almost too good to be true, right?

tysker said:

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almost too good to be true, right?

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time will tell, this is all in theory at this point, but even a yield of 2-3 coins per unit of investment would be worth it.

may we live in interesting times....

tysker said:

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almost too good to be true, right?

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Coming from a devout fiat worshipper, it certainly looks that way. When you step away from the cult, son, you'll see it's certainly as true as presented.

Adverse Event said:

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tysker said:

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almost too good to be true, right?

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Coming from a devout fiat worshipper, it certainly looks that way. When you step away from the cult, son, you'll see it's certainly as true as presented.

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I dont want people to be scammed, plenty of that the industry already.
Just like all of these schemes, I'm sure its a good deal for some but somewhere down the line someone's going to be left holding the bag. Understand your risk tolerances and have an exit plan.

Bag said:

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tysker said:

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almost too good to be true, right?

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time will tell, this is all in theory at this point, but even a yield of 2-3 coins per unit of investment would be worth it.

may we live in interesting times....

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certainly when derivatives have decreasing risk profiles to the underlying. the question may become (and probably already is in the case of BTC) is the tail wagging the dog?

Have there been mining scams? From my understanding, the only scams are people buying crypto that was never supposed to serve any purpose other than fun because they were convinced to by it by randos on the internet. And then phishing scams on the exchanges that happen to people just like with any other bank account.

tysker said:

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Adverse Event said:

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tysker said:

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almost too good to be true, right?

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Coming from a devout fiat worshipper, it certainly looks that way. When you step away from the cult, son, you'll see it's certainly as true as presented.

---

I dont want people to be scammed, plenty of that the industry already.
Just like all of these schemes, I'm sure its a good deal for some but somewhere down the line someone's going to be left holding the bag. Understand your risk tolerances and have an exit plan.

---

Agreed, the fiat industry has been full of scams, many run by our government, for 50+ years. It's a terrible thing to watch come to an end, with us being as comfortable as we have been letting the scams and lies and irresponsible leadership get insanely wealthy at the cost of everyone else.

Lots of regular people got wealthy in the process and comfortably numb, allowing the scams to proliferate under dull eyes.

Definitely Not A Cop said:

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Have there been mining scams? From my understanding, the only scams are people buying crypto that was never supposed to serve any purpose other than fun because they were convinced to by it by randos on the internet. And then phishing scams on the exchanges that happen to people just like with any other bank account.

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Cloud mining was pretty much a scam.

Not sure as its not my field, but all metrics point to the expansive wash trading being a bolster to prices and mining projects. Without wash trading does mining make sense as an investment? Mining requires flow; just like Robinhood, or various other brokers (full disclosure, my firm as well), when it receives payment for order flow.

From my estimation, these mining projects, like the one above, are not much different than real estate hedge funds that work well when rates are low, there is plenty of flow, and underlying prices rise at least to match inflation. Well, we've already seen rates rise and prices of certain products are dropping. Flow is still good, but all signs point to it being manipulated in some capacity. So I guess we'll see

i don't think wash trading would affect miners, they get the block reward whether the block contains 0 or 1,000 transactions.

I keep forgetting its brokering that you're in.

I imagine having a money that doesn't devalue tremendously would significantly impact humanity's demand for trading,aube even causing the shuttering of said business....

What a debacle. Might want to get some just for protection.

tysker said:

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Not sure as its not my field, but all metrics point to the expansive wash trading being a bolster to prices and mining projects. Without wash trading does mining make sense as an investment? Mining requires flow; just like Robinhood, or various other brokers (full disclosure, my firm as well), when it receives payment for order flow.

From my estimation, these mining projects, like the one above, are not much different than real estate hedge funds that work well when rates are low, there is plenty of flow, and underlying prices rise at least to match inflation. Well, we've already seen rates rise and prices of certain products are dropping. Flow is still good, but all signs point to it being manipulated in some capacity. So I guess we'll see

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Which metrics are you referring to?

ac04 said:

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i don't think wash trading would affect miners, they get the block reward whether the block contains 0 or 1,000 transactions.

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Yea, I'm not following that theory either.

Mining profitability is your share of the network hash x reward x price less opex (mostly energy cost). Returns are weighed against your capital costs for mining equipment.

Everyday, miners earn ~900 new Bitcoin. If miners sold all their Bitcoin everyday (which they don't), that represents about $22mm of value. The Bitcoin network trades about $3 billion of value everyday. The price moves with traders, not with miners.

Except the mineral rights holders are finding out that flare gas is being sold out of contract.

