Guest essay by Eric Worrall
The mind boggling energy burn required to verify each bitcoin payment or currency transfer is finally attracting the attention of Democrat Party climate advocates.
A Silicon Valley congressman says energy consumption from Bitcoin mining needs to be taxed
…
And all that power usage — and its effect on the environment — is catching attention on Capitol Hill. In an interview with Business Insider, California Rep. Ro Khanna said that Bitcoin mining should be regulated in the same fashion as proposed carbon taxes.
“You could have environmental regulations of what could be used or a tax on the use of the mines that are going into the bitcoin, so that if they have externalities that they’re causing the environment, that they have to pay a tax on that,” he said.
Khanna, who represents part of Silicon Valley, added that a tax on bitcoin transactions’ energy consumption “would provide a disincentive” and “that mining that’s being used for bitcoin, they need to be paying a price on it.”
…
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/ro-khanna-energy-consumption-bitcoin-mining-tax-2018-2/
Reading his Wikipedia entry, Congressman Ro Khanna seems to have an unusual mix of qualities for a Democrat. In 2016 Khanna was vice president of a green utility business, aimed at improving energy efficiency. Khanna is very pro-education, he supported Bernie Sander’s college for all initiative. Khanna also sponsored a successful bipartisan Veterans education bill, the Valor Act. Khanna appears to be a hardline non-interventionist with regard to foreign policy.
It seems pretty ballsy for a Congressman whose district includes part of Silicon Valley to criticise Bitcoin, even though I disagree with his reasoning and conclusion. Fortune favours the bold.
Eric you are skimming along the surface lazily. Its not the environment they are worried about – that’s the diversionary bait like putting a cow in paranha infested waters so they can sneak across in noticed upstream. It is about control. Bitcoin threatens the marxbrothers big plans. You don’t get that University for All is the indoctrination plan – they are not teaching anything. It is social engineering classes to make people more governable – get everyone in to make everyone stupid.. Khanna is “boldly” supporting the agenda.
They are mentally deficient . I suggest 6 months in an institution with regulaTed meals, volume and exercise. No contact with media of any sort . Family visits once a day for one hour. Remedial work involving growing food would be helpful.
ReglarTed” should read “regular” – apologies.
Common mods. It’s the only post thus far that corrects Eric’s unusually lazy analysis.
Gary, I can assure you that I am not “common”! Mod
There are two separate issues here.
1. Taxation of bitcoin mining
It is inherently impossible to have any specific tax on it. One can tax hardware and electricity to do it, but in this case mining would simply move to places, where taxes, consequently prices are the lowest. To set a uniform tax on such things a one world government is needed, which does not exist and hopefully never will. On top of that, even if it were possible, price of all computation would skyrocket, with intolerable side effects on the entire economy.
2. Sensibility of bitcoins
Energy efficiency of current computing is poor, deleting bits requires a million times more energy, than Landauer’s limit. Therefore there is ample room for improving technology, which can make cryptocurrency mining orders of magnitude cheaper.
On top of that, although no algorithm is known as of today to make mining easy, it is not proven either it can’t be done some time in the future. With quantum computers, perhaps.
All this depends on how bitcoin developers will be able to improve the protocol to fight off coming technological challenges. Which is not known.
Bitcoin mining is easy to trace, once authorities have located the physical apparatus they will in most cases know who is going to pay the tax bill. If no one identifies themselves quickly you can confiscate the apparatus. Taxing bitcoin mining is one of the easiest things a government could do if it wants to. you cannot mine bitcoin secretly. You have to be connected to the network, the data is visible to TLAs.
No government has authority over the Internet.
See: Internet governance
One of the reason I LOVE WUWT. You find posts like this one with real information, you’ll find nowhere else.
That said, as someone pointed out, the whole purpose of a “proof of work” is to require … work. Any breakthrough making it easier will just require a switch to something harder.
