I've figured it out. You buy one of these.
miningstore.com.au/product/antminer-s19-pro/

$23,087.90


The Antminer S-19 mines a bit coin in 3 years. You might be lucky and get one 30 seconds from switching it on or you might have nothing after 6 years. So you join a pool and get awarded 1/3rd of a bitcoin a year. The S-19 runs at 3.25 kW.
At 20c a kWh that's 3.25 X 24 X 365 X 3 X 0.2 = $17,082.

But what's a bitcoin worth 3 years from now? Well I have previously predicted it'll be close to zero, but to be rational you might assume the next 3 years will be the same as 3 in a row of the last. Bitcoin is now $51,916 this time last year $48,677 that's 7% inflation ~ $63,700 in 3 years. And you've only spent $40,169.
23,500 profit over 3 years. Don't give up your day job.

minerdaily.com/2021/how-much-power-does-it-take-to-mine-a-bitcoin/
"The best ASIC miner on the market is currently Bitmain's Antminer S19 Pro 110 terahash per second (TH/s). This model houses a couple hundred TSMC 7nm microprocessor chips. It consumes 3250 watts (W) power per hour with an efficiency of 29.5 W/TH. But, one machine alone takes about 3 years to produce one bitcoin"

if you have free power....

So, you mean making money from Bitcoin by selling these things to people to mine them because they can't do the maths?

There must be a better way. I think bitcoin is supported by smaller individuals that think it is always going to go up... From what I have read, a few people are just buying and selling with the peaks and troughs and making small gains each time, but with a certain amount of risk.

I guess is all it takes is the random story of some guy that has $100M at age 27 from bitcoin, to keep the support there.

Well you'd think if they could figure out how to network the thing into the mining pool they could do simple arithmetic? Then again measuring efficiency in W/TH ? Surely that's j/TH. Whatever.

Our simple calculations assumed the Antminer S19 pro would last 3 years. Trouble is with energy being such a high cost if something comes out, the Antiminer S27 pro++ for instance, that runs at 10j/TH, the hash rate difficulty will just go up to keep the bitcoin flow constant and the S19 will be useless.

The Antminer S9 at 98j/TH isn't worth much these days. Do your sums before bidding on this one.

www.ebay.com.au/itm/294790375609?hash=item44a2e028b9:g:KaUAAOSwt3Jh92pK

Just need to find a Rainman that can't work out 2+2 but can work out Bitcoin hashes in his head.

It's really no different to any other investment, except bitcoin is high risk, high reward. If you started now and wait for the next halving, history shows you could do incredibly well. Although, history is no guarantee of future earnings. I know home miners who've made plenty mining sh1tcoins.

Good article here on crypto currencies. Cryptocurrency Is a Giant Ponzi Scheme:
jacobinmag.com/2022/01/cryptocurrency-scam-blockchain-bitcoin-economy-decentralization

Hadn't been too aware of stablecoins. 70% of Bitcoin trade is in it though!
newmoneyreview.com/index.php/2021/10/11/tether-dominates-bitcoin-trading/

Can anyone explain this?
from coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/
A $829,000,000,000 market cap and $357,000,000,000 traded in the last 24 hrs up 915% on the previous 24hrs! That's a flurry of activity. Does that mean nearly half of all Bitcoins in existence changed hands in the last 24 hours! (Using tether rather than real dollars I presume?)

Am I missing something?

Another bit of Bitcoin trivia for the crypto nerd. The latest mining device is the Antminer S19 Pro+ Hyd. Water cooled! It does 198 Terahashes per second! You need to connect it up with 5.5 kW. That's 198 X 10^12 hash calculations a second. Or write it out with zeros 198,000,000,000,000 calculations a second.
www.tomshardware.com/news/bitmain-liquid-cooled-miner-boosts-compute-power

And doing just one of these hash calculations is not easy. It takes 18 hours for one person to work one of them out on pencil and paper. About a week's work allowing for coffee breaks.
hackaday.com/2014/09/29/mining-bitcoins-with-pencil-and-paper/

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Ian K said..
Hadn't been too aware of stablecoins. 70% of Bitcoin trade is in it though!
newmoneyreview.com/index.php/2021/10/11/tether-dominates-bitcoin-trading/

Can anyone explain this?
from coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/
A $829,000,000,000 market cap and $357,000,000,000 traded in the last 24 hrs up 915% on the previous 24hrs! That's a flurry of activity. Does that mean nearly half of all Bitcoins in existence changed hands in the last 24 hours! (Using tether rather than real dollars I presume?)

Am I missing something?

