Author

Topic: Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP. - page 1092. (Read 2032266 times)

legendary
Activity: 1764
Merit: 1002
July 09, 2014, 10:24:07 PM
"M-COMMERCE GURU: ACCEPT BITCOIN NOW OR GET LEFT BEHIND"

http://cryptocrimson.com/2014/07/m-commerce-guru-accept-bitcoin-now-get-left-behind/
legendary
Activity: 1162
Merit: 1007
July 09, 2014, 10:11:50 PM
Even better article by Rochard:

http://nakamotoinstitute.org/mempool/speculative-attack/

He doesn't use the term in this article, but what he describes is the greatest carry trade in history.

Here's an interesting thought experiment:

Imagine that everybody has visibility of all of their money on a smartphone app.  For simplicity, consider that only dollars and bitcoins exist.  The app has two features:

1.  It displays the market value of each user's money, expressed in whatever currency is currently "dominant," along with the exchange rate between the two currencies.  

2.  There is a slider bar that allows each user to dynamically adjust their personal exposure to anywhere between 0% bitcoins and 100% bitcoins:
                
    0% BTC / 100% USD   <-----|||SLIDERBAR|||----------------------------------->   100% BTC / 0% USD

Assume there is no fee for trading and no slippage.  If it was this easy for everyone, what would people do?  

Bitcoin adoption is all about slowly coaxing the world to move that imaginary slider bar a little further to the right!
  
legendary
Activity: 1400
Merit: 1013
July 09, 2014, 09:27:16 PM
Even better article by Rochard:

http://nakamotoinstitute.org/mempool/speculative-attack/

He doesn't use the term in this article, but what he describes is the greatest carry trade in history.
legendary
Activity: 1764
Merit: 1002
legendary
Activity: 1764
Merit: 1002
July 09, 2014, 11:07:22 AM
i'm pleased to say that on 7/4 at a party, i was able to send demo BTC to the iPhone of a CEO of a I biotech company.  

i'd never browsed the iPhone app store before but simply searching "Bitcoin" brought up loads of stuff including a few wallets.  he was thoroughly impressed and had actually approached me about Bitcoin since he knew i was involved back when the price was around $80. he now gets it and will be entering the space i'm sure. 

i've been waiting to be able to do this for the longest time and it is a powerful way to demonstrate the utility of Bitcoin to anyone with a smartphone now.

I remember someone telling a story that happened at a golf club or something (was it Antonopulous?). Not sure if true, but it goes like this: he sent a large chunk of coins (thousands worth a million $ or so) to the next guys phone and then around the table and back to him. Apparently it made quite an impression on the attendees to hold a million worth of Bitcoin on their gadgets for a short period of time. It's a slight bit risky and takes some balls to do this, but it sure gets people to think.


That was Wences Casares and the amount was $250K.

He sent it around a table of around 8  or so of his venture capital friends, including Marc Andreesen, at some club down in Argentina, I think.

That was an impressive demonstration.


Heh... And he probably didn't even make sure the other guys had backed up their private keys prior to executing the transactions, either.

the real cool project is that annual Bitcoin criss crossing the globe demo.
legendary
Activity: 1722
Merit: 1004
July 09, 2014, 10:03:43 AM
i'm pleased to say that on 7/4 at a party, i was able to send demo BTC to the iPhone of a CEO of a I biotech company.  

i'd never browsed the iPhone app store before but simply searching "Bitcoin" brought up loads of stuff including a few wallets.  he was thoroughly impressed and had actually approached me about Bitcoin since he knew i was involved back when the price was around $80. he now gets it and will be entering the space i'm sure. 

i've been waiting to be able to do this for the longest time and it is a powerful way to demonstrate the utility of Bitcoin to anyone with a smartphone now.

I remember someone telling a story that happened at a golf club or something (was it Antonopulous?). Not sure if true, but it goes like this: he sent a large chunk of coins (thousands worth a million $ or so) to the next guys phone and then around the table and back to him. Apparently it made quite an impression on the attendees to hold a million worth of Bitcoin on their gadgets for a short period of time. It's a slight bit risky and takes some balls to do this, but it sure gets people to think.


That was Wences Casares and the amount was $250K.

He sent it around a table of around 8  or so of his venture capital friends, including Marc Andreesen, at some club down in Argentina, I think.

That was an impressive demonstration.


Heh... And he probably didn't even make sure the other guys had backed up their private keys prior to executing the transactions, either.
legendary
Activity: 1764
Merit: 1002
July 09, 2014, 04:55:17 AM
i'm pleased to say that on 7/4 at a party, i was able to send demo BTC to the iPhone of a CEO of a I biotech company.  

i'd never browsed the iPhone app store before but simply searching "Bitcoin" brought up loads of stuff including a few wallets.  he was thoroughly impressed and had actually approached me about Bitcoin since he knew i was involved back when the price was around $80. he now gets it and will be entering the space i'm sure. 

i've been waiting to be able to do this for the longest time and it is a powerful way to demonstrate the utility of Bitcoin to anyone with a smartphone now.

