$500,000 per Bitcoin, baby. The math behind it.

[DannyElfman]

<snip>. If you had 100 bitcoins and the price is 10,000 USD each that is 1,000,000 USD man. That is more than enough to put into stocks/retirement account and do whatever the hell you want for the rest of your life.
<snip>

Yes, let's lock up your wealth into a retirement plan!
God knows when they pull the dollar plug and let it hyperinflate.

You would be *crazy* to put 1,000,000 into stocks or any other paper.
If you really are scared to hold that much value in bitcoins, transfer it into another tangible asset like gold, farmland, art, tools, cars, etc.

If I had 1,000,000USD right now, I would keep 10,000USD for spending, everything else in the above.

Stocks are not ultimately dependend on FIAT. Sure they would suffer extremely, but not like FIAT itself. Not having stock in your portfolio would be a huge mistake.

I wish I could dump them all but too bad that worthless shit is locked in a mortgage and pension fund.
I would love to convert all paper assets to anything else than paper.
I don't need/want the paper promises which cannot be fulfilled.
I rather invest in knowledge. Knowledge and experience cannot be taken away from you unless you become mentally ill.

That is a rather radical point of view.

I agree that knowledge and education and experience is the most important thing, but I don't get your hate against companies. Investing directly in companies is no option for you either?

I don't hate companies! I hate the empty promises made by stockbrokers.
Because you don't own the stocks which you think you own.
The day that stock ownership is hard-coded in the bitcoin blockchain I'm all in! (well, not exactly all-in, but you get my point)

Oh, well, that is a perfectly fine reason.

At this moment you could literally walk into a small business convention and invest into small cap firms directly

[Window2Wall]

<snip>. If you had 100 bitcoins and the price is 10,000 USD each that is 1,000,000 USD man. That is more than enough to put into stocks/retirement account and do whatever the hell you want for the rest of your life.
<snip>

Yes, let's lock up your wealth into a retirement plan!
God knows when they pull the dollar plug and let it hyperinflate.

You would be *crazy* to put 1,000,000 into stocks or any other paper.
If you really are scared to hold that much value in bitcoins, transfer it into another tangible asset like gold, farmland, art, tools, cars, etc.

If I had 1,000,000USD right now, I would keep 10,000USD for spending, everything else in the above.

Stocks are not ultimately dependend on FIAT. Sure they would suffer extremely, but not like FIAT itself. Not having stock in your portfolio would be a huge mistake.

I wish I could dump them all but too bad that worthless shit is locked in a mortgage and pension fund.
I would love to convert all paper assets to anything else than paper.
I don't need/want the paper promises which cannot be fulfilled.
I rather invest in knowledge. Knowledge and experience cannot be taken away from you unless you become mentally ill.

That is a rather radical point of view.

I agree that knowledge and education and experience is the most important thing, but I don't get your hate against companies. Investing directly in companies is no option for you either?

I don't hate companies! I hate the empty promises made by stockbrokers.
Because you don't own the stocks which you think you own.
The day that stock ownership is hard-coded in the bitcoin blockchain I'm all in! (well, not exactly all-in, but you get my point)

Your ownership in stocks really is as secure as you need it to be. Having your trading record embedded into the blockchain really is overkill. There are enough regulatory and internal controls that you can be certain that your shares are safe (you always have the risk that the share values go down).

[smooth]

It isn't a wash for the reason explained earlier. During the period of time of the transaction and potentially for some time thereafter (if the conversion back isn't immediate) there is additional demand for Bitcoins. There are only a fixed number of bitcoins (about 13 million now). Imagine using BTC for payment on eBay (and elsewhere) becomes so popular that there are 13 million of these transactions in progress at any given time, and the average size of such a transaction is 1 BTC. That would tie up every single Bitcoin in existence. Because people want Bitcoins for other reasons, in reality what would have to happen is the price of BTC goes up so the average transaction size (in BTC) goes down so the number of Bitcoins tied up in this way also goes down.