Yup. Honey badger dont care
“Energy efficiency of current computing is poor,”
A claim based on a … model of ideal computing?
lol
They miss the point, as per usual. The whole idea of bitcoins is that it is an anonymous currency. So they won’t know who to tax.
bitcoin is not anonymous. Every transaction is detailed and stored in the blockchain for ever. There have
been several papers showing how you can track users and work out who they are.
If you want anonymity use cash. Bitcoin is not cash and while people have developed digital cash no
protocol has ever taken off.
The ways they tax:
1. When we export to certain countries there are of course customs and duties. Individiual
types of equipment can be taxed.
2. If the electricity is state controlled, they can charge you more for certain uses ( like in China now)
Of course, the miners move to places where it is cheapest to mine:
Today there are many countries where the cost to mine a bitcoin is less than 2K, while the price
is 11K.
Further as you make it more expensive to mine, miners will leave the market, that in turn makes it
easier and cheaper to mine. Every two weeks we adjust for the number of people mining.
Honey Badger doesnt care about taxes.
Well my dear, not a lot of bit coining mining in CA at 25 cents an KW hour, or anywhere in the United States for that matter. So impose another tax and people will do it in Canada or China.
The economic ignorance is astounding.
Mines in california pay less than 5 cents.
you need to know how to prospect for cheap power.
Once the CO2-Global Warming Theory began to gain widespread acceptance, the floodgates were opened to large-scale insanity and to insanity there are no bounds. Insanity can soon become infinite. Bitcoin and the taxing of Bitcoin are the latest examples of the insanity’s reach.
Most suggestions like this come from Progressives, very few of which are in the (R) party. Bitcoin appeals to people in part because it is (mostly) anonymous, and thus difficult to tax. Should the government attempt to levy a carbon tax on the miners, they will just flee to servers where there is no tax.
The very fact that miners could flee to other jurisdictions is the central point of The Center for Freedom and Prosperity’s argument that “tax competition” between countries is essential to keep taxes low. When people are not free to invest and to save where they see fit, then governments will tend to levy taxes without limit simply because their citizens are economic and regulatory captives.
The US, Congress has attempted to limit the financial freedom of US Persons by requiring them to file an annual report of their non-US financial account (the “FBAR”) Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts with a mandatory fine of $10,000 for failure to file. They also have the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) which places onerous reporting requirements of non-US financial institutions that have accounts of US Persons.
While Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies currently circumvent these two laws be assured that there are people working day and night to figure out a way to bring them under government reporting and thus taxation. Government hates liberty because it allows people to do things they don’t pay taxes on. Only some people also use their liberty to do things that are harmful to others as well.
BTW, I hold zero Bitcoins and zero crytocurrency of any sort. Not a single one of them has any direct intrinsic value. Unless and until people can issue credit contracts in them or denominate tangible assets in them, there is nothing that moderates their value over time.
This is so hilariously ridiculous.
The most high tech, the most clever, the most high IQ, genius guys in USA, and most probably in the world, are showing, that they have fallen and being snared, trapped, in the most simple Trojan Horse trick…so stupidly Hilarious!
According to the position of these highly clever and wealthy guys, what proposed as per this blog post, in the way it stands, actually, it stands as with a very high chance of success, as per their counting…and their assumed position, as far as this concerned…in accordance with their understanding, their intellect and their expectations…due to their very desperate position.
It really does mean, at a point, as very “”well” thought, hipper clever “Trojan Horse” appliance, in the context of the modernity of it all at this stage, as far as these guys concerned, but, not quite the same as per Homer’s time and his accounting…3K years ago.
But for the very benefit and the requirement, of a fair play, and sincerity, at this stage, these guys have to be told and made to realize and contemplate, what actually did trigger this “brilliant” stupid idea in their inflated sculls…!?
The amassing thing from my point of view, is that these guys, against any odds, are actually triggered to somehow, resolve in a “Trojan Horse” method against the very tight and strict siege against their “Citadel”.