I remember someone telling a story that happened at a golf club or something (was it Antonopulous?). Not sure if true, but it goes like this: he sent a large chunk of coins (thousands worth a million $ or so) to the next guys phone and then around the table and back to him. Apparently it made quite an impression on the attendees to hold a million worth of Bitcoin on their gadgets for a short period of time. It's a slight bit risky and takes some balls to do this, but it sure gets people to think.


That was Wences Casares and the amount was $250K.

He sent it around a table of around 8  or so of his venture capital friends, including Marc Andreesen, at some club down in Argentina, I think.

That was an impressive demonstration.
donator
Activity: 2772
Merit: 1019
July 09, 2014, 01:16:22 AM
PoW = economics of scale and division of labor guarantee eventual centralization.

Not necessarily: a byproduct of mining is heat. It's hard to get rid of the heat in large centralized operations. In small operations less so, it may even be useful in some cases.

At some point mining cost will mostly be energy, not hardware. I've recently encountered a weird situation regarding solar electricity production (pretty decentralized in germany, where I live): in certain cases the array produces excess electricity which can neither be used locally nor fed into the grid for profit (due to stupid laws and regulations). Usually what is done in such cases is the electricity is just injected for free to the grid... what a waste economically, right? Well, if you have some cheap asics (so cheap that you can just have them laying around idle if not needed) you can make good use of the excess electricity.

What you are describing is a mis-pricing of investment/expenses.  Just because a regular home miner severely undervalues his time invested in maintaining the equipment or the heat generated, those factors aren't immune to the economics of scale.  Eventually the huge hot ASIC box gets thrown out because it barely breaks even while for the industrial miner a huge hot ASIC box is just a small expense line in one of 1000s running in a huge warehouse.  Also there is no excess electricity.  Either it is subsidized somehow ie someone else is footing the bill or again the cost is simply mis-priced by the miner and eventually that cost will come to the forefront and the small time miner will be pushed out by larger commercial players.  You can't escape the benefits of division of labor.  

I don't quite get why you say "there is no excess electricity". Another example (apart from the one I brought up) is excess electricity generated by wind that cannot be delivered for various reasons, mainly lack of demand at the time and/or lack of power line capacity. Electricity cannot be stored very efficiently, so production has to basically match demand minus dissipation.

I'm just arguing that maybe crypto mining can fill the lack of demand once mining hardware is cheap enough to be able to switch it off at times when energy is too expensive. It would provide sort of a guaranteed base demand for electricity that can be decentralized as needed as long as there's a network connection. I used to laugh at this idea, but I changed my mind and now think it's a possible outcome with commoditized cheap asics.
donator
Activity: 2772
Merit: 1019
July 09, 2014, 01:06:06 AM
i'm pleased to say that on 7/4 at a party, i was able to send demo BTC to the iPhone of a CEO of a biotech company.  

i'd never browsed the iPhone app store before but simply searching "Bitcoin" brought up loads of stuff including a few wallets.  he was thoroughly impressed and had actually approached me about Bitcoin since he knew i was involved back when the price was around $80. he now gets it and will be entering the space i'm sure. 

i've been waiting to be able to do this for the longest time and it is a powerful way to demonstrate the utility of Bitcoin to anyone with a smartphone now.

I remember someone telling a story that happened at a golf club or something (was it Antonopulous?). Not sure if true, but it goes like this: he sent a large chunk of coins (thousands worth a million $ or so) to the next guys phone and then around the table and back to him. Apparently it made quite an impression on the attendees to hold a million worth of Bitcoin on their gadgets for a short period of time. It's a slight bit risky and takes some balls to do this, but it sure gets people to think.
legendary
Activity: 1764
Merit: 1002
July 08, 2014, 02:41:58 PM
...

actually, panning/digging for gold is still popular and common (mostly in Africa).  and i'd argue their overhead is cheaper, aka, only dependent on labor, not power.
Muscle Power.   Grin

Muscle Power.   Grin = Antminers  Wink
legendary
Activity: 896
Merit: 1006
First 100% Liquid Stablecoin Backed by Gold
July 08, 2014, 02:28:31 PM
...

actually, panning/digging for gold is still popular and common (mostly in Africa).  and i'd argue their overhead is cheaper, aka, only dependent on labor, not power.
Muscle Power.   Grin
legendary
Activity: 1764
Merit: 1002
July 08, 2014, 02:03:32 PM
PoW = economics of scale and division of labor guarantee eventual centralization.

