Topic: ASICMINER: Entering the Future of ASIC Mining by Inventing It - page 879. (Read 3917468 times)

I assume you're talking to me.

You should ask Rival why he made the first post, then; I simply responded.

As for the fundamentals; I believe deflationary currencies like Bitcoin have a place, just like gold does, but I don't think it will displace inflationary fiat.

And I've sold my AM shares. I now own exclusively puts - I'm playing the downside. Many people in real-world markets have contrarian opinions about stocks, so I'm not sure I understand your confusion.

I'm going to work through this cluster paragraph by paragraph.


This doesn't actually match up with your next sentence:


Then it's valueless before being spent, as per your assertion. It's not a superposition of both value and no value.

I disagree with that assessment anyway. If it's valueless before being spent, then nobody would ever sell their real goods for currency. The fact that people do sell real goods for currency demonstrates that it has value before it is spent.

Onto the next paragraph:


You did not break even. You have less units of currency than you started out with, regardless of their purchasing power. If you had not purchased a house, you'd have more units of currency. Obfuscating the situation with the utility of owning a house doesn't change the situation, as I can demonstrate easily:

Let's suppose instead the situation is instead both non-deflationary and non-inflationary; the purchasing power of money doesn't change. You buy the house, live in it for 5 years, and sell it for the same amount of money as you originally put in (which has the same purchasing power as the money reclaimed in the deflationary case).

Once again, you've received the utility of living in the house. But there is ZERO opportunity cost in doing so; holding onto your money would have provided no benefit; but you clearly received utility from owning the house, since otherwise you would have had to pay rent. So, for the deflating currency you broke even on your investment, and for the neutral currency you actually made money, although it's invisible.

Let's consider this thought experiment: you own enough deflationary currency to buy a house, AND enough non-deflationary currency to buy a house. What will you do? Simple - you'll buy a house with your non-deflationary currency, and sit on the deflationary currency, since otherwise there would be an opportunity cost. Acting as though deflation doesn't affect you because you own real goods is naive.


As I mentioned already, that has to be considered for non-consumables as well, since there's an opportunity cost associated with not holding currency. You could rent now and buy a house later.


"More in tune with the nature of the world" is some serious voodoo economics, not to mention that you're cherry-picking; yes, oil gets more expensive with time, and meanwhile the cell phones being manufactured today will cost half as much to make in a couple of years.

Very nice post, interesting thoughts! Especially this, powerful statement:

Currency has much in common with the schrodinger cat. It is is a state of being neither alive nor dead until you open the box.

Currency is an abstraction of value, not value itself. It only achieves value once spent.

This is why deflation is not a boggyman to be feared. Suppose I were to spend BTC to buy a home. I live in the home for 5 years, and keep up on it so that is in the same condition 5 years later. I sell it for BTC, and receive a smaller number of BTC. One could argue that I have lost, but that is simply an illusion. I have simply traded the opportunity cost of holding the BTC for a home for 5 years. I took one house worth of BTC, traded it for a house, 5 years later I traded one house for one house worth of BTC. I broke even. The deflating currency has harmed me not a bit.

Now granted, when purchasing things which are consumed the story is different. You must measure the opportunity cost of consuming something today against saving and consuming later. You will determine whether that is a fair trade off as an individual when you choose to consume or to save. At least it is you who are making the choice and not having it made for you by people who change the rules when it suits them.

Resources are deflationary by nature. The first barrels of oil from a well are the cheapest and easiest to get, just like bitcoins. Every day that passes, it costs more to obtain more. Holding a barrel of oil from the beginning instead of consuming it brings forth a profit. I would posit that deflationary currencies are more in tune with the nature of the world than the inflationary ones.

And that is the heart of the issue: The separation of State and Currency and Bank.

The State's interference in the currency market has led to inflation and deflation messes like the Great Depression and the 1970's Stagflation. It has allowed the infringement on civil liberties and privacy with things like Anti-Money Laundering legislation with Know Your Customer duties for banks, PRISM, and empowered the State to engage in confiscation through inflation which is a form of taxation without representation.