The net result of that transaction is neither increase or decrease. It's a wash!

In your E.g., I need to buy something on eBay for BTC0.10 so I convert $60 to BTC0.10 to buy my good. If the seller than converts the Bitcoin he received for USD again there would be no price (or supply/demand) consequence.

Perhaps eBay get's more people buying BTC to hold for future purchases, but why? If I can buy in BTC and USD and I get paid by my employer in USD, what's the reason for me to transfer to BTC? It wouldn't be more convenient. It wouldn't guarantee me a better price.

eBay BTC acceptance is good for greater adoption but that doesn't lead to "6 figure clouds" price per BTC (in USD.) There's no correlation.

There WOULD be correlation if the Winklevoss boys get there investment fund going.

You need Bitcoin in ebay before you can start dreaming on 6 figure clouds. Once Bitcoin is in ebay, then you are into something, because everyone and their mother uses ebay to buy things and they would rather use BTC than get raped by paypal fees.

How would BTC as a payment option via eBay increase the price per Bitcoin?

You have to hold them for at least a small amount of time to spend them. Worst case, they're purchased, transferred, then converted back to fiat in a matter of seconds. Still, that's a few bitcoin seconds removed from the market. Supply and demand.

[findftp]

Your ownership in stocks really is as secure as you need it to be. Having your trading record embedded into the blockchain really is overkill. There are enough regulatory and internal controls that you can be certain that your shares are safe (you always have the risk that the share values go down).

No there are not.
Don't just believe, do research

[vervolioman]

In your E.g., I need to buy something on eBay for BTC0.10 so I convert $60 to BTC0.10 to buy my good. If the seller than converts the Bitcoin he received for USD again there would be no price (or supply/demand) consequence.

Perhaps eBay get's more people buying BTC to hold for future purchases, but why? If I can buy in BTC and USD and I get paid by my employer in USD, what's the reason for me to transfer to BTC? It wouldn't be more convenient. It wouldn't guarantee me a better price.

Have to agree, eBay adding Bitcoin doesnt change much, only those having Bitcoin already might use it at eBay.

This is my thinking of Bitcoin adoption:

1. cheap ASIC mining hardware
2. cheap secure hardware wallets for average Joe
3. over 10% of Employess worldwide getting paid in Bitcoin

I think first step getting very close...

[smooth]

In your E.g., I need to buy something on eBay for BTC0.10 so I convert $60 to BTC0.10 to buy my good. If the seller than converts the Bitcoin he received for USD again there would be no price (or supply/demand) consequence.

Perhaps eBay get's more people buying BTC to hold for future purchases, but why? If I can buy in BTC and USD and I get paid by my employer in USD, what's the reason for me to transfer to BTC? It wouldn't be more convenient. It wouldn't guarantee me a better price.

Have to agree, eBay adding Bitcoin doesnt change much, only those having Bitcoin already might use it at eBay.

This is my thinking of Bitcoin adoption:

1. cheap ASIC mining hardware
2. cheap secure hardware wallets for average Joe
3. over 10% of Employess worldwide getting paid in Bitcoin

I think first step getting very close...

Mining is largely irrelevant at this stage. Even with cheap ASIC hardware the average Joe won't mine enough to care or matter.

Good hardware wallets and getting paid in BTC would both be a fairly big deal. #2 is starting to happen. #3 is not even in sight.

[greaterfool]

It is silly to assume that by such a date we would not have much more efficient ways of powering this technology with the vast amount of money which IS being and WILL be poured into the infrastructure of maintaining this epic ecosystem.

2/10 for effort

I hope those who did the math included this:

"Combined with Moore's law, performance per watt would grow at roughly the same rate as transistor density, doubling every 1–2 years." -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law#Other_formulations_and_similar_laws

Neither one of you saw or understood that mining efficiency does not matter when calculating the total power consumption of the Bitcoin Network.

Efficiency only affects total hash rate and difficulty, not power consumption.

