Bitcoin

Because the electric power is dirt cheap.

Lots of surplus hydro, sold out of region, subsidies the local customers. But incoming crypto miners were requesting huge blocks of power, setting the stage to consume all that surplus before it could be resold elsewhere, thus eliminating the 'foreign' profits that kept local prices so low.

 

With BTC fallen to $4500, and GigaWatt facing eviction proceedings, it has turned Chapter 11:
Washington bitcoin pioneer seeks Chapter 11 protection | The Seattle Times

 

why does this make me happy?

 

i can't be wrong, but i can be at a disadvantage.

but something inside me doesn't like the disorder of more than one currency, or illegitimate currency, or whatever you want to call it

or it could just be that i dislike change

 

Probably disliking change .

I’m sure you’ve uttered these words to the local youth: “get off my lawn”.

I’ll be there someday.

 

oh ya, i even yell at the birds...

 

Do you run outside and try to scare them away as well?

That’s what my old man does. Did it while we were chatting over the phone yesterday.

But he doesn’t have neighbors for 1/4 of a mile, so no kids to yell at.

 

no, my wife does that

 

Turtles all the way down?

 

"The Bitcoin network’s hash rate, one way of gauging the computing power dedicated to mining the digital currency, dropped about 24 percent from an all-time high at the end of August through Nov. 24, according to Blockchain.com."

"A big miner shakeout could be bad news for chipmakers including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and Nvidia Corp. ...

Still, there’s a silver lining for miners who survive the drop in prices, ... As weaker hands leave the Bitcoin network, the difficulty of mining the cryptocurrency declines. A cull could ultimately benefit the survivors, ...."

Battered Bitcoin Miners May Start Shutting Down

 

Considering the continual power efficiency (hashes per second per watt) improvements of the latest equipment, I'm hoping that 24% hash rate reduction is strongly biased towards culling the older and less efficient machines. I.e. hoping that the electric power devoted to this mining activity has dropped by much more than 24%.

Though they may have just switched to other currencies.

Moving on to volunteer distributed computing projects -- protein folding and many others -- could be quite beneficial, though I don't have a clue how much of that specialized hardware could do so.

 

Here is why I think Bitcoin has no future by design.

As soon as all the coins are mined (soon) the motivation for miners to do their work is gone. The only thing that will pay for verifying the transactions will be transaction fees, which will have to skyrocket to keep the miners paid well enough to run their rigs. At that point Bitcoin will become way too expensive to use. This is in addition to the fact that Bitcoin is too slow and cumbersome to be used in everyday living situations like food shopping, etc. As an investment vehicle Bitcoin, again by design is no good. It is designed to be currency, but as miners loose interest it will become a relic. And if it manages to retain any kind of value, it is super-easy to manipulate by buying and selling large amounts of it. There is no way to create more of it, so the value can be manipulated by entities who hold a lot of it.

Good luck!

 

That will happen in year 2140.

 

And in the meantime halving of rewards for mining occurs every 4 years. As this happens transaction fees will have to go up, especially as cost of electricity goes up, as it does in a world where inflation is a fact of life guaranteed by government issued moneys.

 

Long term so far, that reward halving hasn't been a problem because the currency value has risen much faster.

Don't confuse me with BTC proponents. Yes, BTC is hobbled by design. I see its capped units volume as a major economic problem. This creates a very strong deflationary pressure, which encourages hoarding over economic activity. Our economy benefits from minor inflation, just enough to encourage economic activity and investment over hoarding. But this requires a currency that can continually expand, which BTC cannot.

 

I have not put a label on you or anyone else about BTC. I am just participating in discussion. I agree with your assessments. Minor inflation is what makes the economy happen. It is also built into most monetary systems of the world. BTC lacks that by capping the total number of coins. It also makes it easy to manipulate the value by buying or selling large blocks of BTC. It is also horribly cumbersome to use as actual currency in most cases.