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

[RejectedBanana]

The average cost of electricity in the US is 12 cents per kWh which works out to $30 per transaction or 0.0015 BTC at $20k. This is the break-even transaction fee in terms of energy usage. Any less, you're getting a deal and should be happy to wait for confirmation, any more and hopefully your premium speeds things up.

Your calculations are way off. Here are exact figures, you can check them in multiple places. I'll put them in per/hour base:
- BTC networks consumes 113.000 US$ of electricity per hour, based on 0.12 US$/KWh price
- during that hour it generates 1.800.000 US$ worth of BTC, based on 19.500 US$/BTC price
- of that amount, 360.000 US$ are transaction fees and 1.440.000 US$ block rewards
- on that proportion, 22.600 US$ electricity is spent on transaction fees and, 90.400 US$ of electricity is spent on block rewards
- since there are on average 13.800 Transactions/hour, price of electricity spent for each transaction is 1.63 US$

This is the minimal price of transaction BTC network can not afford to go bellow, and it will not go down before the Lightning networks are introduced. Everything above that we are paying now is because saboteurs and spammers are polluting the blockchain in their failed attempt to prove BCash is better than BTC.

Your energy assumption is only 22.6 million kWh per day. That is only 1/4th estimated by this source, at nearly 100 million kWh:

https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption

I am curious, what is your source?

I agree, spamming is a problem and I don't know if anything clever can be done to abate in the near term.

The problem with your calculations is that it does not include the 12.5 BTC reward the miners get with each block. That alone rewards the miners about 90.00 USD per tx at the current price. At this point in the game, the tx fees are just extra profit padding. Furthermore, Litecoin is a competitor. What kind of enterprise recommends that you just use a competitor if you want it cheaper, faster and of the same quality? 

I don't know that Charlie would promote Litecoin as a direct competitor but rather occupying a different market niche. Besides, in every other industry, competition is what keeps entities honest and efficient, no? Once users realize they can save on time and fees on another crypto network, transaction demand and fees on the Bitcoin network should drop. But again, I don't know how to handle spamming transaction fee inflation. How do we keep transactions honest?

[d_eddie]

Why would a system that allows cheating be needed?

Sorry, I don't understand the question.

Unless you meant LN is a system that allow cheating. Well, with LN you can give a try at cheating, but only if you have a stake (a channel open) and you are ready to risk the whole stake should your cheat fail.

Yes that is what I meant. So LN is intended to allow small payments, at low cost, that do not overload the base of the network. The most important feature of the base is tht it is trustless, so uncheatable. This is a bit difficult for me.

This is the price to pay for instant transactions (no onchain confirmation), but I'd say LN's anti-cheating mechanism is near perfect. Anyone who spots a cheating transaction within 24 hours (I think - or was it 48?) of its timestamp can give the cheaters what they deserve and pocket a handsome reward. My bet is the network will be swarming with bounty hunters.

So the system that must allow us, average Joe 's to use BTC as money for everyday spending needs bounty hunters to avoid cheating?

Short reply: Yes - just as the system that currently allows us to use BTC for not-everyday spending needs full nodes and miners and lots of electrical power.

Elaborating more. LN might need bounty hunters just to make sure every cheating attempt makes the "cheated" part end in profit (as well as the bounty hunter). I think the way it will work is that you open a channel with Starbucks, or Amazon, or some other reputable entity who has no interest at all in being labeled as a provable fraud (the cheat requires settling the channel on the blockchain, where it will be there for all to see forever). I guess most people who run full nodes will start a Lightning hub on the side, if it is even marginally profitable. There willl probably be blacklists and feedback scores for Average Joes who want to invest in facilitating channel opening without being Starbucks.

Why not ask the FBI or any of the alphabet agencies, they will be glad to do so... . I do not believe we need this kind of system... .

You're answering yourself. We don't need alphabet agencies for that. That's why not.

Moreover, the hunter easily becomes the cheater in this kind of arrangements... .

Have you read some documentation on how LN works? I don't mean the full technical spec - that's a lot and it requires a highly degree of techno competence in crypto. There was a good, accurate but simple explanation that I can't locate right now. Maybe reading that could help you feel more at ease. Now if someone could be so kind to link a suitable web page...