It is a given that mining hardware will become more efficient for the reasons you stated.  However, more efficient mining hardware means that for a given amount of power the network will just produce a larger hash rate.  When more efficient mining hardware hits the market miners will just buy more of it until they consume the same amount of power as before the more efficent mining hardware was on the market.

The total power consumed by the network is only bounded by the amount of money available in each block to spend on power.

Couple of things:

1) That assumes an even distribution of "most efficient" mining hardware, and that access to available power is uniformly distributed. Right? I don't think that's likely - and "When more efficient mining hardware hits the market miners will just buy more of it until they consume the same amount of power as before" is assuming that anyone can get their hands on the capital/BTC to keep upgrading, and that they'll never be told "nope, no more power for you" from the electric company. It's more likely that people who would be otherwise be spending lots on power will be able afford very efficient mining hardware that doesn't use much power, and the rest will use inefficient hardware and soak up as much power as they can get. I think this makes it hard to predict how much power consumption is for a certain target hash rate. At least I think that's true... check my logic please?

2) Morgan Stanley's just released a report re: Tesla and home solar, suggesting that available power will increase by 39GW a year through 2020. http://forms.greentechmedia.com/Extranet/95679/Morgan%20Stanley%20Solar%20Power%20&%20Energy%20Storage%20Blue%20Paper%20July%2029%202014.pdf  So new power is coming online all the time apparently


(Though if I'm right, then this means Russia / Saudi / China / some other major energy producer and user will have to a) replace their dependence on using and selling existing fuels with new technologies and b) shift a ton of their new surplus power straight to mining BTC... like, mining would have to happen on the nation-state or Google/Apple corporate level. We're not getting this much power from nerds with asics anymore, it's gotta be datacenters in remote cold locations where energy can be spent solely on mining and not on cooling...)

If I were Putin I'd open a colo in Siberia and send 10% of Gazprom's reserves straight to it to power my ASIC farm /conspiracy

[BurtW]

Again, efficiency does not matter.

Look at it this way:

Assume every block is worth $50,000.

The amount of power that can be consumed to produce that block is $50,000 minus some overhead number (real estate, cost of hardware, labor, profit, etc.)  The higher the price the more power can be consumed.  Power consumption is directly proportional to price regardless of efficiency.

The more efficiently the power is used the higher the hash rate and difficulty of the network can and will be.  Efficiency drives difficulty and hash rate, price drives power consumption.

Sure some miners are better situated (cheaper power, cheaper cooling, better hardware, etc.) so they are more profitable than other miners.  This extra profit allows them to afford to buy even more hardware - pushing out the less efficient miners who will be losing money.  As new hardware comes on line and old hardware is retired the power consumption remains proportional to price.

Also, I am looking at the overall averages for the entire network and looking at estimating the power consumption of the entire network.  Local variations do not matter when looking at overall averages.

[santaClause]

Your ownership in stocks really is as secure as you need it to be. Having your trading record embedded into the blockchain really is overkill. There are enough regulatory and internal controls that you can be certain that your shares are safe (you always have the risk that the share values go down).

No there are not.
Don't just believe, do research

Can you give any examples of when stocks were lost due to a brokerage failing? If so then why is holding stocks in certificate form sufficient?

[BurtW]

I think this makes it hard to predict how much power consumption is for a certain target hash rate. At least I think that's true... check my logic please?

Kind of agree with you.  I am saying that power consumption is a function of price.  I never said that power consumption is a function of target hash rate.  Efficiency is defined as the relationship between hash rate and power: Efficiency (Hashes/Joule) = (Hashes per second/Watts) there is nothing more to the relationship between power consumption and target hash rate.  That relationship:

(the system wide average number of hashes per second) / (the system wide average power consumption)

is the system wide efficiency (Hashes/Joule or Hashes/kWh).

[JayJuanGee]

In your E.g., I need to buy something on eBay for BTC0.10 so I convert $60 to BTC0.10 to buy my good. If the seller than converts the Bitcoin he received for USD again there would be no price (or supply/demand) consequence.

