that duplicating information in the bitcoin system does not produce extra bitcoins.  But that is not a physical constraint, it is a property of the whole bitcoin system -- not just the protocols and the algorithms, but also of the internet, and, mainly, how people use and react to those things.  So, the allegedly valuable properties of the bitcoin system -- single spending, authentication, limited supply, irreversibility, global reach, etc. -- do not define the "intrinsic value" of a bitcoin; they contribute only to its market value.

Moreover, no one really knows how hard it is to compute a valid block.  The trial-and-error method used by miners is just the most efficient method that we know; but there is no proof or other evidence that there is no better way.  There may well exist an agorithm that finds the right nonce for a block header in a few microseconds.  Or, worse, finds a block that has the same hash of another block but a different contents, including a specific transaction that is not in the first block.  Or finds the private key for any given address.  So, the theoretical "mass cost" of computing a valid block may be orders of magnitude lower than the trial-and-error cost.

You're going on a bit of detour there, doc

I already mentioned several of your points (e.g. that mining is based on the "currently best know procedure", not the provably optimal procedure).

And I know of course you're not facetious about the (lack of) intrinsic value of bitcoins, but you probably were facetious when you were asking what their weight is...

Good point about quantum computing possibly getting around the  (Landauer) limit though. Well outside my field though, so I can only wonder if it'd simply lower the limit, or entirely remove it possibly.

[noobtrader]

wow look at the price ....

do we have a liftoff

[ThatDGuy]

wow look at the price ....

do we have a liftoff

I think we have need a while longer of slow and steady rising before the market is ready for another bull run.

Happy to be wrong and have it happen sooner, though.