Deluxe said:

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tysker said:

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Not sure as its not my field, but all metrics point to the expansive wash trading being a bolster to prices and mining projects. Without wash trading does mining make sense as an investment? Mining requires flow; just like Robinhood, or various other brokers (full disclosure, my firm as well), when it receives payment for order flow.

From my estimation, these mining projects, like the one above, are not much different than real estate hedge funds that work well when rates are low, there is plenty of flow, and underlying prices rise at least to match inflation. Well, we've already seen rates rise and prices of certain products are dropping. Flow is still good, but all signs point to it being manipulated in some capacity. So I guess we'll see

---

Which metrics are you referring to?

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Its been going on for a while. Several outlets have been reporting on this:
https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/2022-crypto-crime-report-preview-nft-wash-trading-money-laundering/

https://www.coindesk.com/web3/2022/12/23/over-30b-of-nft-trading-volume-on-ethereum-is-wash-trading-research-suggests/

https://www.nber.org/papers/w30783

tysker said:

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Deluxe said:

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tysker said:

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Not sure as its not my field, but all metrics point to the expansive wash trading being a bolster to prices and mining projects. Without wash trading does mining make sense as an investment? Mining requires flow; just like Robinhood, or various other brokers (full disclosure, my firm as well), when it receives payment for order flow.

From my estimation, these mining projects, like the one above, are not much different than real estate hedge funds that work well when rates are low, there is plenty of flow, and underlying prices rise at least to match inflation. Well, we've already seen rates rise and prices of certain products are dropping. Flow is still good, but all signs point to it being manipulated in some capacity. So I guess we'll see

---

Which metrics are you referring to?

---

Its been going on for a while. Several outlets have been reporting on this:
https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/2022-crypto-crime-report-preview-nft-wash-trading-money-laundering/

https://www.coindesk.com/web3/2022/12/23/over-30b-of-nft-trading-volume-on-ethereum-is-wash-trading-research-suggests/

https://www.nber.org/papers/w30783

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Have we had these discussions for this long, and you're still confusing ethereum for bitcoin?

No wonder you're so hard for bailout bucks (usd).

Ah. None of those have anything to do with Bitcoin mining.

Agree that price manipulation is rampant in the alt token/NFT game though. Low liquidity and transaction volume makes it alot easier. SBF was basically able to pick his price for FTT because he controlled the liquidity and supply. Not even remotely the same situation with Bitcoin markets.

Allegedly shiba-inu was SBF as well, fyi.

Adverse Event said:

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tysker said:

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Deluxe said:

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tysker said:

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Not sure as its not my field, but all metrics point to the expansive wash trading being a bolster to prices and mining projects. Without wash trading does mining make sense as an investment? Mining requires flow; just like Robinhood, or various other brokers (full disclosure, my firm as well), when it receives payment for order flow.

From my estimation, these mining projects, like the one above, are not much different than real estate hedge funds that work well when rates are low, there is plenty of flow, and underlying prices rise at least to match inflation. Well, we've already seen rates rise and prices of certain products are dropping. Flow is still good, but all signs point to it being manipulated in some capacity. So I guess we'll see

---

Which metrics are you referring to?

---

Its been going on for a while. Several outlets have been reporting on this:
https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/2022-crypto-crime-report-preview-nft-wash-trading-money-laundering/

https://www.coindesk.com/web3/2022/12/23/over-30b-of-nft-trading-volume-on-ethereum-is-wash-trading-research-suggests/

https://www.nber.org/papers/w30783

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Have we had these discussions for this long, and you're still confusing ethereum for bitcoin?

No wonder you're so hard for bailout bucks (usd).

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Arent you daft.

Deluxe said:

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Ah. None of those have anything to do with Bitcoin mining.

Agree that price manipulation is rampant in the alt token/NFT game though. Low liquidity and transaction volume makes it alot easier. SBF was basically able to pick his price for FTT because he controlled the liquidity and supply. Not even remotely the same situation with Bitcoin markets.

---

If you say so. Definitely no manipulation in BTC trading and prices.
I mean Alemeda Research informed us that BTC trading was totally legitimate: https://blokt.com/news/alameda-research-bitwise-report-on-fake-bitcoin-trading-volume-inaccurate

Adverse Event said:

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AggieAL1 said:

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jt2hunt said:

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The mining of bitcoin is constrained by the energy requirements and speed of the processors? In simple terms. The value will continue to rise until the mining issue is solved. Except, the algorithm gets more complex with each bitcoin mined?


Is this a fairly accurate dummies 101 explanation?

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Well, not quite. The same amount of Bitcoin will be mined no matter how much or (virtually) how little energy is used. Expanded energy consumption is only required when an individual mining operation wants a bigger share of the Bitcoin available.