These guys are actually, desperately trying a “Trojan Horse” against a siege, a tight strong siege…really ridiculous…especially when not addressed properly… In the main context:
“What actually, and how this silliness triggered, in the first place!”
Really blind.
Where is Mosh when needed! 🙂
I am sure that this makes not much sense, as put, to the many here, but is not that much restricting for me, to freely trying and speak my mind , as far as this concerning…
Apologies, if being confusing.
But still what proposed, is still a very very dirty play, and a very devious attempt…considered as highly successful if it triggered and amended… by the clever and highly “successful” silicon guys.
At some point, from my position, as I think I do understand it, it , does consist as a plain clear indisputable act of treason…
as per the clarity of the the intent on causing high damages with a clear intent and wishful thinking, where at a given point the clause of treason goes further than in a national context and expands to a civic context… !
Far much worse…than even the most fake news.
But in the end, we all fall or rise by the means of our own “swords”…and some swords happen to be sharper.
Sorry again! Maybe over doing it.
But as far as I can tell, these highly valued and “worshiped “model” guys are showing clearly their full colors of their treason.
cheers
The origins of Bitcoin are the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto because the whole thing was invented by the NSA and launched into the world with help from GCHQ in the UK. It has multiple purposes for the powers that be. Firstly it enables tracking of much criminal activity, secondly it enables the extraction of very large sums of money for any black ops type project. There are 3rd & 4th uses too but I’m not mentioning them here.
During the time bitcoin has been in existence well over $4.5 Billion has been lost by ordinary investors. There are virtually no arrests and virtually no money has been returned to the original owners. It has all “disappeared”. The vast majority has NOT gone to criminals for buying real estate on tropical islands and Lambos.
The cryptography of Bitcoin uses a hashing algorithm which is NOT on the approved list from the NIST. It uses secp256k. Not approved because it has a fundamental weakness of a backdoor. At any time it is possible for the authorities to activate this and completely destroy it should they need to.
None of the above is a “conspiracy theory”. All of it is obtainable via research if you put in the time and effort as I have been doing since 2012.
Electricity consumption is irrelevant in the context of the wider issues.
The Reverend Badger
February 17, 2018 at 3:55 pm
————
Reverend,
I am not trying a argue with your position, and I am not trying a start a “fight” over this.
But in the same time I think that it may help if you at least start considering that actually neither Bitcoin or Blockchain are actually controllable, but in contrary, are very much free of such considered assumptions of control…regardless even when silicon “magicians” do think that there is a way to actually control and bend to their wish and in accordance with their will the Blockchain and the Bitcoin platform…
cheers
I suspect you have not really looked into this is enough detail. Crytpocurrencies , of which there are well over 2000 now, use “Blockchains”. You can use a blockchain for other things though I would argue that in 99.99% of cases this is likely to be inefficient and risky compared to various existing database applications.
Taking therefore the point about Blockchains we can see that it would be trivial for any government to, for example, ban the use of blockchains in business/industry/commerce. They regulate databases quite heavily now and the GDPR is coming in a matter of weeks. They can simply legislate the use of blockchains in business out of existence. Trivially.
Moving on to the the specific use case of a blockchain in a cryptocurrency / token, of which Bitcoin is but one of over 2,000 we would have to examine what mechanisms there are for governments to legislate against this. Clearly the on/off ramps of exchanges can be highly regulated. Existing fiat financial organizations can be banned from fiat transactions with cryptocurrency exchanges. Again trivial if they want to do it. You could also require citizens to declare all cryptocurrency transactions on their tax returns and tax them heavily if so desired. Cryptocurrency mining could be declared illegal.
Thus I refute your assertion, it is relatively easy for governments to regulate/control/ban any specific cryptos, any specific blockchain use or indeed all of them if they want to.
You may of course argue that if all the countries in the world except one ban Bitcoin you have proved your point. To which I say enjoy your holiday in Liberland!