EDIT - found a good source. Here it is.
https://coinjournal.net/a-simple-explanation-of-the-lightning-network/
Let's get back to the discussion when you have a more detailed understanding of how LN works.

[Raja_MBZ]

Alright, so it's clear that bitcoins future trading at CME will be rolling out in approximately 3 hours and 5 minutes from now. Things are going to get interesting, I don't know why but I'm sensing $22k-$25k within first couple of hours. CBOE is nothing like CME, CME has a much larger volume than CBOE. So we can go more wilder than before.

http://www.cmegroup.com/trading/equity-index/us-index/bitcoin_contract_specifications.html

I read that message as they say TODAY that trading will start TOMORROW.

Well I re-read that and seems like you're correct. Today they notified that tomorrow the trading will begin.

I think the next 28 hours can go in a big pump-mode, and then the market will calm down. I still think it can cross $22k to $25k within or right after this period.

[Ludwig Von]

Why would a system that allows cheating be needed?

Sorry, I don't understand the question.

Unless you meant LN is a system that allow cheating. Well, with LN you can give a try at cheating, but only if you have a stake (a channel open) and you are ready to risk the whole stake should your cheat fail.

Yes that is what I meant. So LN is intended to allow small payments, at low cost, that do not overload the base of the network. The most important feature of the base is tht it is trustless, so uncheatable. This is a bit difficult for me.

This is the price to pay for instant transactions (no onchain confirmation), but I'd say LN's anti-cheating mechanism is near perfect. Anyone who spots a cheating transaction within 24 hours (I think - or was it 48?) of its timestamp can give the cheaters what they deserve and pocket a handsome reward. My bet is the network will be swarming with bounty hunters.

So the system that must allow us, average Joe 's to use BTC as money for everyday spending needs bounty hunters to avoid cheating?

Short reply: Yes - just as the system that currently allows us to use BTC for not-everyday spending needs full nodes and miners and lots of electrical power.

Elaborating more. LN might need bounty hunters just to make sure every cheating attempt maked the "cheated" part end in profit (as well as the bounty hunter). I think the way it will work is that you open a channel with Starbucks, or Amazon, or some other reputable entity who has no interest at all in being labeled as a provable fraud (the cheat requires settling the channel on the blockchain, where it will be there for all to see forever). I guess most people who run full nodes will start a Lightning hub on the side, if it is even marginally profitable. There willl probably be blacklists and feedback scores for Average Joes who want to invest in facilitating channel opening without being Starbucks.

Why not ask the FBI or any of the alphabet agencies, they will be glad to do so... . I do not believe we need this kind of system... .

You're answering yourself. We don't need alphabet agencies for that. That's why not.

Moreover, the hunter easily becomes the cheater in this kind of arrangements... .

Have you read some documentation on how LN works? I don't mean the full technical spec - that's a lot and it requires a highly degree of techno competence in crypto. There was a good, accurate but simple explanation that I can't locate right now. Maybe reading that could help you feel more at ease. Now if anyone would be so kind to link a suitable web page...

Thanks for the extra info and I will be glad to read the laymans explanation.
I am always sceptical towards solutions that tend to be more complicated than the problem. And as far as it concerns broad adoption, that is the single most important aspect.

About the system, I meant we do not need a system that needs policing of any kind.

[Anabetsi]

Goes up like a rocket.   Cheesy

[d_eddie]

Why would a system that allows cheating be needed?

Sorry, I don't understand the question.

Unless you meant LN is a system that allow cheating. Well, with LN you can give a try at cheating, but only if you have a stake (a channel open) and you are ready to risk the whole stake should your cheat fail.

Yes that is what I meant. So LN is intended to allow small payments, at low cost, that do not overload the base of the network. The most important feature of the base is tht it is trustless, so uncheatable. This is a bit difficult for me.

This is the price to pay for instant transactions (no onchain confirmation), but I'd say LN's anti-cheating mechanism is near perfect. Anyone who spots a cheating transaction within 24 hours (I think - or was it 48?) of its timestamp can give the cheaters what they deserve and pocket a handsome reward. My bet is the network will be swarming with bounty hunters.