Thus, a startup miner would have to match, say, 25 percent of all power being consumed currently by the world's miners (plus the equipment investment) to gain a one-fifth share of the roughly 340,000 Bitcoin that will be produced in the next year. Since that would cut the other miners' shares to 80 percent, they could be expected to boost energy and hardware investment to try to maintain proximate share.

That's called a free market, or hyenas on a carcass - take your pick.

Then in the year after, no matter what they do, everybody's share will be cut in half. Strange business plan.

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It's not a business plan, it's an incentive structure to maintaina decentralized global computer.

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So are you saying that Bitcoin miners are just globalized philanthropists? I got the impression from most of the posts on here that people were in it for the bucks.

tysker said:

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Deluxe said:

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Ah. None of those have anything to do with Bitcoin mining.

Agree that price manipulation is rampant in the alt token/NFT game though. Low liquidity and transaction volume makes it alot easier. SBF was basically able to pick his price for FTT because he controlled the liquidity and supply. Not even remotely the same situation with Bitcoin markets.

---

If you say so. Definitely no manipulation in BTC trading and prices.
I mean Alemeda Research informed us that BTC trading was totally legitimate: https://blokt.com/news/alameda-research-bitwise-report-on-fake-bitcoin-trading-volume-inaccurate

---

I'm not doubting BTC prices can be manipulated. Far from it. Paper bitcoin. 50x trader calls and covers. Etc.

I'm refuting your claim that the miners are doing it. They don't control enough Bitcoin to manipulate even if they really wanted to. Those games are done by the casinos and traders.

AggieAL1 said:

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Adverse Event said:

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AggieAL1 said:

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jt2hunt said:

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The mining of bitcoin is constrained by the energy requirements and speed of the processors? In simple terms. The value will continue to rise until the mining issue is solved. Except, the algorithm gets more complex with each bitcoin mined?


Is this a fairly accurate dummies 101 explanation?

---

Well, not quite. The same amount of Bitcoin will be mined no matter how much or (virtually) how little energy is used. Expanded energy consumption is only required when an individual mining operation wants a bigger share of the Bitcoin available.

Thus, a startup miner would have to match, say, 25 percent of all power being consumed currently by the world's miners (plus the equipment investment) to gain a one-fifth share of the roughly 340,000 Bitcoin that will be produced in the next year. Since that would cut the other miners' shares to 80 percent, they could be expected to boost energy and hardware investment to try to maintain proximate share.

That's called a free market, or hyenas on a carcass - take your pick.

Then in the year after, no matter what they do, everybody's share will be cut in half. Strange business plan.

---

It's not a business plan, it's an incentive structure to maintaina decentralized global computer.

---

So are you saying that Bitcoin miners are just globalized philanthropists? if you're incentivized to perform a behavior, like securing the largest computing network on the planet, is that philanthropy? I'm sorry, were you asking a real question...

I got the impression from most of the posts on here that people were in it for the bailout bucks Sats. (Fify)

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Economics is about incentives. without flow, without trading, without activity, there is no need for miners. the higher the price of the underlying, the more incentive there is for miners. Its a symbiotic feedback loop. BTC requires adopters to inflate the price and false trading volumes, and related mining, adds to the BTC narrative.

Back in January BTC seemed to lock itself in, trading within a range. (https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-derivatives-data-suggests-a-btc-price-pump-above-18k-won-t-be-easy) It needed a push, nay, a government endorsed bank failure or two to help ramp up the price. Pretty good returns from the November lows and helps to stabilize other participants in the market, especially those with excessive leverage, at least for a period.

tysker said:

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Deluxe said:

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Ah. None of those have anything to do with Bitcoin mining.

Agree that price manipulation is rampant in the alt token/NFT game though. Low liquidity and transaction volume makes it alot easier. SBF was basically able to pick his price for FTT because he controlled the liquidity and supply. Not even remotely the same situation with Bitcoin markets.

---

If you say so. Definitely no manipulation in BTC trading and prices.
I mean Alemeda Research informed us that BTC trading was totally legitimate: https://blokt.com/news/alameda-research-bitwise-report-on-fake-bitcoin-trading-volume-inaccurate

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You must have missed the while ftx, sbf, Alameda fiasco, somehow. Or did you just Google and not read anything you posted to try to support your terrible takes?

Deluxe said:

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tysker said:

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Deluxe said:

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Ah. None of those have anything to do with Bitcoin mining.