The Reverend Badger
February 18, 2018 at 6:42 am
Thanks for your time and your response.
So as to be clear, I am not arguing with your points made, only trying a clarification.
What you say is a small print, small detail description about blockchain and Bitcoin… like a superficial description…describing the shell.
You actually looking at the “skin” of the blockchain and Bitcoin, while I was talking of the below the skin of it…the core.
Meaning there is, as far as I can tell, far much more than the eye can catch….and I have no doubt that it can not be controlled or manipulated.
I think no government ever will try to, as already it has become clear that Internet can not be controlled.
Is not the “skin’ that did respond and hushed hushed trillions of mint in to oblivion, with no much stretch or struggle, very quickly and without harming the bitcoin miners at all…
Who actually profited from that Bitcoin bubble burst do you think?
Who actually profited by the hush hush and the burning of that trillion size financial monetary ghost monster!
Not sure that this being clear enough, just trying. 🙂
cheers
Badger
“I suspect you have not really looked into this is enough detail. Crytpocurrencies , of which there are well over 2000 now, use “Blockchains”. You can use a blockchain for other things though I would argue that in 99.99% of cases this is likely to be inefficient and risky compared to various existing database applications.
Taking therefore the point about Blockchains we can see that it would be trivial for any government to, for example, ban the use of blockchains in business/industry/commerce. They regulate databases quite heavily now and the GDPR is coming in a matter of weeks. They can simply legislate the use of blockchains in business out of existence. Trivially.”
Not so trivial. Blockchains, and here you are quite wrong, is just one of the datastructures used by cryptoassets. DAGs is another. What you trying to argue is that the government would be able to regulate
how records in a database are written. To do this you would have to make GUIDs illegal, any and all hash
functions illegal. a blockchain is nothing more than a data structure in which sequential records are written
with data that preserves the order of writing. Those blockchains can be private or public. And what forms of tying records together do you outlaw? SHA-256 hashes? any method whatsover of determining which
records are written when? Basically any regulation you write is just a recipe for what to avoid when designing your linked data. In short all a block chain does is link data. Same with a DAG. see IOTA or Hashgraph for “non blockchain” datastructures. Now of course you can regulate the content, like make it illedgal for a business to store certain personal information and you could regulate that all information only be on paper. Getting the world to agree on that would be hard.
“Moving on to the the specific use case of a blockchain in a cryptocurrency / token, of which Bitcoin is but one of over 2,000 we would have to examine what mechanisms there are for governments to legislate against this. Clearly the on/off ramps of exchanges can be highly regulated. Existing fiat financial organizations can be banned from fiat transactions with cryptocurrency exchanges. Again trivial if they want to do it. You could also require citizens to declare all cryptocurrency transactions on their tax returns and tax them heavily if so desired. Cryptocurrency mining could be declared illegal.
Thus I refute your assertion, it is relatively easy for governments to regulate/control/ban any specific cryptos, any specific blockchain use or indeed all of them if they want to.”
Exchanges are a point of control where you can control the ability of New particpants to enter the system
and old participants to exit the system. Places that use this method see a surge in offline methods.
In China, people just revert to the script system. basically in person transfers. You give me Yuan, I transfer
coins to you. The online version of this is Local bitcoins. Basically, there are trusted traders; you send them
a wire, they give you coins. So yes the government can regulate exchanges, and they drive the trade underground, and to less safe methods of entry and exit. You basically create arbitrage opportunites, like the kind of situation you saw in India and Korea, where the banking restrictions, create a premium.
Thanks! As for declaring your assets. Yes you could require this, the problem is enforcement.