I'd assume algorithmic trading resulting in churn. A large number of transactions in a small proportion of coins

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TheRodder said..
Good article here on crypto currencies. Cryptocurrency Is a Giant Ponzi Scheme:
jacobinmag.com/2022/01/cryptocurrency-scam-blockchain-bitcoin-economy-decentralization

Not really a Ponzi, calling it that upsets the die-hard fans. (Then again, what doesn't?) More of a worldwide game of two-up where a fair proportion of the coins fall through cracks in the floor.

Not Ponzi, pyramid.

No, it fits the definition of a Ponzi scheme, not Pyramid:


o Both pyramid schemes and Ponzi schemes involve unscrupulous investors taking advantage of unsuspecting individuals by promising them extraordinary returns in exchange for their money.

o With Ponzi schemes, investors give money to a portfolio manager. Then, when they want their money back, they are paid out with the incoming funds contributed by later investors.

o With a pyramid scheme, the initial schemer recruits other investors who in turn recruit other investors and so on. Late-joining investors pay the person who recruited them for the right to participate or perhaps sell a certain product.

Semantics perhaps but the common theme is that neither creates any wealth and both are realiant on inflows > outflows. Once that equation is reversed, as surely it must, it's a race for the exits.

It's not case of if, only when. No doubt there could be vast amounts of money to be made in the meantime but ultimately it's a zero-sum game; every dollar made by one investor is a dollar lost by another.

You'd imagine that, if not before, crypto will collapse next time there is some kind of global shock. If it gets big enough first it may even precipitate a global shock.

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AUS1111 said..
Semantics perhaps but the common theme is that neither creates any wealth and both are realiant on inflows > outflows. Once that equation is reversed, as surely it must, it's a race for the exits.

It's not case of if, only when. No doubt there could be vast amounts of money to be made in the meantime but ultimately it's a zero-sum game; every dollar made by one investor is a dollar lost by another.

You'd imagine that, if not before, crypto will collapse next time there is some kind of global shock. If it gets big enough first it may even precipitate a global shock.

Elements of both, as well as other things. Either way, the interesting thing is that it does it so well by being globally scalable, offering access to everyone, and managing to weave its way around laws that prohibit such schemes. There is no underlying corporation or individual that will have their day of reckoning, you just have a large bunch of people that have chosen to hand money back and forth amongst themselves. If you're not involved, it has no impact on you. (Apart from the endless drivel you have to listen to.)

I don't think you can really label it as a pyramid or Ponzi scheme since those things are usually done deceptively, whereas Bitcoin is very transparent about what it is and you only have yourself to blame if you toss money in without knowing what you are getting into. If anything, I'd say it should come under gambling laws, but it steps around that by masquerading as some type of currency. (Yeah, people are buying Bitcoin because they believe it's a useful currency....pffft.)

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TheRodder said..
No, it fits the definition of a Ponzi scheme, not Pyramid:

o Both pyramid schemes and Ponzi schemes involve unscrupulous investors taking advantage of unsuspecting individuals by promising them extraordinary returns in exchange for their money.

o With Ponzi schemes, investors give money to a portfolio manager. Then, when they want their money back, they are paid out with the incoming funds contributed by later investors.

Who is the portfolio manager? It's been going for 14 years, you must be able to name this person/organisation?

You can't though, because you haven't thought it through.

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Harrow said..

I don't think you can really label it as a pyramid or Ponzi scheme since those things are usually done deceptively, whereas Bitcoin is very transparent about what it is and you only have yourself to blame if you toss money in without knowing what you are getting into.

You've changed your tune.

Eventually even the most stupid people start to figure it out. That's because it's not going away, it's not going to zero and it is not some scheme designed to swindle people of their life savings

Most speculators/investors/gamblers have made a lot of money out of it. Over the last 14 years it's only gone up in value. Still early days, there are many more bull runs to come.

It will be the same conversation 5 years from now, only far more people will be using cryptocurrency.

You know I'm right!

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myscreenname said..
You've changed your tune.

Eventually even the most stupid people start to figure it out. That's because it's not going away, it's not going to zero and it is not some scheme designed to swindle people of their life savings

Most speculators/investors/gamblers have made a lot of money out of it. Over the last 14 years it's only gone up in value. Still early days, there are many more bull runs to come.

It will be the same conversation 5 years from now, only far more people will be using cryptocurrency.

You know I'm right!

No, I still think the exact same thing about it as before. People can argue all day about whether or not they want to liken it to a Ponzi or pyramid, it doesn't really matter. As AUS1111 says, that's all semantics.

The simple fact is that any money that someone has made from Bitcoin has simply come out of someone else's pocket. How can you say that most people make a lot of money out of it when it's simply a zero-sum game with people transferring money back and forth to each other? This doesn't change no matter what price they use as the basis for exchanging their cash. Sure, there are winners and losers, just like any poker match.