Perhaps eBay get's more people buying BTC to hold for future purchases, but why? If I can buy in BTC and USD and I get paid by my employer in USD, what's the reason for me to transfer to BTC? It wouldn't be more convenient. It wouldn't guarantee me a better price.

Have to agree, eBay adding Bitcoin doesnt change much, only those having Bitcoin already might use it at eBay.

This is my thinking of Bitcoin adoption:

1. cheap ASIC mining hardware
2. cheap secure hardware wallets for average Joe
3. over 10% of Employess worldwide getting paid in Bitcoin

I think first step getting very close...

Adding BTC to E-bay serves a lot of purposes.  It increases awareness, it increases the number BTC circulated, it increases liquidity options, it increases the number of people holding BTC, and likely there are some other "increases" that I am forgetting at the moment... 

[BurtW]

In your E.g., I need to buy something on eBay for BTC0.10 so I convert $60 to BTC0.10 to buy my good. If the seller than converts the Bitcoin he received for USD again there would be no price (or supply/demand) consequence.

Perhaps eBay get's more people buying BTC to hold for future purchases, but why? If I can buy in BTC and USD and I get paid by my employer in USD, what's the reason for me to transfer to BTC? It wouldn't be more convenient. It wouldn't guarantee me a better price.

Have to agree, eBay adding Bitcoin doesnt change much, only those having Bitcoin already might use it at eBay.

This is my thinking of Bitcoin adoption:

1. cheap ASIC mining hardware
2. cheap secure hardware wallets for average Joe
3. over 10% of Employess worldwide getting paid in Bitcoin

I think first step getting very close...

1. Pretty cheap and getting cheaper all the time - though not material to adoption in any way
2. Trezor is very secure and $119.  You may not consider this cheap but, of course, the price will drop over time.
3. Not quite there yet.

[jonald_fyookball]

In your E.g., I need to buy something on eBay for BTC0.10 so I convert $60 to BTC0.10 to buy my good. If the seller than converts the Bitcoin he received for USD again there would be no price (or supply/demand) consequence.

Perhaps eBay get's more people buying BTC to hold for future purchases, but why? If I can buy in BTC and USD and I get paid by my employer in USD, what's the reason for me to transfer to BTC? It wouldn't be more convenient. It wouldn't guarantee me a better price.

Have to agree, eBay adding Bitcoin doesnt change much, only those having Bitcoin already might use it at eBay.

This is my thinking of Bitcoin adoption:

1. cheap ASIC mining hardware
2. cheap secure hardware wallets for average Joe
3. over 10% of Employess worldwide getting paid in Bitcoin

I think first step getting very close...

1. Pretty cheap and getting cheaper all the time - though not material to adoption in any way
2. Trezor is very secure and $119.  You may not consider this cheap but, of course, the price will drop over time.
3. Not quite there yet.

why is trezor so secure in your opinion?  isnt that hard to prove?

[DannyElfman]

In your E.g., I need to buy something on eBay for BTC0.10 so I convert $60 to BTC0.10 to buy my good. If the seller than converts the Bitcoin he received for USD again there would be no price (or supply/demand) consequence.

Perhaps eBay get's more people buying BTC to hold for future purchases, but why? If I can buy in BTC and USD and I get paid by my employer in USD, what's the reason for me to transfer to BTC? It wouldn't be more convenient. It wouldn't guarantee me a better price.

Have to agree, eBay adding Bitcoin doesnt change much, only those having Bitcoin already might use it at eBay.

This is my thinking of Bitcoin adoption:

1. cheap ASIC mining hardware
2. cheap secure hardware wallets for average Joe
3. over 10% of Employess worldwide getting paid in Bitcoin

I think first step getting very close...

1. Pretty cheap and getting cheaper all the time - though not material to adoption in any way
2. Trezor is very secure and $119.  You may not consider this cheap but, of course, the price will drop over time.
3. Not quite there yet.

why is trezor so secure in your opinion?  isnt that hard to prove?

Not really, go to their github and read their code. Also they posted all their hardware specifications and builds.

[BurtW]

why is trezor so secure in your opinion?  isnt that hard to prove?

As stated above:

Based on several publicly available and testable specifications (BIPs).
All firmware is open source.
All hardware is open souce.

[jonald_fyookball]

why is trezor so secure in your opinion?  isnt that hard to prove?

As stated above:

Based on several publicly avaiable and testable BIPs.
All firmware is open source.
All hardware is open souce.

But how do you know that you're getting what they say you are?
(I guess the same could be said when you download an executable.)

Does it come with its own RNG?  Or do you import?

[BurtW]

why is trezor so secure in your opinion?  isnt that hard to prove?

As stated above:

Based on several publicly avaiable and testable BIPs.
All firmware is open source.
All hardware is open souce.

But how do you know that you're getting what they say you are?
(I guess the same could be said when you download an executable.)

Does it come with its own RNG?  Or do you import?

You can compile and hash the source yourself and make sure it matches the hash of the code in the Trezor.

It has its own built in RNG.

[jonald_fyookball]

why is trezor so secure in your opinion?  isnt that hard to prove?

As stated above:

Based on several publicly avaiable and testable BIPs.
All firmware is open source.
All hardware is open souce.

But how do you know that you're getting what they say you are?
(I guess the same could be said when you download an executable.)

Does it come with its own RNG?  Or do you import?

You can compile and hash the source yourself and make sure it matches the hash of the code in the Trezor.

It has its own built in RNG.

i think it would be cool if you could roll dice and input your own RN.

also, i assume it doesnt have wifi or anything?

[greaterfool]

Again, efficiency does not matter.

Look at it this way:

Assume every block is worth $50,000.

The amount of power that can be consumed to produce that block is $50,000 minus some overhead number (real estate, cost of hardware, labor, profit, etc.)  The higher the price the more power can be consumed.  Power consumption is directly proportional to price regardless of efficiency.

The more efficiently the power is used the higher the hash rate and difficulty of the network can and will be.  Efficiency drives difficulty and hash rate, price drives power consumption.

Sure some miners are better situated (cheaper power, cheaper cooling, better hardware, etc.) so they are more profitable than other miners.  This extra profit allows them to afford to buy even more hardware - pushing out the less efficient miners who will be losing money.  As new hardware comes on line and old hardware is retired the power consumption remains proportional to price.

Also, I am looking at the overall averages for the entire network and looking at estimating the power consumption of the entire network.  Local variations do not matter when looking at overall averages.

"Allows them to buy more hardware" and "necessarily leads them to spend all new profits into recycling and building more efficient hardware in a never-ending always forward moving cycle" are two different things. I agree that what you're proposing is a possible scenario, but not the most likely.

We've seen this same scenario play out with the move from dedicated servers to multi-core virtualized cloud servers - the question people were asking with datacenters in 2007 was "how the hell are we gonna get enough power for this?!" and now in 2014 that question seems absurd.

Purchasing, deploying, running, and managing the cap-ex and op-ex of all this new hardware at scale is *costly*. It's not frictionless in terms of time and effort. Having the money to buy new hardware and being able to do so are different things at scale.

[smooth]

Sure some miners are better situated (cheaper power, cheaper cooling, better hardware, etc.) so they are more profitable than other miners.

You are assuming:
1. That supply of for example cheaper power (and other similar resources) is unlimited and instantly available
2. That supply of more efficient miners is unlmiited
3. That more efficient miners can be deployed instantly before even more efficient miners are developed.

All of these are false.

Looking at averages for the entire network is incorrect except in the static model where there are no constraints (time or quantity) on increasing capacity.

Sure in that toy model the most efficient miner just instantly scales up to cover the entire network and then the averages do apply.

This is also totally unrealistic.