Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[TPTB_need_war]

The markets are not insignificant. The water heater market is approximately 100 million units per year. The largest markets are currently Brazil and China, I guess due to rapid urbanization and development. Of current deliveries, electric-powered units are a large share, possibly >50% (Brazil appears to lack gas distribution or has some other reason to favor electric, because almost all of the market there is electric.)

You mean potential market. But you need to quantify what % of that market can be realistically captured.

I don't really understand what notion of "total efficiency" you are using other than what it is people in the market choose to buy. People seem to want to buy electric heating devices. There is little question that eventually these electric heating applications will migrate to some sort of mining-integrated solution, assuming mining continues to be a thing.

You don't agree that some (probably most) people in the market for a water heater don't have incentive for the tsuris of figuring out all the details with getting a mining device running, connected to the internet, integrate into their tax return, operational issues with wallets, etc.?

Hey I am at the hardware store and my gf is begging me to hurry up because we need to get to her mother's birthday by 2pm. I don't have time for this Bitcoin complication. Sell me a water heater please.

Naive non-marketers think "I want a water heater", "mining device makes heat free", "thus I want water heater + mining device". This is myopic because it doesn't factor in that the + operator is not a zero cost operation in the marketing context. Upsells are lossy especially if only 0.1% of the population is in the market for your upsell.

But there was an easier way to refute this point that had escaped both of us (only because I was too sleepy last night when I signed off).

A water heater requires 4000W of power (in order to provide rapid heatup function that most consumers demand). I can't find a BTC miner with that wattage consumption for less than perhaps $20,000. I just briefly checked and only saw a 1250W one for $10,200.

Who is going to pay $10,000+ (or even $1000) extra for a water heater?

The entire energy efficiency deal is a ruse and coverup for the real goal which is to shoehorn mining into smartphones for a market segment that has no knowledge nor use for it.

If excess heat were a viable business model, the miners would have long ago adopted it as major movement. It doesn't take $116 million in capital to figure out how to retrofit mining hardware onto an insulated water tank.

This is yet another example of how the TPTB are top-down misallocating resources (because the free market always does it better) and destroying the global economy into their NWO death paradigm.

[1714200432]

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[hdbuck]

i see this as all positive:

"We are now going to use our name, reputation and global index provider stature to provide bitcoin values that the rest of the market can look to," says Tom Farley, who serves as president of NYSE, the venerable financial institution that has come to symbolize Wall Street and capitalism more broadly."

"New technology does not intimidate us, it excites us," Farley says, effectively summing up the new mindset of NYSE. Bitcoin in particular excited him, both because of the interest in the currency and the blockchain technology behind it, which serves as a transaction database. "It was that curiosity and also... let's not wait for this to fully evolve; let's get a seat early on and see how this matures."

http://mashable.com/2015/05/19/new-york-stock-exchange-bitcoin/

I stop reading @"NYSE, the venerable institution..."

Seriously why do bitcoiners keeps on sucking up them masters arses?! Bitcoin is not here to save wall street's minions. Its here to bypass them.

PS: i dont want bitcoin to be linked in any sort with their reputation

but why would you want to deny them their rightful participation in a new form of money they might actually believe in?  afaict, they aren't trying to change anything about Bitcoin; they just want in.  that can be beneficial for the space.

meh: "fool me once, shame on you.. fool me twice.. shame on me"

its pretty dull to think they'll change or that their "motivations" towards Bitcoin are "humble" in any sort.

[smooth]

You don't agree that some (probably most) people in the market for a water heater don't have incentive for the tsuris of figuring out all the details with getting a mining device running, connected to the internet, etc.?

I don't know. Depends how the device is designed. If it simply mines for the manufacturer and subsidizes the cost of the purchase, and if configuration is simple or nonexistent (perhaps a built-in cellular data chip with prepaid access), then I can see that working absolutely, and even possibly driving non-mining heaters off the market altogether. Many purchases are made without thinking past the up front cost.

I can't find a BTC miner with that wattage consumption for less than perhaps $20,000. I just briefly checked and only saw a 1250W one for $10,200.

