Bitcoin

I honest to God thought I was in the home improvement thread.

 

my daughter was telling me that a friend was buying a house. in the process, she remembered that she was given a large number of bit coins a long time ago. when she dug the out, it made a substantial dent in the investment.

 

Not even close for most of the world. At current difficulty levels, with old mining equipment, you're looking at a $0.19USD/KWh break even point assuming you do instant BTC to USD conversions. Mine, get paid in BTC, "cash out" to USD. Rates around here for residential are below $0.12USD/KWh and commercially they are close to $0.06USD/KWh. And miners are actually the best rate loads for utility companies. No surge currents like motors, constant reliable power sucking 24/7/365. Your peak usage equals your average usage 1:1 which is ideal for a power company.

And in China (where more than 50% the hash rate comes from) the average USD equivalent for a KWh is $0.048. Assuming today's difficulty levels for an S9 that consumes 32.8KWh daily, that's $1.57 in electricity cost in China per day. One S9 in a pool after fees, makes about 0.00082815 BTC/day. That puts the break even point disregarding internet cost, physical location cost, HVAC cost, hardware cost, etc, at $1900 USD/BTC. Again assuming a cash out model versus a HODL model.

If the price drops, people stop mining, and it becomes more "profitable" in terms of BTC mined per KWh even though it becomes less profitable in terms of USD mined per KWh.

At the $1900/BTC level, that's where you are forced to make a decision. Will BTC increase in value, and therefore mining while below fiat profitability now, prove profitable in fiat conversion later. Or will BTC decrease or maintain its value and therefore the fiat money will never make a return, and if true, are you OK with that conversion loss.

Your guess is as good as anybody else's.

Pretty much every crypto out there, this is still true even factoring in hardware.

I read an article in January maybe that put the "breakeven" cost for large scale warehouses that bought at the peak around $8k/BTC. Basically the late comers to the game paying 4x to 6x the cost for equipment, scrambling to find real estate to house them, etc. They are probably having a very bad day today and yesterday unless they have the fiat cash to hold out the storm.

I maintain my prediction. I see this current selloff as again the short-term wall-street types looking for a quick buck and again getting burned. There was "supposed to be a rally" after the crypto conference in NYC a week or whatever ago. That never materialized. My guess is, no gains, sell it and move on. Trade volumes have been relatively low the past few months.

I expect them to remain low until either the $6k/BTC mark is reached or the $10k/BTC mark is reached. Both of those will be newsworthy and back out to the general population. How can you expect BTC coverage when there's a royal wedding going on!!!!

 

Crytocurrency is suddenly having a major impact on our regional electric supply. Unmentioned here is that this spills over into navigation, irrigation, endangered fish and other environmental issues too.

Seattle Times: Bitcoin backlash as ‘miners’ suck up electricity, stress power grids in Central Washington

"In a normal year, demand for electric power in Chelan County grows by perhaps 4 megawatts ... But since January 2017, as Bitcoin enthusiasts bid up the price of the currency, eager miners have requested a staggering 210 megawatts for mines they want to build in Chelan County. That’s nearly as much as the county and its 73,000 residents were already using."

"... Many would-be miners have no understanding of how large power purchases work. In one case this winter, miners from China landed their private jet at the local airport, drove a rental car to the visitor center at the Rocky Reach Dam, just north of Wenatchee, and, according to Chelan County PUD officials, politely asked to see the “dam master because we want to buy some electricity.”"

"... in Douglas County, the cyber-mining sector has expanded so rapidly that the PUD’s existing distribution system is tapped out. For example, a nearly new 84-megawatt substation with enough capacity to handle 30 to 50 years of normal population growth has already been fully subscribed."
...
"All told, the three PUDs in the mid-Columbia Basin are considering miners’ requests for well over 2,000 megawatts of power — equal to roughly two-thirds of the total hydropower generated by the Basin’s five hydroelectric dams."

Read the whole article: Bitcoin backlash as ‘miners’ suck up electricity, stress power grids in Central Washington | The Seattle Times

 

need increasing usage rates. simple fix.

 

If only the utility regulation system allowed them that simplicity ...

 

they can if they want (or have) to.

 

I still prefer the guy that threw away the wrong hard drive. $100m+ worth on it, even now $50 million at least. Got to be kicking yourself for that one...

 

The current "great minds of BTC" predict a volatile up/down with continuous down momentum until about $5700USD/BTC. Then flat, then up to test $10k again.

 

Actually that's one of my favourite time wastes in the past couple years. Everyone likes to make really pretty graphs and charts. I love watching the wall street investors make charts and the armchair investors and the truly crazy making charts. There is no consensus and to me is just more anecdotal proof that markets gonna do what they want. Not tied to anything rational these days, it is all "feelings".

 

The down to $5700 has been met with much more resistance than anticipated. Also the Mt Gox hoard won't be sold next month as said for a while, they've postponed to next year or later.

With current prices hovering around $6K USD / BTC it is starting to price out non-HODL miners in the US. With an average electric rate of $0.12/KWh you're basically making less than a dollar a day per miner. Still not bad for free money, but if you were in it for the short term profit, that has evaporated with current miners. In China, I did the math above, it can reduce value by 70% and still be profitable. My guess is if that happens Antmain will dump all their S9's and use their S11's which are rumoured but not confirmed which makes their profitability higher and mine with those until/if the price rebounds. They are also approaching the magical 51% number (currently around 44% to 46% I believe with various estimates).

 

Tum te tum te tum....

 

Around $6.2k USD/BTC.

Dead cat bounce? Or different?

On a related note the Z9 is coming out in September. At current depressed rates, about $70-$80 USD per day profit. Probably half that within a month or two of the ASIC's appearing. I am thinking of replacing a few of my GPU setups with it. Much more efficient, about 100x efficient.

 

Over and sustained $8k USD / BTC