The really hard thing to do is to make mining illegal. Yes, you make industrial scale mining illegal. In china they are starting the process of controlling the mining. Folks just dissamble and ship to friendly regions.
clamp down more and over time the mining becomes harder to trace and controll. Its just data sent over the internet. We manage to get that data through the great fire wall at astounding speeds. Honey badger dont care. crack down on large asic farms and you end up with smaller farms, crack down on more small farms and you get more individual miners, like in the begining. outlaw asics? GPUS? CPUs? the system responds by making mining easier.
basically you cant make bitcoin illegal. You can make traceable exchanging difficult or regulated or illegal
but it would be hard to outlaw in person transfers. You give me dollars, I tell you 12 words. done.
or I give you physical BTC. You can make massive farming expensive and difficult.. and the response will be to diversify mining. It is merely guessing at a number.
Bottom line you cant uninvent something
Ha, ha, ha, ha …. Mr Mosher, you are a laugh a minute!
A few well-planned sting operations by the IRS and the system falls apart.
Climate models outputs are a form of cryptocurrency if you think about it.
And both completely worthless in the real physical world.
“The mind boggling energy burn required to verify each bitcoin payment”
Very wong. Verifying the asymmetric cryptography is easy.
Producing a proof of work must be costly, by definition. The cost by design grows as more people get in the game.
That cost is not related to the number of transactions that are verified.
I suspect the congressman is just acting on political instinct.
Bitcoin is something that’s in the news a lot. He doesn’t really understand it, but thinks it might be important. The politician’s instinct to meddle, coupled with the need to appear ‘with-it’ and relevant, requires that he somehow put his finger in this pie. Taxation and regulation are pretty much the only real tools that such a politician has at his disposal. (They may fulfill some other functions but I can’t think of them at the moment.)
“The mind boggling energy burn required to verify each bitcoin payment or currency transfer is finally attracting the attention of Democrat Party climate advocates.”
Huh?
Miners create blocks. Blocks are ledgers of transactions.
A Miner creates a block of transactions and IF he wins the race to find the secret number
Then he will publish his block to the network.
Next, the nodes ( there are about 10K nodes) verify the block. They check his work.
If his block is valid, then he will be able to collecct a reward for his work ( 12.5 BTC)
plus transaction fees.
The energy nodes use to verify blocks is tiny.
The energy Miners use is large. This provides security for the block chain. The only way to cheat
is to rewrite the past ledger. And the enerrgy required to do that makes it impossible.
The energy is used for SECURITY
Either way, the whole bitcoin thing is a huge waste of energy.
Not to mention worthless…when national Governments around the world declare it to be illegal to use to avoid taxation and/or anonymously to trade in illegal criminal enterprise.
@Earthling2
It has always been illegal to avoid taxation… what are you trying to say?
Obviously, that one of the intended uses of Bitcoin is to avoid legitimate taxation and/or avoidance, in addition to being able to engage in nefarious illegal activity. Not to mention many layers of anonymity. This Bitcoin Krypto so called ‘currency’ represents one of the biggest threats to the established status quo of the financial transaction. (Excluding Blockchain) A real Wild West with not many rules of any kind other than the transaction gets processed accurately, in most cases. And not that the status quo is a shining beacon on a hill, but it is the summation of our economic progress to date over several centuries now.
Mining Bitcoin, whatever that even means, definitely doesn’t represent any real actual value of some real work or value that was created because of ‘solving a puzzle’. The Blockchain makes perfect sense, but that in itself isn’t worth tens of billions of dollars as Bitcoin because it is attached to such, because some computers are certifying transactions and being rewarded a bitcoin prize for doing so. I think most folks here see the fraud in all this, and it ends very badly for those who invest hard earnt fiat currency for bogus bitcoin. But it also should end badly for those who peddle this nonsense because it is a Ponzi Scheme on steroids, and one that makes no economic sense, other than maybe incorporating the Blockchain technology into our current financial system to keep everyone honest. Bitcoin and Blockchain are two different animals, and Bitcoin is a type of intellectual theft, pulling the wool over on many sheep who buy late into this Pyrmid scheme, or who buy equipment to mine such and waste precious resources and energy doing so. Bitcoin and Crypto Currencies will be shut down sooner than later, because it cannot defeat our present status quo of exchanging wealth for goods and services as we presently do. Mark my words.
weird
Western Union has 500,000 offices world wide that are required for transfering money from individual
to individual. 500000.