I don't believe that is remotely applicable because you are paying for cutting edge power efficiency, for the case where that matters (high density deployments in data centers and mining farms), not the case where power is effectively free. If you can find them, you can buy older, less power-efficient miners for next to nothing. Underclock a bit so they run quietly and they make great room heaters!

It's also not a mass market product where chip prices can be driven down enormously. (How many microprocessors/microcontrollers would you imagine people own without even being aware of it? The number is quite high.)

Also, the mining component doesn't have to provide all the heat output, only some of it.

[sickpig]

If I recall correctly, the Bitcoin dev team was really excited about Zerocoin, until they saw that computational overhead which rightfully scared them away.

Now a zerocoin sidechain that is merged mined with Bitcoin and only lives off of it's own transaction fees, would enable people to fully clean any coin they have for a modest fee.

I vaguely remember the problem you mentioned and the shared secret needed in the bootstrapping step as the main causes why zerocoin wasn't merged, but I could be wrong.

Now both of them are solved in zerocash, though a merge now is highly improbable for economical, political and technical reasons.

[TPTB_need_war]

You don't agree that some (probably most) people in the market for a water heater don't have incentive for the tsuris of figuring out all the details with getting a mining device running, connected to the internet, etc.?

I don't know. Depends how the device is designed. If it simply mines for the manufacturer and subsidizes the cost of the purchase, and if configuration is simple or nonexistent (perhaps a built-in cellular data chip with prepaid access), then I can see that working absolutely, and even possibly driving non-mining heaters off the market altogether. Many purchases are made without thinking past the up front cost.

Cellular providers are not fungible every where. You are consistently attempting to erase the non-fungible characteristics in your analysis.

I can't find a BTC miner with that wattage consumption for less than perhaps $20,000. I just briefly checked and only saw a 1250W one for $10,200.

I don't believe that is remotely applicable because you are paying for cutting edge power efficiency, for the case where that matters (high density deployments in data centers and mining farms), not the case where power is effectively free. If you can find them, you can buy older, less power-efficient miners for next to nothing.

Can you show me any example? If we choose 10X less efficient technology, thus 10X less Bitcoins for the same wattage, thus my maximum of $50 (probably less) water portion of the electric bills gets subsidized by $5 per month. And for what additional cost and tsuris?

Work some specific numbers and I challenge you to find it to be viable. Is all the cost of BTC miners in the exclusivity (limited supply) of the latest (Intellectual Property) designs and virtually no hardware fabrication cost at all? Surely more firms would have entered to drive down prices in that case.

I do understand that if you produce a dedicated chip instead of ASIC, then costs decline significantly with volume. But efficiency also declines with age of the design.

If you don't replace your miner every 18 months, then you subsidy declines by half according to Moore's law. Are Bitcoin miners following Moore's law.

[TPTB_need_war]

Apparently space heating is 63% of electricity costs in cold climates compared to 17% for water heating:

https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/energy/products/categories/water-heaters/13735

Water heating cost can in many cases be reduced by 90% with a solar water heater assuming especially so in warmer climates. This is a more permanent option than Bitcoin mining, doesn't require periodic upgrading, doesn't require tax reporting.

Consider also the losses due to taxes on minted coins.

With space heating, we don't need 21 Inc. Anyone in the market for space heating with Bitcoin mining, can go buy a used miner on ebay now. Thus if that was a big mass movement market, why hasn't it happened already?

Either the economics or the market awareness are not conducive. Can 21 Inc do something to change that?

[lunarboy]

UBS pays $545m to settle foreign exchange probe BBC - UBS FINE

US and UK authorities are expected to hand out penalties to major banks totalling about $5bn related to the foreign exchange investigation.

Just remind me again, what's the yearly quantity of money that got manipulated in the global Forex markets???

[TPTB_need_war]

UBS pays $545m to settle foreign exchange probe BBC - UBS FINE

US and UK authorities are expected to hand out penalties to major banks totalling about $5bn related to the foreign exchange investigation.

Just remind me again, what's the yearly quantity of money that got manipulated in the global Forex markets???

Let's slap each other's wrist while we are copulating under the table with our other hands. But really can't you see we are smilingsneering (it so vigorous ya) and thus reforming.

[TPTB_need_war]

If I recall correctly, the Bitcoin dev team was really excited about Zerocoin, until they saw that computational overhead which rightfully scared them away.