So the system that must allow us, average Joe 's to use BTC as money for everyday spending needs bounty hunters to avoid cheating?

Short reply: Yes - just as the system that currently allows us to use BTC for not-everyday spending needs full nodes and miners and lots of electrical power.

Elaborating more. LN might need bounty hunters just to make sure every cheating attempt maked the "cheated" part end in profit (as well as the bounty hunter). I think the way it will work is that you open a channel with Starbucks, or Amazon, or some other reputable entity who has no interest at all in being labeled as a provable fraud (the cheat requires settling the channel on the blockchain, where it will be there for all to see forever). I guess most people who run full nodes will start a Lightning hub on the side, if it is even marginally profitable. There willl probably be blacklists and feedback scores for Average Joes who want to invest in facilitating channel opening without being Starbucks.

Why not ask the FBI or any of the alphabet agencies, they will be glad to do so... . I do not believe we need this kind of system... .

You're answering yourself. We don't need alphabet agencies for that. That's why not.

Moreover, the hunter easily becomes the cheater in this kind of arrangements... .

Have you read some documentation on how LN works? I don't mean the full technical spec - that's a lot and it requires a highly degree of techno competence in crypto. There was a good, accurate but simple explanation that I can't locate right now. Maybe reading that could help you feel more at ease. Now if anyone would be so kind to link a suitable web page...

Thanks for the extra info and I will be glad to read the laymans explanation.
I am always sceptical towards solutions that tend to be more complicated than the problem. And as far as it concerns broad adoption, that is the single most important aspect.

About the system, I meant we do not need a system that needs policing of any kind.

Edited my prevous post - I found a good source that explains LN in detailed, accurate but simple terms.
https://coinjournal.net/a-simple-explanation-of-the-lightning-network/

[d_eddie]

I agree, spamming is a problem and I don't know if anything clever can be done to abate in the near term.

Keeping spam at bay would be much easier if Bitcoin wasn't designed to be censorship resistant. Deciding "this transaction here is spam, that over there is legit" is indeed an acto f censorship.

I don't know if there's an effective solution, but I have a hunch that if there is one, it's going to require some very clever game theory with deferred rewards and similar tricks - and it will work only assuming it's a big mining cartel that spams, not some other actor. An entity with deep pockets and willing to pay through the nose will always be able to spam the blockchain.

[vapourminer]

AAAAAIGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!


18xxx

IT"S OVER, RUN FOR THE HILLS!!

crap. we're poor again?

[arklan]

AAAAAIGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!


18xxx

IT"S OVER, RUN FOR THE HILLS!!

crap. we're poor again?

Already recovered, sorry, not poor. Well, not because of the price anyway.

[HairyMaclairy]

CME Futures are launching in 2 hours.  Not tomorrow.  

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/15/bitcoin-futures-are-coming-to-the-cme-heres-what-to-expect.html

I think the statement on the CME website is confusing because it’s referring to close of the first day’s trading (Sun - Mon). 

[svdleer]

I just don’t understand Why so many coins are beeing offered for a price below market, when the price is clearly going up.

But thats bears and whales war for about 6 hours already now

[jojo69]

[JayJuanGee]

Bitcoin doesn't dip anymore  

Think of a tsunami that ironically sucks the water all the way out first.

TERA every post you make reeks of some kind of bitterness? How many bitcoin's have you got? I’m going to guess less than 10 & you’re upset/angry/depressed about having the opportunity to be rich AF as you were in & around bitcoin early enough but sadly made the wrong decisions, sold early etc.

HODLERS who make shit loads of money don’t need to sell/trade constantly.

What’s your situation?

I'm so sick of this ignorant crap people post on trader forums. The things I say have nothing to do with my position or with emotion. It is simply the inevitable dynamic of an exponential market. Its a piece of physics like a rubber band or a ball bouncing. This is compeltely detached from me.

Theres GOING to be a crash of at least 60% at some point. I never called from where but it's going to happen, and it's going to be a spectacular trading opportunity. You can thank for me letting you in on it, if it only means you have more fiat on exchanges ready to buy it. If you deny this then you have no experience in bitcoin.