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Harrow said..
How can you say that most people make a lot of money out of it.

In the past 14 years the price has gone only one way....... up!

Not only has it gone up but it's price has increased at an unbelievable rate in this period.

If the price went down over 14 years do you think there would be more winners than losers?

It's basic maths/economics. Did you ever study mathematics or ecconomics?

And, yes, you've changed your tune: you know it, I know it, and every idiot following this discussion over the past few years know it.

Why are you so obsessed with something you have never invested in, don't believe in, think is worthless and don't want to understand?

Pfffft.

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myscreenname said..

Why are you so obsessed with something you have never invested in, don't believe in, think is worthless and don't want to understand?

Pfffft.

We're not exactly obsessed with it. But it is an interesting phenomenon to puzzle about and speculate on. From both the computer science and the human condition aspect of it all.

It's given me a vague idea on what cryptography is all about. They all run on it. (Using the SHA 256 hash algorithm designed by the United States National Security Agency in 2001. ) Maybe there'll be a decentralised currency using aspects of the current prototype designs down the track. If it does settle down there'll only be 2 or 3. Just as there's only 2 or 3 dominant computer operating systems today . So of the thousands of cryptos out there which ones do you back? It's possible the 2 or 3 enduring cryptos haven't even been formulated yet. It's possible all the current ones will collapse achieving nothing at all apart from facilitating the exchange of real money between winners and losers in a zero sum game.

It's interesting that the star of the show, Bitcoin (60 % market share) is so obviously going to collapse. (It runs on Proof-of-Work in an energy-conscious real world!) Most punters know this but are just holding on for the ride hoping to be a winner.

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Ian K said..
We're not exactly obsessed with it. But it is an interesting phenomenon to puzzle about and speculate on. From both the computer science and the human condition aspect of it all.

It's given me a vague idea on what cryptography is all about. They all run on it. (Using the SHA 256 hash algorithm designed by the United States National Security Agency in 2001. ) Maybe there'll be a decentralised currency using aspects of the current prototype designs down the track. If it does settle down there'll only be 2 or 3. Just as there's only 2 or 3 dominant computer operating systems today . So of the thousands of cryptos out there which ones do you back? It's possible the 2 or 3 enduring cryptos haven't even been formulated yet. It's possible all the current ones will collapse achieving nothing at all apart from facilitating the exchange of real money between winners and losers in a zero sum game.

It's interesting that the star of the show, Bitcoin (60 % market share) is so obviously going to collapse. (It runs on Proof-of-Work in an energy-conscious real world!) Most punters know this but are just holding on for the ride hoping to be a winner.

I agree it's an interesting phenomenon to puzzle about and speculate on. I've been interested by it and made money on it for years.

Of all the thousands of tokens on coinmarketcap they are not all currencies. Many, if not most, are just various organisations building/doing/trying out things with blockchain. Most will fail.

I've always been bullish on ethereum, number 2. It's got it's issues, but I think it will become the blockchain backbone. I'm thinking other blockchains will use it as a base. Eth is moving towards a PoS model. It's also not a currency despite its blockchain being used by many currencies including tether.



PoW doesn't necessarily mean BTC will collapse, because of environmental concerns. I think you could successfully argue BTCs PoW will be a driver of renewable energy.

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myscreenname said..
In the past 14 years the price has gone only one way....... up!

Not only has it gone up but it's price has increased at an unbelievable rate in this period.

If the price went down over 14 years do you think there would be more winners than losers?

It's basic maths/economics. Did you ever study mathematics or ecconomics?

And, yes, you've changed your tune: you know it, I know it, and every idiot following this discussion over the past few years know it.

Why are you so obsessed with something you have never invested in, don't believe in, think is worthless and don't want to understand?

Pfffft.

I'm still undecided if you're just a troll or simply blinded by your own crypto fanaticism. A bit of both I'm guessing.

Can you explain to me where I have this wrong. "Every dollar that someone has made from trading bitcoin had to come out of someone else's pocket."

Now I can see someone jumping on that statement and trying to say that's no different to shares. But you can buy shares in a company and everyone that owns those shares makes a profit from the company's business succeeding. With Bitcoin, every cent of profit that you take out comes from someone else putting money. That's why people make reference to Ponzi schemes, but I agree that it's not actually a Ponzi for the reasons I stated in my previous post.

I'm not obsessed with it, but I certainly find it very interesting. Why? Because I find the global psychological behaviour fascinating, and I'm curious just how long this house of cards (yes, my opinion, not everyone's) can stand.

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Harrow said..

Can you explain to me where I have this wrong. "Every dollar that someone has made from trading bitcoin had to come out of someone else's pocket."