Now a zerocoin sidechain that is merged mined with Bitcoin and only lives off of it's own transaction fees, would enable people to fully clean any coin they have for a modest fee.

I vaguely remember the problem you mentioned and the shared secret needed in the bootstrapping step as the main causes why zerocoin wasn't merged, but I could be wrong.

Now both of them are solved in zerocash, though a merge now is highly improbable for economical, political and technical reasons.

You are confusing the coin and the cash.  Zerocoin had severe scaling issues but less of a threat of unknown money supply (coins can be minted if key compromised but all coins coming out the accumulator are countable). Zerocash reduced scaling issues (but arguably not enough to scale) but added an uncountable money supply along with greater anonymity of every aspect of the transaction including the payment amounts.

Afaik, there was an attempt to fix the process of selecting the master key in Zerocash which is argued to be secure, but afaik there are still detractors who question if that process is secure. Bottom line is you can't count the money supply in Zerocash thus you can not prove whether it was secure or not in the real world.

Also I was worried about how reverted transactions would work in Zerocash with orphaned chains if there was attempt to avoid selfish mining using my math to merge blockchains and pay proportion coinbase (minted coins on) all orphaned chains.

Have there been developments since that?

[smooth]

With space heating, we don't need 21 Inc. Anyone in the market for space heating with Bitcoin mining, can go buy a used miner on ebay now. Thus if that was a big mass movement market, why hasn't it happened already?

It has. Poke around the mining forums and you see people mentioning constantly that keeping their home warm is part of the value proposition of mining for them.

21 apparently wants to scale out appliance and device mining to the mass market. That hasn't happened yet because no one has done it yet. The mass market isn't interested in (perhaps less than optimally efficient) mining rigs as heating units, but they'll be happy with an integrated plug-in unit that costs them less because it mines for the manufacturer.

Also, there no real tax burden to the manufacturer, mining revenue is taxed essentially the same as product or service revenue, especially if converted to fiat right away. That might well be part of the value-add to a subsidized-product model of mining.

[Bagatell]

UBS pays $545m to settle foreign exchange probe BBC - UBS FINE

US and UK authorities are expected to hand out penalties to major banks totalling about $5bn related to the foreign exchange investigation.

Just remind me again, what's the yearly quantity of money that got manipulated in the global Forex markets???

"According to the Bank for International Settlements,[4] the preliminary global results from the 2013 Triennial Central Bank Survey of Foreign Exchange and OTC Derivatives Markets Activity show that trading in foreign exchange markets averaged $5.3 trillion per day in April 2013."

[TPTB_need_war]

With space heating, we don't need 21 Inc. Anyone in the market for space heating with Bitcoin mining, can go buy a used miner on ebay now. Thus if that was a big mass movement market, why hasn't it happened already?

It has. Poke around the mining forums and you see people mentioning constantly that keeping their home warm is part of the value proposition of mining for them.

I know that. No mass movement.

21 apparently wants to scale out appliance and device mining to the mass market. That hasn't happened because no one has done it yet. The mass market isn't interested in (perhaps less than optimally efficient) mining rigs as heating units, but they'll be happy with an integrated plug-in unit that costs them less because it mines for the manufacturer.

So you are asserting that selling space heaters to individuals didn't work because no one made an integrated plug-n-play process? And the retailers of appliances can make it so resolving connectivity and operational issues  

You don't $116 million to launch that over the internet, unless the point is you need to have it in all retailers and with name brand names on the products.

The only really viable market is space heating thus limited to winter months and cold climates. The other appliance markets are not viable because too small of a ROI for the hassle of installation/maintenance and/or have superior replacements.

Also, there no real tax burden to the manufacturer, mining revenue is taxed essentially the same as product or service revenue, especially if converted to fiat right away.

You are saying the manufacturer will sell the device at a lower price (taking all the mined coins) but the consumer will pay the same electric bill, then bother to keep the miner running well  

Any shell games on who pays the utility bill don't resolve the tax culpability (at least in the USA).

