@WBahn I will add to say, someone complained to their congress critter to add that tidbit to the U.S. Code. How many times have you heard someone say "There ought to be a law ..." Well, that's how we get to that point, by federalizing everything.

Even as a kid watching my uncle prepare my mom and dad's tax return I was amazed at some of the things that were there. Here we have instructions that everyone in the country has to follow and there are provisions for Maine lobster fishermen. Huh???

These always remind me of an editorial cartoon I saw years and years ago (and that I've never been able to track down since) that had two panels -- a then and now. I think it was from 1987 marking the 200th anniversary of the Constitution, but I'm not quite positive of that. The 'then' panel showed a citizen towering over the group of legislators giving them the no-uncertain instruction, "Congress shall pass NO law....". The 'now' panel had this tiny little citizen, hat in hand, meekly asking the towering legislators, "Could Congress PLEASE pass a law...."

 

https://medium.com/@kaistinchcombe/...-is-actually-a-medieval-hellhole-c1ca122efdec

Blockchain is not only crappy technology but a bad vision for the future. Its failure to achieve adoption to date is because systems built on trust, norms, and institutions inherently function better than the type of no-need-for-trusted-parties systems blockchain envisions. That’s permanent: no matter how much blockchain improves it is still headed in the wrong direction.
...
Projects based on the elimination of trust have failed to capture customers’ interest because trust is actually so damn valuable. A lawless and mistrustful world where self-interest is the only principle and paranoia is the only source of safety is a not a paradise but a crypto-medieval hellhole.

As a society, and as technologists and entrepreneurs in particular, we’re going to have to get good at cooperating — at building trust, and, at being trustworthy. Instead of directing resources to the elimination of trust, we should direct our resources to the creation of trust—whether we use a long series of sequentially hashed files as our storage medium or not.

 

https://medium.com/@kaistinchcombe/...-is-actually-a-medieval-hellhole-c1ca122efdec

Sounds to me like someone just wanting to rant in order to tout a Utopian pipe dream.

Does he object to locks on doors, too? Where's the trust?

 

Sounds to me like someone just wanting to rant in order to tout a Utopian pipe dream.

Does he object to locks on doors, too? Where's the trust?

I don't think there is an objection to locks on doors when they are needed. In a true trust relationship like when I was a kid on a farm door locks were not necessary or used in rural areas. We trusted people we knew to go inside our houses and checkup on things where we were gone. Trust is efficient. The cost of a 'trustless' transaction system like Bitcoin is huge and growing larger daily because it doesn't eliminate trust, it just decentralizes it in a very inefficient manner and forces a huge number of duplicated 'trust' proving (expensive computations) operations at each verification node. Everything requires trust, even science with the “scientific consensus.” because it's impossible to test every observation yourself.

 

https://cointelegraph.com/news/bch-...spended-internet-debates-death-of-free-speech

 

I don't think there is an objection to locks on doors when they are needed. In a true trust relationship like when I was a kid on a farm door locks were not necessary or used in rural areas. We trusted people we knew to go inside our houses and checkup on things where we were gone. Trust is efficient. The cost of a 'trustless' transaction system like Bitcoin is huge and growing larger daily because it doesn't eliminate trust, it just decentralizes it in a very inefficient manner and forces a huge number of duplicated 'trust' proving (expensive computations) operations at each verification node. Everything requires trust, even science with the “scientific consensus.” because it's impossible to test every observation yourself.

But look at the difference in scale. If your farm was located in the middle of Chicago would you leave your doors unlocked while you were gone? Cryptocurrencies are not meant to be the transaction medium between friends and neighbors. They are targeting transactions between ANY two parties, anywhere on the planet, even if neither has ever heard of the other.

 

Cryptocurrencies are not meant to be the transaction medium between friends and neighbors. They are targeting transactions between ANY two parties, anywhere on the planet, even if neither has ever heard of the other.

Characteristic-based trust even in the middle of Chicago is possible and reasonable depending on local circumstances.

"They are targeting transactions between ANY two parties, anywhere on the planet, even if neither has ever heard of the other."

That's possible in Bitcoin with a great thermodynamic cost today for ad-hoc, random access, trustless transactions between parties. There still is a high level of trust in the cryptocurrency system vs a Dollar bill with centralized institutions-based trust for most of transactions. Trust in networks to transport individual party transaction data, trust in software to run the systems the parties use from end to end, trust in Chinese miners who hold 80% of Bitcoin computer power not to be crooks, trust in exchanges to convert to fiat for local spending not to be crooks, trust in local electronic device (bitcoin wallet) to track transactions for balances Taxes, etc ...

As the level of transactions increase, the energy needed to stop the double-spending attack increases and/or transaction prices sky-rocket to make them quick with the limited trust producing resources. (in a typical 10 min window)

This usually ends in two ways, financial or environmental catastrophe.