Do you call that a waste of concrete, glass, desks, and computers, and electricity?
Nope.
Bitcoin allows me to send money to anyone who has a wallet ( you can get one for free)
The remmitance market is 500Billion. Western Union is just a small part of that.
and bitcoin allows us to do this function at a much lower cost. and that’s just one function we can do
for less.
Of course the funds need to be secured. the funds in your bank are secured against theft by bank security.
you dont call that a waste.
You are protected from fraud by the bank by your government. You dont call that a waste.
You are not protected from theft by your government in the form of inflation. Put money
in Fiat with a 2% inflation rate. how much real value is left after 10 years?
at the bottom Bitcoin is a bet that self banking people can do a better job than state actors.
dont invest more than you can afford to lose.
“Not to mention worthless…when national Governments around the world declare it to be illegal to use to avoid taxation and/or anonymously to trade in illegal criminal enterprise.”
I always laugh at this. you cant make it illegal. how exactly?
its just numbers.
All my bitcoin are distributed on thousands of computers, some known others unknown.
They are controlled by 12 words.
I am glad you bring up Western Union Steve. When I send monies to any international destination and I am not in my home country, I need to show and they record my passport. Even if I send monies within the same foreign country as the Brick and Mortar Western Union, I still have to show ID, and of course the receiver of the monies has to obviously show ID or have it go into an account that is recorderd. And it goes without saying that when I use WU from my bank account, there is a paper trail of who and how much I sent.
While we would like to get the middle man out of the equation taking a hefty % of the transaction, if it is not transparent then ultimately the process will be blocked by Govt’s world wide, because this will not be allowed to stand for the obvious reasons of terroristic planning and illicit use of monies for multiple types of criminal activity hiding behind anonymity.
Use your skills Steve to legitimize BlockChain into mainstream financial markets, and you will have an enduring product that will add to a better world. Bitcoin doesn’t do that, for all the reasons that most people have stated here already.
Gotta admire that Mr. Mosher; going from paid climate alarmist to paid hustler of Bitcoin hardware. I assume his Wandering in that Bitcoin Weed Patch pays more.
All get rich quick schemes end badly for the suckers. Its “so sciency” has replaced “follow the pea” for the gullible.
Who are these “nodes” (10K?) that “verify” the blocks? Who gets the “transaction fees?”
Ultimately, who will accept Bitcoins in payment where their accountants can’t track such transactions? Money laundering? Criminal activities? Tax evaders? Get real, fools.
Steven Mosher
February 17, 2018 at 9:48 pm
hope you read this.
Generally, as per the way I do understand this issue, I do agree with you and your position and your points in this one issue.
But considering that you are very much involved with the Bitcoin mining and miners, in the context of this new green tax involving miners, do you think that if this implemented as it suppose to, in a global manner, when China too has to be in the bag, do you think bitcoin mining and miners will be so well sheltered and secured as they were this time around burst, if Blockchain – Bitcoin platform has to respond and bubble burst again as per a default reset of it’s value?
Do you think Bitcoin mining and miners will get a free secure safe pass when it directly implicated in a scheme that Blockchain-Bitcoin will have to respond and default it as unsafe and infringing with the Blockchain-bitcoin principle of stability?
Do you think that this miners should not worry much when an artificial global increase on spending-investing with bitcoin mining implemented?
Maybe my point not that valid, and the questions not much important, but just for what it could be worth.
Addressing you in this one as you seem to have considerable interest invested in Bitcoin mining… 🙂
thanks.