Some people will do it for space heating in cold enough climates. Most people won't, at least not a quick ramp up in the West and third world. China would be the largest market I bet, because of their combination of frugal mindset, engineering and math acumen, I think no income tax, authorities can get top-down things done that align with their global Technocracy goals (Smart electric meters, etc), and developing youthful demographics economy. Again these are likely sales to cash and limited network effects.

The other big target market are the smartphones in developing markets, but again the economics are not very compelling.

[TPTB_need_war]

One more point. The extent to which space heated mining is developed could be good for altcoins too and thus is not a lockin, because the barriers to entry are low. You have a CPU-hash focused coin, okay turn on your computer and mine to warm your room. Plug-n-play with temperature control can be Kickstarted.

The smartphone target market is the attempted lockin, but I think it not very economically compelling on a wide scale in terms of BTC micropayments. Might work a bit on subsidizing smartphone adoption without the micropayments network efforts. That isn't really a big threat of lockin then.

[smooth]

21 apparently wants to scale out appliance and device mining to the mass market. That hasn't happened because no one has done it yet. The mass market isn't interested in (perhaps less than optimally efficient) mining rigs as heating units, but they'll be happy with an integrated plug-in unit that costs them less because it mines for the manufacturer.

So you are asserting that selling space heaters to individuals didn't work because no one made an integrated plug-n-play process? And the retailers of appliances can make it so resolving connectivity and operational issues  

I'm asserting that no one has tried to sell Bitcoin miners as space heaters because it's been too small and too new of a market and no one has developed the technology for embeddable mining. Selling products at consumer price points is very different from selling mining rigs to be used in big farms and data centers.

You don't $116 million to launch that over the internet, unless the point is you need to have it in all retailers and with name brand names on the products.

Meh, there is a lot of VC money flying around these days, probable an indirect consequence of QE. So you might be surprised at the crap business plans that get funded. But I would guess yes, their appliances may show up with brand names in retailers at some point. They aren't really even launched yet, the only thing they've done at this point is recently reveled some of their plans/technology.

Also, there no real tax burden to the manufacturer, mining revenue is taxed essentially the same as product or service revenue, especially if converted to fiat right away.

You are saying the manufacturer will sell the device at a lower price (taking all the mined coins) but the consumer will pay the same electric bill, then bother to keep the miner running well  

I guess it won't require effort to keep it running (or the product will likely fail, which is very possible).

Any shell games on who pays the utility bill don't resolve the tax culpability (at least in the USA).

There's no shell game here. Mining income is taxed the essentially the same as product revenue. If you sell a product for $100 instead of $200 and get $100 worth of mined coins, then you pay tax on $200, just the same as if you had sold the product for $200. If you sell it for $100 instead of $200 and get $200 worth of mined coins, you in fact sold the product for $300 and pay tax on $300 (but have a higher profit margin).

The consumer gets no tax deduction for heating his water/air, in either case.

The barriers to entry aren't incredibly low, for the product itself, but being integrated into products distributed through a supply chain is a reasonably effective form of lock in by bundling. Walmart probably only carries a few lines of space heaters, etc. Altcoins won't have access to the hash rate unless they can convince the manufacturer.

[TPTB_need_war]

21 apparently wants to scale out appliance and device mining to the mass market. That hasn't happened because no one has done it yet. The mass market isn't interested in (perhaps less than optimally efficient) mining rigs as heating units, but they'll be happy with an integrated plug-in unit that costs them less because it mines for the manufacturer.

So you are asserting that selling space heaters to individuals didn't work because no one made an integrated plug-n-play process? And the retailers of appliances can make it so resolving connectivity and operational issues  

I'm asserting that no one has tried to sell Bitcoin miners as space heaters because it's been too small and too new of a market and no one has developed the technology for embeddable mining. Selling products at consumer price points is very different from selling mining rigs to be used in big farms and data centers.

You don't $116 million to launch that over the internet, unless the point is you need to have it in all retailers and with name brand names on the products.

Meh, there is a lot of VC money flying around these days, probable an indirect consequence of QE. So you might be surprised at the crap business plans that get funded. But I would guess yes, their appliances may show up with brand names in retailers at some point. They aren't really even launched yet, the only thing they've done at this point is recently reveled some of their plans/technology.

Also, there no real tax burden to the manufacturer, mining revenue is taxed essentially the same as product or service revenue, especially if converted to fiat right away.