 

Trust?
https://economictimes.indiatimes.co...biggest-crypto-theft/articleshow/63740771.cms

Coinsecure, the Delhi-based cryptocurrency exchange, has filed an FIR with the cyber cell accusing its CSO, Amitabh Saxena, of siphoning off the money from the firm's wallet, ET's Nilesh Christopher reported. The exchange has urged the government to seize Saxena's passport, fearing that he may leave the country.
...
The company’s founder and CEO Mohit Kalra told TOI that he suspects an insider’s hand in this.

“Private keys should have never been exported online. It looks like a crime committed intentionally. We have shared our suspicions with the Cyber Cell, and contacted specialists to find out the source of the hack and trace the bitcoins,” Kalra said, adding that even if funds are not recovered, his company is willing to pay from its own pocket to compensate its customers.

Endpoint compromise from greed, bitcoin changes nothing. Real banks have insurance and government-backed assurances that mean if they screw up, customers don't lose their money. What are the odds the company actually will compensate its customers? Bitcoin has no insurance, no backing, no accountability with only the 'maybe' goodwill of a Delhi-based cryptocurrency exchange.

At the time of writing, Coinsecure's services are unavailable.

https://coinsecure.in/

 

 

Idiots with 'money'.
https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/17/17247628/bitcoin-cryptocurrency-hackers-youtube-theft-robbed

This bravado may have backfired. On Sunday, during one of his marathon live streams, Balina found himself unable to log into the Google Spreadsheet where he tracks initial coin offerings or ICOs, which are crowd sales for new cryptocurrencies. That appears to be because a hacker took control of his accounts, draining a substantial portion of his holdings. The Next Web estimated that the total stolen was equal to almost $2 million on paper.
...
Saddington blames only himself for his epic hacking, he told me. This is a common attitude in the cryptocurrency world, where many believe there is no need for banks or governments. “YouTubers kind of have to learn the hard way,” he said. “We no longer have a bank that we can whine to and say, ‘bank, my money was stolen, give it back to me.’ No. We’re not in that economy anymore. If you lost your Bitcoin that is 100 percent your fault.”

 

Because of mining, GPU's price are extremely high. I guess I will just upgrade later then.

 

Because of mining, GPU's price are extremely high. I guess I will just upgrade later then.

I expect that the GPU prices will come down drastically when the bitcoin bubble collapses.

 

Looks like Buffet et al share my opinion: Bitcoins = turds

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/warr...isgusting-stupid-immoral-turds-202914916.html

 

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/7xmvbq/bitcoin-energy-science-world-electricity-demand

By the end of this year, Bitcoin may account for a whopping half of a percent of the world’s total energy demand. It doesn’t sound like much, but that is roughly equivalent to the energy needs of Austria, a country of nearly nine million people. This sobering prediction was made by financial economist Alex de Vries and published on Wednesday in Joule, marking the first time that the energy consumption of Bitcoin has been quantified in a peer-reviewed journal.


“Most people are shocked that Bitcoin could use this much energy,” de Vries told me on the phone. “I think that’s the appropriate reaction. Half of a percent of the world’s energy is a huge number, especially for a system that isn’t really used for anything except speculation.”

 

https://www.seattletimes.com/busine...ity-stress-power-grids-in-central-washington/

In a normal year, demand for electric power in Chelan County grows by perhaps 4 megawatts — enough for around 2,250 homes — as new residents arrive and as businesses start or expand. 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. And because it is a public utility, the PUD staff is obligated to consider every request.


The scale of some new requests is mind-boggling. Until recently, the largest mines in Chelan County used five megawatts or less. In the past six months, by contrast, miners have requested loads of 50 megawatts and, in several cases, 100 megawatts. By comparison, a fruit warehouse uses around 2.5 megawatts.
...
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. And while every request won’t become a contract, the rapid demand is forcing officials at all three public utilities to rethink how they sell power.
...

 

https://coinpick.today/42-billion-l...ion-are-the-primary-reasons-of-bitcoin-slump/

Over the past few weeks, the price of Bitcoin has been trading sideways. However, things took a dramatic turn yesterday when it plunged from the $7,600 region to the $7,200 region, going down by 5%, with other major cryptocurrencies also losing by 7% or more during that timeframe.

The plunge in prices resulted in some traders panic selling and this further led to Bitcoin losing another $500 within an hour. It plunged from the $7,200 region to around $6,700 within an hour. This resulted in the cryptocurrency market losing more than $42 billion and total market cap now stands around $295 billion. The market has now lost more than 50% of its value since the start of the year, a statistics that provides the perfect reason why some traders and investors are cashing in on their cryptocurrency reserve.

 

I have low confidence in Bitcoin as a currency

 

https://www.ccn.com/bitcoin-makes-historic-first-appearance-in-us-supreme-court-opinion/

Thursday marked a historic day for bitcoin, as the flagship cryptocurrency made its first appearance in an opinion published by the US Supreme Court.

The case, Wisconsin Central Ltd. v. United States, did not involve bitcoin’s regulatory or legal status. Rather, it examined whether employee stock options represent taxable compensation under the Railroad Retirement Tax Act of 1937.

 

Bitcoin seems rather like a Ponzi scheme to me.

 

Bitcoin seems rather like a Ponzi scheme to me.

I agree. If it's created out of thin air then it must be robbing Peter to pay Paul.