But considering that you are very much involved with the Bitcoin mining and miners, in the context of this new green tax involving miners, do you think that if this implemented as it suppose to, in a global manner, when China too has to be in the bag, do you think bitcoin mining and miners will be so well sheltered and secured as they were this time around burst, if Blockchain – Bitcoin platform has to respond and bubble burst again as per a default reset of it’s value?”
The floor of the price is really a function of HODLers. People who own a majority of the coin and refuse to sell at any price below say 100K. So for example at the recnet bottom one Whale bought up
400M at around 6-8K. As far as Mining goes, price drops will impact those with high electricty costs
and new entrants who are illiquid. As you mine you need to be cashing some out to pay your opex
and prepare for downturns. You could also use futures or any of the crypto lending instruments
where you use your crypto as collateral for fiat loans. interest rates on these suck however.
Do you think Bitcoin mining and miners will get a free secure safe pass when it directly implicated in a scheme that Blockchain-Bitcoin will have to respond and default it as unsafe and infringing with the Blockchain-bitcoin principle of stability?
Huh? there is no principle of stability. The value is determined by the market. period.
Do you think that this miners should not worry much when an artificial global increase on spending-investing with bitcoin mining implemented?
The Mining bet is easy to calculate. Those who dont know how to do the calculation and evalute
the risk, should not be in the business.
Maybe my point not that valid, and the questions not much important, but just for what it could be worth.
Addressing you in this one as you seem to have considerable interest invested in Bitcoin mining… 🙂
Not sure I’ve understood or anaswered your questions. Some of them were loaded questions ( assuming facts not in evidence)
Gains on assets are taxed. Woe be upon those running afoul of the mightiest organization in the world, the IRS. They will eventually identify everyone involved in crypto-currencies.
Remember what happened to those prominent advocates of tax avoidance schemes and those associated with those efforts? Additionally, enabling a criminal activity is a crime.
The Chinese won’t help you, Mr. Mosher. They value that trade surplus with the U.S.
Steven Mosher
February 18, 2018 at 7:42 pm.
Mosher, thank you for the reply, appreciated.
Allow me to show where I think we diverge in this topic.
you say:
“The floor of the price is really a function of HODLers. People who own a majority of the coin and refuse to sell at any price below say 100K”.
then:
“Huh? there is no principle of stability. The value is determined by the market. period”
in relation to this two points and in consideration of what also you said:
“( assuming facts not in evidence)”
From my point of view , based in what to me seems as assuming facts based in evidence, the bubble burst actually defaulted at 0 value or very nearly at that point for the upper shoulder of the bitcoin price, the very value of exchange financing value.
All or almost all exchange-financial organized enterprises “swimming” and operating in that “room”, or space, sunk or went bust…
From my point of view the floor price, the mean value of bitcoin, is maintained and dictated by the
Blockchain-bitcoin coupling, and as far as I can tell it can not be really changed or manipulated. Energy SECURED. 🙂
That is the “safe shelter” for the bitcoin mining operation and industry…as per my understanding thus far.
The cost-profit ratio of mining, is set by the Blockchane-bitcoin coupling platform…
as far as I can tell is always projected to be stable, steady and fixed, even when the floor price projected in a very very slow decline over time………………….set like “set in stone” 🙂
The only problem there with it, is, if a needed response to maintain it, will be in the means of temporarily as reducing that ratio in accordance with the artificial forcing that may try to artificially increase it, where “temporarily” consisting with the time length of the artificial forcing persisting.
Keep as many bitcoins as you can for as long as you want…but there is not even the smallest effect in the bitcoin value to be contemplated, even in the case of you imagining as actually having and holding forever the whole bitcoins out there…still no much there as a means to effect the value of the bitcoin, not even the overall value, let alone the floor one.
Oh well, then, if it is more or less as you describe it, then whole this thingy happens to be unstable, quite so, and very much prone to manipulation, very much prone to anthropogenic greed forcing.