The US Constitution was clear on the issue of separating State and Currency and Bank. There were tens of thousands of competing currencies in the United States prior to the Civil War. What is needed to empower the economy to heal and the remove the gross infringements on civil liberties is a free market in currencies. That single change would fix almost all the ills we have in society as a result of the State's diabolical behavior. And Bitcoin being censorship resistant moves the market and society in that direction.

As Mises wrote:


Almost all of the ills in society can be traced directly back to the State and what has largely funded the State is their control over the currency markets. Just listen to Dr. Vieira, the leading scholar on American monetary jurisprudence, on the topic.

TIL: Putting money in a Ponzi scheme would be investing, but buying a bond and waiting until maturity is gambling.

Although for accounting purposes, we like to look at a chart and or ticker and say that asset X is worth Y. Unfortunately, it is far more complicated than that. The first thing to understand is the difference between gambling and investing. In gambling, your odds of success are either certain or guessed, and then an event happens. Once the event occurs, the results are tallied and you move on to the next event. Investing is different in that you as an individual decide when the event has ended. What that means in a nutshell is that until you sell an asset, the profit or loss has not been determined. You may hold an asset for months or years, with the spot value rising dramatically and crashing spectacularly a dozen times, but all that matters is the value the day you sell. This has a direct affect on the hoarding of BTC.

Currency is not worth anything at all until the day that you exchange it for goods and services.

There are those who will argue that it can be used as an investment vehicle, and that it has potential value if it rises or falls against other currencies. This is true, however, the end of the investing event is still the day you spend (convert) it. The value of currency is never inherent, it only expresses it's value when it is accepted for goods and services. Marx knew this quite well, it seems many seemed to have forgotten this.

Consumers do not want dollars, they do not want gold, they do not want BTC. They want what they can exchange currency for on the day of THEIR CHOOSING. A boat, some cheese, some petrol for their car. No one wants to die and be burred with their BTC. The currency is a means to an end, not an end in itself. BTC, like any other currency, is designed to be spent. The larger the ecosystem grows, the more it will be spent.

"Hoarding" is often used as a derogatory term for saving. Saving is certainly a good thing, we were all taught the fable of the ant and the grasshopper. BTC rewards savers (and investors) by being deflationary. However, it also rewards spenders. The burden of legions of banking employees, and massive buildings, and electronic substructures no longer need by subsidized by the consumer nor the producer. There is no need for ATM fees, maintenance fees, yearly fees, all of the incredible number of fees stripping billions and billion from producers and consumers and redistributing it to stockholders and subsidizing millions of jobs that can be replaced by little boxes mining away quietly in the night spread all over the world.

The currency may well be deflationary, but by replacing current systems it provides the efficiency to incentivize and reward every user everywhere, saver or spender alike.

no, I'm not making that assumption.  I am at a similar latitude as he is, and that is based on a daily average.  Now, he may have less, because of cloudy days, but we average about 7 hours of full power a day. We have sunlight for 10-12 hours most of the year, but you only get peak power for 4 hours, 1/2 power for another 4, 1/4 power for the other 4.

When you actually live on solar power, you learn how it really does in a real world situation.

Also, you add a tracking array, and you can gain an extra 25% of power per day.  There are other methods for gaining efficiency, like MPPT controllers, etc, but I won't go into that too much here.

yeah, because you are paying Canadian markup, shipping to Canada, etc.  Buying in bulk in China is considerably cheaper.  And when you are talking a data center, you are talking serious bulk.  That price is for 20 panels, which would be great for a house or 2, but not for a data center.  Now, imagine buyng 2,000 panels straight from the factory in China.

For a system like this, you want grid-tie, to avoid needing batteries, so at night, you pull from the grid, and in the day, you feed to the grid.  It is a standard installation, and even in China, you can get it done quickly and professional at little cost.

If you are seriously interested in this stuff, PM me, but I won't clog this thread anymore with solar talk.  I'm just saying it is certainly possible, and his ROI is lower than the figures you are using.

This is a common misconception: deflation is more than how much money is being created. If your economy is growing 3% every year, that demands a 3% larger money base every year; so you should be creating 3% more currency to to maintain the same price level.

In other words: in a healthy economy, 0% inflation means printing money (or, the more modern method: the central bank buys bonds).