Not necessarily: a byproduct of mining is heat. It's hard to get rid of the heat in large centralized operations. In small operations less so, it may even be useful in some cases.

At some point mining cost will mostly be energy, not hardware. I've recently encountered a weird situation regarding solar electricity production (pretty decentralized in germany, where I live): in certain cases the array produces excess electricity which can neither be used locally nor fed into the grid for profit (due to stupid laws and regulations). Usually what is done in such cases is the electricity is just injected for free to the grid... what a waste economically, right? Well, if you have some cheap asics (so cheap that you can just have them laying around idle if not needed) you can make good use of the excess electricity.

What you are describing is a mis-pricing of investment/expenses.  Just because a regular home miner severely undervalues his time invested in maintaining the equipment or the heat generated, those factors aren't immune to the economics of scale.  Eventually the huge hot ASIC box gets thrown out because it barely breaks even while for the industrial miner a huge hot ASIC box is just a small expense line in one of 1000s running in a huge warehouse.  Also there is no excess electricity.  Either it is subsidized somehow ie someone else is footing the bill or again the cost is simply mis-priced by the miner and eventually that cost will come to the forefront and the small time miner will be pushed out by larger commercial players.  You can't escape the benefits of division of labor.  

then why do junior mining companies or even smaller operations ever bother to mine gold when they're going up against the likes of Newmont and Barrick?

i think it's b/c the price is still high enough and the potential for future appreciation drives these smaller entities.  you could say the same for Bitcoin.
Very true but we aren't comparing junior miners and large miners.  This is more of a comparison of panning for gold vs barrick.

actually, panning/digging for gold is still popular and common (mostly in Africa) all over the world.  and i'd argue their overhead is cheaper, aka, only dependent on labor, not power.
legendary
Activity: 1764
Merit: 1002
July 08, 2014, 02:02:04 PM
  You can't escape the benefits of division of labor. 

You CAN when the cost of the labor approaches 0.  in the future: Buy commodity miner, hook up to thermostat, power, and internet.  Done.



or better yet:  Buy commodity miner, hook up to thermostat, solar panels, and internet.  Done.

or even better yet:  Buy commodity miner, hook up to thermostat, dormitory plug, and internet.  Done.

legendary
Activity: 896
Merit: 1006
First 100% Liquid Stablecoin Backed by Gold
July 08, 2014, 01:59:57 PM
PoW = economics of scale and division of labor guarantee eventual centralization.

Not necessarily: a byproduct of mining is heat. It's hard to get rid of the heat in large centralized operations. In small operations less so, it may even be useful in some cases.

At some point mining cost will mostly be energy, not hardware. I've recently encountered a weird situation regarding solar electricity production (pretty decentralized in germany, where I live): in certain cases the array produces excess electricity which can neither be used locally nor fed into the grid for profit (due to stupid laws and regulations). Usually what is done in such cases is the electricity is just injected for free to the grid... what a waste economically, right? Well, if you have some cheap asics (so cheap that you can just have them laying around idle if not needed) you can make good use of the excess electricity.

What you are describing is a mis-pricing of investment/expenses.  Just because a regular home miner severely undervalues his time invested in maintaining the equipment or the heat generated, those factors aren't immune to the economics of scale.  Eventually the huge hot ASIC box gets thrown out because it barely breaks even while for the industrial miner a huge hot ASIC box is just a small expense line in one of 1000s running in a huge warehouse.  Also there is no excess electricity.  Either it is subsidized somehow ie someone else is footing the bill or again the cost is simply mis-priced by the miner and eventually that cost will come to the forefront and the small time miner will be pushed out by larger commercial players.  You can't escape the benefits of division of labor. 

then why do junior mining companies or even smaller operations ever bother to mine gold when they're going up against the likes of Newmont and Barrick?

i think it's b/c the price is still high enough and the potential for future appreciation drives these smaller entities.  you could say the same for Bitcoin.
Very true but we aren't comparing junior miners and large miners.  This is more of a comparison of panning for gold vs barrick.
legendary
Activity: 1246
Merit: 1010
July 08, 2014, 01:58:43 PM
  You can't escape the benefits of division of labor. 

You CAN when the cost of the labor approaches 0.  in the future: Buy commodity miner, hook up to thermostat, power, and internet.  Done.

legendary
Activity: 1764
Merit: 1002
July 08, 2014, 01:55:41 PM
PoW = economics of scale and division of labor guarantee eventual centralization.

Not necessarily: a byproduct of mining is heat. It's hard to get rid of the heat in large centralized operations. In small operations less so, it may even be useful in some cases.