But I still fancy to flirt with the idea that greed in Blockchain-bitcoin platform, is like greed meeting Joe Black. 🙂
Please do not misunderstand me, just trying a clarify my position…
Yes my questions, could be seem as loaded, and very well may be so.
I was trying to direct attention to a possible condition, in regard to bitcoin mining, at the possibility that an artificial global increase of the mining cost may lead to a response by the Blockchain, resulting in the drop of the floor price, or the mean value of bitcoin…which in the case of another bubble burst may result to “harm” and collaterally inflict damages and loses to bitcoin miners and the mining “industry” at large….which if that floor price happened to be around at ~8K this time, next time will be at far lower, even at half of that value.
That was all I was trying a point out and direct the attention to.
Hope you do not mind my approach and the argument over this…:)
Thanks again, Appreciated.
cheers
Better keep accurate Bitcoin transaction records for the IRS. Tax havens do not last.
Steve Mosher likes the word SECURITY.
Instead of using some 5 lever mortice locks and similar to SECURE my house while I am out I have decided instead to leave all the doors and windows open and secure my property via a continuous stream of petrol powered flamethrowers around the whole perimeter. This consumes 100 gallons per hour and costs me over $4000 per week. This is NOT a waste because the FUEL SECURES the building.
Nick Szabo wrote the specification for Bitcoin.
He published Bitgold in 1998 and it was released as Bitcoin in 2008.
He ‘owns’ the ‘ledger’ but has no interest in ‘profiting’ from it.
Why . . . well he’s smart enough to understand the moment the US Governments can identify an individual or entity that ‘owns’ or ‘controls’ Bitcoin the ‘individual’ will be charged and subsequently jailed for a very long list of AML and TOC offences.
In particular, Bitcoin has breach laws for not maintaining anti-money-laundering procedures, which include:
•a customer due diligence programme;
•designation of an anti-money laundering compliance officer;
•development of an ongoing training programme for employees;
•audit procedures to test the effectiveness of the anti-money laundering programme; and
•suspicious activity reporting requirements.
Nick is an academic ‘philosopher’, not a businessman.
No one owns or controls it
Sorry there’s a primary ledger without which it can’t operate.
Currently Bitcoin is ‘maintained’ by Wladimir van der Laan.
Szabo or van der Laan could blow-up Bitcoin tomorrow.
It’s just a paradigm . . .
Warren Blair
February 18, 2018 at 11:49 pm
Sorry there’s a primary ledger without which it can’t operate.
Currently Bitcoin is ‘maintained’ by Wladimir van der Laan.
Szabo or van der Laan could blow-up Bitcoin tomorrow.
It’s just a paradigm . . .
——————————–
With all do respect Warren, whatever about who “maintains” Bitcoin, the bitcoins can not be blown-up.
Even considering that one person purchases the whole bitcoins at a given moment, no way this person can blow-up bitcoins or its value, or even having a chance to manipulate that value, only will happen to be considered as the bigger fool out there, rightfully so.
To somehow imagine bitcoins blowing-up, you have to imagining the reversal or the blow- up of the Blockchain, something beyond possibility….regardless how long it will take for ppl to realize this.
Blockchain is set for a long long stay, so long that it will be worthless to even try and estimate it, and no one can do anything about it….better start getting used to this..:)
Blockchain bitcoins are very tightly connected.
The bitcoin platform can not even be manipulated let alone considering that it could be blown-of, regardless who maintains the Bitcoin.
Anthropogenic forcing can not and will not have any effect ever or any blow-of impact in the
Blockchain-bitcoin coupling…:)
Oh well, very difficult for me to consider it at this point any other way.
cheers
Wow Whiten software that can’t be modified!
You’re clearly pontificating from a platform of complete ignorance.
Bitcoin ‘engine’ programmers can do whatever they like including writing routines to cause every Bitcoin to eat every other Bitcoin then delete every block in existence.
Pelople who believe in immutable computing are suckers in the vein of CAWG believers.