Sure, if you can explain to me how bitcoin differs from any other transaction.

When you pay for anything your money is leaving your pocket and going into someone else's pocket. When you sell something or rim your boss for a wage, money leaves someone else's pocket and goes into yours.

The point you are continually trying to make is ridiculous... can't you see that?

What I find interesting is how some people just can't get their head around the concept of decentralised finance. Many, like yourself, just can't accept that it's a real thing, that it's working, and continues to thrive. We are still at the start of this revolution.

Cryptocurrency, blockchain is here to stay. No house of cards. It's not going to zero - even you know that!

Five years from now there will be far more applications of the technology rolled out than today. Young people are demanding greater transparency, and blockchain can assist buisness with this.

I like this house of cards reference.
Saying that blockchain is as stable as fiat currency as a positive argument reads as ignorant to frailty of a dollar not tied to the gold standard and the historical collapse of mismanaged foreign currencies.
And the other side of the coin is that speculation begets it's own intrinsic value...until speculation...

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psychojoe said..
I like this house of cards reference.
Saying that blockchain is as stable as fiat currency ...

Blockchain and bitcoin is inherently more stable than fiat.

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Ian K said..
I've figured it out. You buy one of these.
miningstore.com.au/product/antminer-s19-pro/

Sorry mate, but you are wrong (kinda).

That will not make you money on bitcoin.

That will only make you bitcoins.

The only way to make money on bitcoin is to sell it to somebody for more than you paid for it.

And the only use for bitcoin is selling it to people for more than you paid for it.




Kinda interesting none of the bitcoin-disciples have objected to this thread's premise that bitcoin does not equal money, but that one must exchange bitcoin for something else for it to then be considered money.

I guess everyone has accepted that bitcoin isn't money...

I don't know much about BTC, but I do know that Fiat currencies are on the way out.
The fact that when somebody has a printing machine that can print it out of thin air, backed by nothing more than goodwill, and then somebody else exchanges their time for the paper currency, doesn't seem fair.
Then there is Inflation, best case scenario (& what govts aim for) is 2%, currently I think its about 7% thats the official figures their telling us.
Wouldn't surprise me if its actually 10 to 15% at the moment. So fiat is a guaranteed loss. That's why generally people are spending fiat as fast as they can, which has been creating jobs.
plus with interest rates so low, doesn't make sense to save cash, thats another reason to offload fiat.
Only ever going to be 21 million BTC, its starting to make some sense.

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Carantoc said..
And the only use for bitcoin is selling it to people for more than you paid for it.

Is there really anything more that needs to be said?

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Carantoc said..
I guess everyone has accepted that bitcoin isn't money...

Fark me, how long did you ponder on that before writing it down Einstein?

Gold isn't money either, but it is a currency, similar to bitcoin.

Difference is bitcoin is easily divisible and can be sent to anyone securely in an instant, without the need for a third party.

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myscreenname said..
....isn't money either, but it is a currency, similar to bitcoin.

Ummm, you sure you got that the right way round ?

You are saying bitcoin is currency but it isn't money ??

I assume you mean the opposite, that bitcoin is money but not a currency.

Hell, it is even called a "crypto-currency", as in "not an actual currency"


#Except that it isn't money either.



www.wallstreetmojo.com/money-vs-currency/#:~:text=The%20major%20difference%20between%20Money,and%20smell%20and%20its%20tangible.

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myscreenname said..
Sure, if you can explain to me how bitcoin differs from any other transaction.

When you pay for anything your money is leaving your pocket and going into someone else's pocket. When you sell something or rim your boss for a wage, money leaves someone else's pocket and goes into yours.

The point you are continually trying to make is ridiculous... can't you see that?

What I find interesting is how some people just can't get their head around the concept of decentralised finance. Many, like yourself, just can't accept that it's a real thing, that it's working, and continues to thrive. We are still at the start of this revolution.

Cryptocurrency, blockchain is here to stay. No house of cards. It's not going to zero - even you know that!

Five years from now there will be far more applications of the technology rolled out than today. Young people are demanding greater transparency, and blockchain can assist buisness with this.

If you view Bitcoin as a currency, then sure. But to what extent is it being used as a currency? Everyone I know personally that is into Bitcoin doesn't view it as a currency and certainly don't intend to use it as such.....they're looking to make a quick buck.

As far as blockchain technology. no argument about that. But I'm not talking about blockchain, I'm talking about Bitcoin (the topic of this thread and my previous post). The house of cards is the public confidence in Bitcoin.....to be specific, the eventual collapse of its price. I can get my head around decentralised finance, I just don't think Bitcoin is the one. I might be wrong. Do I care? No.