At some point mining cost will mostly be energy, not hardware. I've recently encountered a weird situation regarding solar electricity production (pretty decentralized in germany, where I live): in certain cases the array produces excess electricity which can neither be used locally nor fed into the grid for profit (due to stupid laws and regulations). Usually what is done in such cases is the electricity is just injected for free to the grid... what a waste economically, right? Well, if you have some cheap asics (so cheap that you can just have them laying around idle if not needed) you can make good use of the excess electricity.

What you are describing is a mis-pricing of investment/expenses.  Just because a regular home miner severely undervalues his time invested in maintaining the equipment or the heat generated, those factors aren't immune to the economics of scale.  Eventually the huge hot ASIC box gets thrown out because it barely breaks even while for the industrial miner a huge hot ASIC box is just a small expense line in one of 1000s running in a huge warehouse.  Also there is no excess electricity.  Either it is subsidized somehow ie someone else is footing the bill or again the cost is simply mis-priced by the miner and eventually that cost will come to the forefront and the small time miner will be pushed out by larger commercial players.  You can't escape the benefits of division of labor. 

then why do junior mining companies or even smaller operations ever bother to mine gold when they're going up against the likes of Newmont and Barrick?

i think it's b/c the price is still high enough and the potential for future appreciation drives these smaller entities.  you could say the same for Bitcoin.
legendary
Activity: 896
Merit: 1006
First 100% Liquid Stablecoin Backed by Gold
July 08, 2014, 01:44:08 PM
PoW = economics of scale and division of labor guarantee eventual centralization.

Not necessarily: a byproduct of mining is heat. It's hard to get rid of the heat in large centralized operations. In small operations less so, it may even be useful in some cases.

At some point mining cost will mostly be energy, not hardware. I've recently encountered a weird situation regarding solar electricity production (pretty decentralized in germany, where I live): in certain cases the array produces excess electricity which can neither be used locally nor fed into the grid for profit (due to stupid laws and regulations). Usually what is done in such cases is the electricity is just injected for free to the grid... what a waste economically, right? Well, if you have some cheap asics (so cheap that you can just have them laying around idle if not needed) you can make good use of the excess electricity.

What you are describing is a mis-pricing of investment/expenses.  Just because a regular home miner severely undervalues his time invested in maintaining the equipment or the heat generated, those factors aren't immune to the economics of scale.  Eventually the huge hot ASIC box gets thrown out because it barely breaks even while for the industrial miner a huge hot ASIC box is just a small expense line in one of 1000s running in a huge warehouse.  Also there is no excess electricity.  Either it is subsidized somehow ie someone else is footing the bill or again the cost is simply mis-priced by the miner and eventually that cost will come to the forefront and the small time miner will be pushed out by larger commercial players.  You can't escape the benefits of division of labor. 
legendary
Activity: 1764
Merit: 1002
July 08, 2014, 01:31:37 PM
Bitcoin is a whole new concept, the boomers manipulating gold are going to be left holding the bag, and that includes all those central bankers. 


yes, this is my feeling as well.

despite great efforts to suppress the gold price to maintain their fiat game, in the end, the CB's still consider it the core of their wealth system and will try to save it as a last resort.  after all, they still have some of it, while Bitcoin they don't.

hence, my diametrically opposed view on gold vs. Bitcoin ---> Gold collapsing.  Bitcoin UP
legendary
Activity: 1372
Merit: 1000
July 08, 2014, 01:06:44 PM
Quote from: 'CNBC'
...
Draper also said investors should have some bitcoin in their investment portfolios.
...

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101816404

"Buy bitcoin" investment advice from a respected billionaire VC via CNBC. That seemed like a pipe-dream 3 years ago. I barely noticed today.

Furthermore, in keeping with this thread's theme, the language of that quote is exactly how people tend to suggest that others own gold in their portfolios. "gold" and "bitcoin" are substitutes in that sentence.


Still a lot of this talk is met with skepticism, my only hope is it ignites the question why?

To be honest if you are a GenX’er (in my experience) Gold is nothing, it's something that describes a colour and something that once represented value, and I’m often reminded “who do you know that invests in gold, followed by why?”

Often the conclusion is, gold is dead, its utilitarian value is orders of magnitude lower than its actual value, comparing Bitcoin to gold 2.0 lumps Bitcoin in with the dinosaurs. Bitcoin is a whole new concept, the boomers manipulating gold are going to be left holding the bag, and that includes all those central bankers. 
legendary
Activity: 1372
Merit: 1000
July 08, 2014, 12:40:30 PM
"This could in effect make the banks part of what would begin to look like a war council,” Grayson said in an e-mail. “Congress needs to keep an eye on what something like this could mean.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-08/banks-dreading-computer-hacks-call-for-cyber-war-council.html

LOL, the council, that discusses the Bitcoin threat.
This scene played in my head (skulls = FRB) the moment I read the title I saw the mad dash at the end for Bitcoin, we going to have to hold on through thick and thin this ride is going to get wild.  
Jump to: