OV9

Rich B wrote: Thu Mar 25, 2021 10:18 pm

Mito Man wrote: Thu Mar 25, 2021 10:01 pm There is no common good, it's just a bunch of people hoping to grow their wealth. I don't agree with gambling but you won't find me losing my shirt over a bunch of people spunking money at a casino.

You really don't get it do you. I thought you millennials were supposed to be more aware of the environment?

It's nothing like a casino, it's literally burning a whole countries worth of energy, and someone paying you for the amount of electricity you've wasted. You're not even putting that electricity to any good use - quite the opposite, you HAVE to use it for a 100% useless task.

Mito Man wrote: Thu Mar 25, 2021 11:14 pm

Rich B wrote: Thu Mar 25, 2021 10:18 pm

Mito Man wrote: Thu Mar 25, 2021 10:01 pm There is no common good, it's just a bunch of people hoping to grow their wealth. I don't agree with gambling but you won't find me losing my shirt over a bunch of people spunking money at a casino.

You really don't get it do you. I thought you millennials were supposed to be more aware of the environment?

It's nothing like a casino, it's literally burning a whole countries worth of energy, and someone paying you for the amount of electricity you've wasted. You're not even putting that electricity to any good use - quite the opposite, you HAVE to use it for a 100% useless task.

It stopped being useless the second it started generating wealth though. The combined value of Bitcoin is over $1 trillion which makes it pretty efficient compared to its footprint. I remember reading that gaming consumed more electricity than Bitcoin - so should that be banned too?

duncs500 wrote: Fri Mar 26, 2021 5:40 am Again, the government should think seriously about preventing organisations that they can't afford to fail from investing in it. At the moment if 50% got wiped off the value of Bitcoin probably on a global level nobody would give a shit, but if too many organisations get up to their nuts in it we could have a serious problem. There comes a point where people keep pumping money into it to prop up the price, which will end up in a sub-prime type collapse eventually and everyone suffers.

Simon wrote: Fri Mar 26, 2021 9:33 am

duncs500 wrote: Fri Mar 26, 2021 5:40 am Again, the government should think seriously about preventing organisations that they can't afford to fail from investing in it. At the moment if 50% got wiped off the value of Bitcoin probably on a global level nobody would give a shit, but if too many organisations get up to their nuts in it we could have a serious problem. There comes a point where people keep pumping money into it to prop up the price, which will end up in a sub-prime type collapse eventually and everyone suffers.

I wouldn't worry too much duncs.

Don't forget that banks had to split their retail banking and casino investing divisions apart years ago in response to the financial crisis. Now if an investment arm goes to the wall then so be it. Those investors lose their money, but retail banking customers are protected/ringfenced.

simon_g wrote: Fri Mar 26, 2021 4:17 pm The small amount of BTC I bought in 2017 would probably buy me a Tesla now, had I not sold for a modest profit the following year

Used to be worthwhile (by which I mean making a bit more than electricity cost) mining things at home on GPU, although I probably made more selling the GPU at the peak of the rush to buy them. The ASIC miners and big operations in places with cheap abundant power kind of ruined that.

Have a Helium miner/hotspot on the way though, looks interesting. Rather than pointlessly burn computing cycles, you provide LoRaWAN radio coverage instead - like a low bandwidth, low power, long distance version of a wifi or mobile network. The HNT currency is "mined" by proving you're providing coverage (hotspots checking in on each other) and being used for transferring data. https://www.helium.com/