Cryptocurrencies - Bitcoin / Ethereum / Others

[Basileos Leandros I]

Something that is extremely popular nowadays, so I thought I'd get the ball rolling on this subject on TWC. For sure something new.

Who's invested in cryptocurrencies as of this moment? And what do you own?

Setting aside the sensationalist headlines, Bitcoin and the rest offer quite a special view into the future - blockchain to be exact.

[Condottiere 40K]

[Basileos Leandros I]

It's clearly not like that.

Sure, it's a bubble, but blockchain is very useful.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

I believe it was Warren Buffet who called Bitcoin a tulip market. But the answer is that I don't have anything in cryptocurrencies and probably never would since the service seems a little too risky.

[Condottiere 40K]

What's each transaction cost, ten or fifteen percent of the current value?

Then, how much electricity is actually used. let alone capital investment in computer components.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

Not only that, what happens if you lose your hardware. You would be completely screwed.

[NorseThing]

Currencies are supposes to be mediums of exchange. This is not investing by owning bitcoin. If you believe this is investing then go to Vegas and make some investments... or follow the politicians lead and invest in government infrastructure projects by paying more taxes.

[Condottiere 40K]

[NorseThing]

Even Forbes has now discovered this is not a good idea today, but maybe in the murky future. There is a second page to the article that I did not copy paste so use the link if this is at all interesting. I was not interested. LOL

I am still awaiting news of either a huge theft or a huge counterfeiting operation. Then after the after shocks and a review of the systems that survive the shock of reality, maybe....

There have been better days and worse days for Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Litecoin and other cryptocurrencies.
The better days were back in November and December when a “virtuous” rotation helped spread the rally from Bitcoin to other cryptocurrencies. This means that funds cashed out from one currency were invested in other currencies.
That’s a bullish "technical" sign for cryptocurrencies, as it keeps the momentum for the sector alive.
[Ed note: Investing in cryptocoins or tokens is highly speculative and the market is largely unregulated. Anyone considering it should be prepared to lose their entire investment. Disclosure: I don't own any cryptocoins or tokens.]
The worse days were early this week when the sell-off in major cryptocurrencies spread across the entire sector. This means that money cashed out from one cryptocurrency didn’t flow to other cryptocurrencies, but moved to cash or to other investments.


And that’s a bearish sign for cryptocurrencies, as it undermines the momentum for the sector.
Apparently, momentum is changing very fast in cryptocurrencies, much faster than in other asset classes.
That’s why technical analysis alone may not be a reliable indicator for trying to guess the direction of the cryptocurrency markets.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/panosmo.../#6fa71097feec

[Condottiere 40K]

With that criterion in mind, Venezuela was the cheapest country to mine altcoins by a large margin. Elite Fixtures’s data demonstrates that it costs a mere $531 to mine a single bitcoin in the South American country. Given the current market price of Bitcoin at around $11,000, that leads to a decent profit of $10,500 per coin. The reason? Venezuela benefits from a heavily subsidized electricity market, in order to encourage local industrial development. Whilst bitcoin mining can lead to huge profits, the Venezuelan government does not consider it to fall under those conditions. Indeed, bitcoin mining in Venezuela is not without its risks. Not only have local police been arresting anyone caught mining the digital currency, the country itself intends to launch its own altcoin (the Petro coin) in an effort to stabilise its volatile economy.


As far as the most expensive mining venue is concerned, that honour falls to South Korea, where the energy cost of mining a single bitcoin is currently $26,170, or over twice its market value. Again, there are reasons for this that have nothing to do with the altcoin scene. In South Korea, in an effort to curtail unnecessary energy consumption, they utilise a sliding scale when charging for electricity use. This means that companies and individuals that use more energy will pay disproportionately higher costs. This is meant to encourage users to optimise their electricity use, but the amount required to mine bitcoin will not change for local markets.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

When the Petro coin fails they will probably make an altcoin for their altcoin. The Petro Petro coin? Double Petro Coin? Bolivarian Bucks? Chinese Yuan?

[Condottiere 40K]

The Double Bol.

Equals one Chav.

[Gallus]

It's clearly not like that.

Sure, it's a bubble, but blockchain is very useful.

It's exactly like that. Blockchain is interesting and potentially useful, yes. But people are not buying blockchain technology. They are buying virtual coins that can't be used to buy anything. The only reason to buy bitcoin is to sell it for more money. Exactly like the tulips. Well, not exactly like the tulips. Tulips still look nice if you can't sell them on. Bitcoin is literary useless if you can't sell it on.

[Condottiere 40K]

Russia's Interfax News Agency reports that engineers at the All-Russian Research Institute of Experimental Physics (RFNC-VNIIEF)—the Russian Federation Nuclear Center facility where scientists designed the Soviet Union's first nuclear bomb—have been arrested for mining cryptocurrency with "office computing resources," according to a spokesperson for the Institute. "There has been an unsanctioned attempt to use computer facilities for private purposes including so-called mining," said Tatyana Zalesskaya, head of the Institute's press service.

Zalesskaya did not say how many people were detained, and the Federal Security Service (FSB) has not issued a statement on the arrests or criminal charges pending. But reports indicate that the group was caught trying to harness the lab's supercomputer to mine cryptocurrency.

The Institute is located in Sarov, a "closed" city east of Moscow where nuclear weapons research has been conducted since 1946. The facility is so secret that it was left off Soviet maps; Sarov is surrounded by fences and guarded by the Russian military accordingly. While the city is the home of Russia's Nuclear Weapons Museum, don't plan a visit anytime soon—access to Sarov is restricted, and no one who does not live in the city is allowed to visit without permission. Foreigners visiting on official business have to surrender their passports, cell phones, and other electronic devices at the city's checkpoints.

Because of the nature of the work at the Institute, technically none of the Institute's computers—including its 1-petaflop capable supercomputer, used for simulating tests of nuclear weapons designs—is supposed to be connected to the Internet. According to the Russian news service Mash, someone at the Institute attempted to connect the supercomputer to the Internet, and that attempt was detected by the FSB, launching an investigation.

Cryptocurrency speculation and mining have generated so much interest in Russia that one businessman—Alexey Kolesnik—recently bought two power plants in the Russian republics of Perm Krai and Udmurtia to be used exclusively to generate electricity for Bitcoin-mining data centers. But there have been numerous other attempts recently in Russia to harness corporate and industrial computer systems for illicit cryptocurrency mining as well.

Zalesskaya told Interfax that a large number of companies "with large computing capacity" have recently experienced attempts to harness their computing infrastructure for cryptocurrency mining, but the PR rep told Interfax that these sorts of schemes "will be severely suppressed at our enterprises. This is technically a hopeless and criminal offense."

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...supercomputer/