And Bitcoin will see much faster than 3% growth as new users come on board. It will probably be strongly deflationary. Already, people selling goods denominated in bitcoins peg them to the USD/BTC exchange rate. www.bitcoinstore.com is an example.

Yes. I agree absolutely. I believe a deflationary store of value that may be used for transactions (Bitcoin) will exist alongside traditional currencies used for lending.

Nice post aaaz  

Onto this topic

Saving encourages investing

Capital for entrepreneurs to create business needs to come from savers
All businesses need equity before they can operate and create growth that money comes from savings of people, not central banks.
There is nothing wrong with having a culture of saving at all it just builds equity for the future and ensures that the market really grows as it promotes entrepreneurs with new ideas who can maximize your profits.

The problem with Keynesian economics is that the growth of the money supply is not always tangibly connected to real growth of the economy.
The argument can be made that first world countries success comes from resource allocation taken from third world countries.

Furthermore mismanagement of the money supply by countries that do not live within their means can and does lead to economic crisis and collapse.
Multiple times in the last 2 decades we have seen recessions on a large scale due to excessive spending or excessive borrowing.
An example which we all know is the subprime mortgage crisis lending to people with bad credit to promote housing.
Another example we can observe is the Cyprus crisis that made bitcoin even more popular and the European Zones current chaos.
An example of a future bubble is the rising cost of student loans and tuition fees but when that will occur is still being debated.

Satoshi is arguing from the saving side of economics as well as arguing that deflation is acceptable.  
Where true supply meets true demand spending and loaning only occurs when economic opportunities to grow money arrive at a rate that is faster than hoarding your own income.
Simply at equilibrium
The benefits that accrue from the lack of central banking are higher for transferring of money between individuals as well due to a decreased fee.
The ability to transfer that money nearly instantly worldwide also creates a perfectly liquid money supply with high mobility
Think a large M1 and M2 that can be moved quickly and nearly instantly.
Since the money supply grows at a declining fixed rate until 2100+ and as the network receives transaction fees as bitcoin grows the rewards will still be there.

Additional
I assume that the multiplier also contains negative correlations
For example in the housing crisis before that there was a housing bubble which boosted the economy great for the party in power election wise
However the negative long term effects can be greater than the short term benefits
Lost jobs etc.
Secondary argument
I acknowledge that according to Keynes increased printing of more money has increased the standard of living in some countries
But in reality that is connected to innovation and real growth of the economy
Even to an extent the argument that the richest are those who develop the economy and create jobs and promote innovation
However with a grain of salt as well since corporations allocate resources to maximize profit and export jobs to other countries.
And in doing so increase the gap between the richest and the poorest in some countries while building economic growth in another but not as much as the profits they make from lower wages

Ahhhh... I see the problem, here. You assume that for all 7 hours of sunlight, the power output will be at the maximum possible. This is false, of course. The workaround is to use insolation times area times external quantum efficiency.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insolation

So we'll use the Canadian Solar panel from the website you linked as an example. It has an EQE of 15.23% (here: http://www.solarsystems-usa.net/solar-panels/#.UdXTxPm1Eqg). Its area is (60 cells x 156 × 156 mm), or 1.46 m². You said $0.5/W, so we'll stick with that; the cost of the panel is $166/panel in bulk, for a cost of $0.72/W; we'll assume serious bulk and Chinese discounts, so the actual cost will be computed $166 * 0.5/0.72 = $115.28. Hopefully you agree that price is reasonable.

So here are the characteristics so far:

Area: 1.46 m²
EQE: 15.23%
Price per 1.46 m²: $115.28

Now, we look up the insolation in Shenzen province, China.

http://www.greenrhinoenergy.com/solar/radiation/empiricalevidence.php

This looks like about 1500 kWh/m²-year to me. If you can find a better source, that'd get a more accurate calculation.

So, the energy output per year is

1.46 m² * 1500 kWh/m²-year * 0.1523 = 333.537 kWh/year

Now, since we're using a power cost of $0.06/kWh,

333.537 * $0.06 = $20.01 worth of power per module per year.

At a cost of $115.28 per cell, that's on the order of 6 years.

Insolation is enormously important in any solar calculation. If you use maximum wattage all the time, you're gonna end up getting screwed by people looking to sell you solar power.