You are saying the manufacturer will sell the device at a lower price (taking all the mined coins) but the consumer will pay the same electric bill, then bother to keep the miner running well  

I guess it won't require effort to keep it running (or the product will likely fail, which is very possible).

Any shell games on who pays the utility bill don't resolve the tax culpability (at least in the USA).

There's no shell game here. Mining income is taxed the essentially the same as product revenue. If you sell a product for $100 instead of $200 and get $100 worth of mined coins, then you pay tax on $200, just the same as if you had sold the product for $200. If you sell it for $100 instead of $200 and get $200 worth of mined coins, you in fact sold the product for $300 and pay tax on $300 (but have a higher profit margin).

The consumer gets no tax deduction for heating his water/air, in either case.

The barriers to entry aren't incredibly low, for the product itself, but being integrated into products distributed through a supply chain is a reasonably effective form of lock in by bundling. Walmart probably only carries a few lines of space heaters, etc. Altcoins won't have access to the hash rate unless they can convince the manufacturer.

My implied point was that if the home user is not paying the tax on mined coins, they are not getting (any mined coins and thus not) a discount on their monthly electric bill, thus what incentive do they have to keep the miner running always?

You are saying the manufacturer will sell the device at a lower price (taking all the mined coins) but the consumer will pay the same electric bill, then bother to keep the miner running well  

Any shell games on who pays the utility bill don't resolve the tax culpability (at least in the USA).

[smooth]

My point is that if the home user is not paying the tax on mined coins, they are not getting (any mined coins and thus not) a discount on their monthly electric bill, thus what incentive do they have to keep the miner running always?

Warm water or air (or toast, possibly)

[TPTB_need_war]

My point is that if the home user is not paying the tax on mined coins, they are not getting (any mined coins and thus not) a discount on their monthly electric bill, thus what incentive do they have to keep the miner running always?

Warm water or air (or toast, possibly)

I thought these were going to be sold very cheaply nearly free since the electricity cost is the major cost.

Otherwise what incentive do I have to buy one.

Thus when it stops working, I don't have a strong incentive to hassle with it. I might get tired of the tsuris and just want a heater that works.

My point is that a discount on the space heater is not very compelling. A discount on the ongoing electric bill more so, but then taxes have to be dealt with.

[smooth]

My point is that if the home user is not paying the tax on mined coins, they are not getting (any mined coins and thus not) a discount on their monthly electric bill, thus what incentive do they have to keep the miner running always?

Warm water or air (or toast, possibly)

I thought these were going to be sold very cheaply nearly free since the electricity cost is the major cost.

Otherwise what incentive do I have to buy one.

Cheaper product cost. It's the subsidized-handset heater business model.

[TPTB_need_war]

My point is that if the home user is not paying the tax on mined coins, they are not getting (any mined coins and thus not) a discount on their monthly electric bill, thus what incentive do they have to keep the miner running always?

Warm water or air (or toast, possibly)

I thought these were going to be sold very cheaply nearly free since the electricity cost is the major cost.

Otherwise what incentive do I have to buy one.

Cheaper product cost. It's the subsidized-handset heater business model.

It is not very compelling. A heater is a major home appliance that lasts for 10 years or more. A cell phone is a device you need to replace every 2 years or so, gets lost, gets stolen, gets dropped, etc.

The NAV of a heater is already very low compared to the much higher monthly expenditure.

The barriers to entry to this space heater market were not $116 million. It hasn't been done because it isn't that compelling.

Bitcoin needs to reach at least 10% adoption before it makes much sense.

A free toaster that requires me to maintain internet access is not free. A free toaster that requires me to troubleshoot connectivity issues is not free. Etc..

Also the heater will need to be replaced more frequently than 10 years due to Moore's law.Not if the manufacturer is receiving all the mined coins revenue but the incentive for the manufacturer to continue customer support to keep the device connected and running declines.

[TPTB_need_war]

There is another reason this idea of manufacturer taking all the coins can't possibly work. The consumer will demand the heater works even when connectivity is down.

No one wants a heater that only works when the internet is online.

Thus what incentive does the consumer have to maintain connectivity if they aren't getting some of the coins and paying taxes on them?