You have actively come into this thread since about $7k and saying the same fucking thing, and now the price is about 3x higher, and you still saying the same nonsense.....

Yeah, sure, sooner or later you are going to be correct... but your repetition of the same cyclical bitcoin price gonna crash nonsense, does not mean that you have any actual insight.

And because I want to add some vinegar to the open wound, I'd like to remember that a 60% crash means roughly 10k (which is what most of us expect I guess), VS the 'at least 3k' predicted initially

Sure it is possible to get a 60% correction at any time; however, we are not really in those kinds of territories right now, and accordingly a 20%, 30% or perhaps a 40% correction would be more within the lines of our current ongoing and upwards price pressures, and even now, getting such a 30% or 40% correction before $20k does not seem in the most probable outcomes and perhaps we need to break through $20k first, which will likely result in a 15% to 25% additional upwards, and perhaps a 30% or 40% correction from there would become more likely and perhaps a 60% correction could happen, yet currently, I am thinking that we need to be seeing more bearish signals before we start to believe that 60% corrections are coming any time soon. Once we are out of this bull market and maybe even once we have a blow off top, then 60% or even 80% corrections would be within reasonable possibilities, but we do not seem to be in those kinds of prediction territories (at least they are not currently reasonable), now.

[lightfoot]

Still stuck at 19k or so. Blah....

[AlcoHoDL]

The crowd wins again. The $18,000-$20,000 price range was the #1 most picked choice in the poll.
Now being reset.

Thanks for updating the poll.

The range $22,000-$24,000 is missing... And it's the one I want to pick! Can you please add it?

[fabiorem]

Bears are in despair.

[milkshock100]

Am I right in thinking the master has said we have missed our chance to retest 10k from 17k, we must now wait until up to 30k, at which point there is no further hope for bitcoin anyway as we will fall to 10k and the bubble will go kaput?

[itod]

The average cost of electricity in the US is 12 cents per kWh which works out to $30 per transaction or 0.0015 BTC at $20k. This is the break-even transaction fee in terms of energy usage. Any less, you're getting a deal and should be happy to wait for confirmation, any more and hopefully your premium speeds things up.

Your calculations are way off. Here are exact figures, you can check them in multiple places. I'll put them in per/hour base:
- BTC networks consumes 113.000 US$ of electricity per hour, based on 0.12 US$/KWh price
- during that hour it generates 1.800.000 US$ worth of BTC, based on 19.500 US$/BTC price
- of that amount, 360.000 US$ are transaction fees and 1.440.000 US$ block rewards
- on that proportion, 22.600 US$ electricity is spent on transaction fees and, 90.400 US$ of electricity is spent on block rewards
- since there are on average 13.800 Transactions/hour, price of electricity spent for each transaction is 1.63 US$

This is the minimal price of transaction BTC network can not afford to go bellow, and it will not go down before the Lightning networks are introduced. Everything above that we are paying now is because saboteurs and spammers are polluting the blockchain in their failed attempt to prove BCash is better than BTC.

Your energy assumption is only 22.6 million kWh per day. That is only 1/4th estimated by this source, at nearly 100 million kWh:

https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption

I am curious, what is your source?

Here are some sources:
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-12-07/bitcoin-is-greener-than-its-critics-think
https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-has-less-environmental-impact-than-fiat-currencies

... Bitcoin miners will consume an estimated 8.27 terawatt-hours per year. That might sound like a lot, but it’s actually less than an eighth of what U.S. data centers use ...

[Gab0]

Mother fucking transaction fees are getting out-of-hand.

Trying to move shit to Gemini for tonight's action, and shit be stalling out, yo.

Current fees estimated at ~343sat/byte for 60 min confirmation.

Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeit.

[InvoKing]

Mother fucking transaction fees are getting out-of-hand.

Trying to move shit to Gemini for tonight's action, and shit be stalling out, yo.

Current fees estimated at ~343sat/byte for 60 min confirmation.

Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeit.

Indeed, my brother paid 1/3 of a transaction as fees (sending from coinbase) which is kinda ridiculous.
Next year, buying a house (castle) will cost you the equivalent of a mustang as fees?