I also am compelled to point out that I assumed your figure of $0.50 was correct. If we used the original $0.72/W value, the ROI would be about 9 years, like I thought (also: installation is not free).

EDIT: Found a better map. I'm sticking with 1500 kWh/m²-year.

http://solargis.info/doc/_pics/freemaps/1000px/ghi/SolarGIS-Solar-map-South-And-South-East-Asia-en.png

Once Crash occured deflationary policy was wrong. High inflation and high deflation are wrong. Right, I agree. But Bitcoin's programmed deflation after adopton is lower (created only by lost coins, otherwise is BTC inflation/deflation neutral) than current 3-5% annual US dollar inflation. Bitcoin wins.

And if you think that Bitcoin's deflationary nature is bad than I don't see a point of you staying invested in bitcoin business.

Maybe it's possible to have both inflationary and deflationary currencies running side-by-side within one economy.

Then people can chop and choose which one they use and eventually a self-sustaining equilibrium will be achieved.

There'll be no more arguing about which system is better because both systems are available and a healthy balance is maintained.

I think Friedrich, Friedman and Friedcat are related in some way.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deflation

Nobel laureate Friedrich Hayek, an Austrian Economist, stated of deflation during the Great Depression:
I agree with Milton Friedman that once the Crash had occurred, the Federal Reserve System pursued a silly deflationary policy. I am not only against inflation but I am also against deflation. So, once again, a badly programmed monetary policy prolonged the depression.
Interview with Diego Pizano (1979)[23]

...

They are therefore rewarded by holding money. This "hoarding" behavior is seen as undesirable by most economists, as Hayek points out:
It is agreed that hoarding money, whether in cash or in idle balances, is deflationary in its effects. No one thinks that deflation is in itself desirable.[24]

Okay, let me break this down:

If you're using a currency with 10% annual inflation, and Joe wants to lend Bob 100 currency units, then Joe will make no profit if he lends at 10% APR, since 110 units in a year will be equivalent in value to 100 units now. Does that make sense?

So Joe would have to lend at, say, 15% APR, and 15 - 10 = 5% profit that Joe wants. 15% looks like a lot to Bob, so he says "I'll borrow from someone else". Joe is in trouble; if he sits on his 100 currency units, they'll be worth less in a year. He agrees to loan for 10% APR so that he doesn't lose any money. Bob is happy because 110 currency units will be easy to pay off in a year.

Let's suppose we're now using a currency with 10% deflation. Joe wants to lend Bob 100 currency units. In order to make a 5% profit, this means Joe must lend at -5% APR.

Wait - that doesn't work! Bob could borrow 100 units, sit on them for a year, and return 95. Joe has made a 5% profit, but Bob has actually come out ahead!

So Joe could simply sit on his currency for a year, and make 10% profit instead of the 5% he'd make from a loan with 5% inflation-adjusted APR. In the inflationary scenario, Joe would have been willing to lend out his money at 0% inflation-adjusted interest just to avoid losing money from inflation!

Realistically, in a deflationary economy, this means that nobody wants to make loans, and in an inflationary economy everyone wants to make loans. Of course, too much inflation is bad because it destroys value, so the ideal situation is close to what you see in the fiat of most major, stable countries: a few percent (I personally would rather see 0%, but that's not practical for a number of reasons). It's enough to discourage hoarding and encourage lending (which enables business); but low enough not to seriously damage money as a store of value.

Look at those guys in the loan section of this forum. They are going to bankrupt. Lending an deflation money is a Ponzi scheme!!!

Cost of solar in China is $500/kW.
His cost is $.06/kWh

So, he needs 8,333 hours for ROI. @ 7 hours a day for sunlight, that's 1190 days, or 3.26 years.

If he buys in bulk, he can get it considerably less than $500/kW, cause those are retail prices, and for a data center, he can get wholesale.  If he does a wind/solar hybrid in a suitable location, the ROI will be closer to 2 years.

For buying for your home in the US, this site has a decent cost comparison: http://www.ecobusinesslinks.com/surveys/free-solar-panel-price-survey/  

Whoa, whoa there. You mean economist like Keynes agree that you need encourage spending to create a healthy economy. And that's just plain wrong (on which Hayek and von Mises agreed).