Agree that price manipulation is rampant in the alt token/NFT game though. Low liquidity and transaction volume makes it alot easier. SBF was basically able to pick his price for FTT because he controlled the liquidity and supply. Not even remotely the same situation with Bitcoin markets.

---

If you say so. Definitely no manipulation in BTC trading and prices.
I mean Alemeda Research informed us that BTC trading was totally legitimate: https://blokt.com/news/alameda-research-bitwise-report-on-fake-bitcoin-trading-volume-inaccurate

---

I'm not doubting BTC prices can be manipulated. Far from it. Paper bitcoin. 50x trader calls and covers. Etc.

I'm refuting your claim that the miners are doing it. They don't control enough Bitcoin to manipulate even if they really wanted to. Those games are done by the casinos and traders.

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From RIOTs SEC disclosures:

Quote:

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Our ability to achieve profitability is largely dependent on the price of Bitcoin, which has historically been volatile.

Our primary focus on vertically integrating our Bitcoin mining operations and the associated expansion of our Rockdale Facility is largely based on our assumptions regarding the future value of Bitcoin, which has been subject to significant historical volatility and may be subject to influence from malicious actors, real or perceived scarcity, political, economic, and regulatory conditions, and speculation making its price more volatile or creating "bubble" type risks for the trading price of Bitcoin. Further, unlike traditional stock exchanges, which have listing requirements and vet issuers, requiring them to comply with rigorous listing standards and rules, and which monitor transactions for fraud and other improprieties, markets for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies tend to be underregulated, if they are regulated at all. Less stringent cryptocurrency markets have a higher risk of fraud or manipulation and any lack of oversight or perceived lack of transparency could reduce confidence in the price of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, which could adversely affect the price of Bitcoin. As disclosed in Part I, Item 1, "Business" of this Annual Report, under the subheading "Regulatory," Bitcoin and crypto asset markets generally may be subject to increased scrutiny and regulation by the SEC and other U.S. government agencies, and such evolving regulatory and legal environment may impact our mining and other activities.

These factors make it difficult to accurately predict the future market price of Bitcoin and may also inhibit consumer trust in, and market acceptance of, cryptocurrencies as a means of exchange, which could limit the future adoption of Bitcoin and, as a result, our assumptions could prove incorrect. If our assumptions prove incorrect and the future price of Bitcoin is not sufficiently high, our income from our Bitcoin mining operations may not exceed our costs, and our operations may never achieve profitability.

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Adverse Event said:

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tysker said:

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Deluxe said:

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Ah. None of those have anything to do with Bitcoin mining.

Agree that price manipulation is rampant in the alt token/NFT game though. Low liquidity and transaction volume makes it alot easier. SBF was basically able to pick his price for FTT because he controlled the liquidity and supply. Not even remotely the same situation with Bitcoin markets.

---

If you say so. Definitely no manipulation in BTC trading and prices.
I mean Alemeda Research informed us that BTC trading was totally legitimate: https://blokt.com/news/alameda-research-bitwise-report-on-fake-bitcoin-trading-volume-inaccurate

---

You must have missed the while ftx, sbf, Alameda fiasco, somehow. Or did you just Google and not read anything you posted to try to support your terrible takes?

---

Alemeda was the group saying there is "nothing to see here" even back in 2019 when, as noted in the NBER paper linked above, wash trading and market manipulation was being reported by a variety of market participants and observers. But like the author of this article, I guess you think we should trust FTX and SBF rather than whistleblowers:

Quote:

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It might not be wise to accept Bitwise's view that the majority of the reported volume is fake, as both anecdotal evidence and other firm's digital asset reports seem to show otherwise. Instead, like Alameda Research, it might be better to adopt a balanced approach to crypto trading volume.

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Yeah, mining is an extremely difficult industry, compounded by the uncertainty of the global hash rate and difficulty adjustments.

How does that support your claim that miners manipulate bitcoin priced in bailout bucks?

You got me, I misread the article. Thought it was sbf and Alameda claiming bitcoin trading was fake. At some point they bought a media company that began slandering bitcoin to promote their ****coin and I made a mistake.

tysker said:

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Economics is about incentives. without flow, without trading, without activity, there is no need for miners. the higher the price of the underlying, the more incentive there is for miners. Its a symbiotic feedback loop. BTC requires adopters to inflate the price and false trading volumes, and related mining, adds to the BTC narrative.

Back in January BTC seemed to lock itself in, trading within a range. (https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-derivatives-data-suggests-a-btc-price-pump-above-18k-won-t-be-easy) It needed a push, nay, a government endorsed bank failure or two to help ramp up the price. Pretty good returns from the November lows and helps to stabilize other participants in the market, especially those with excessive leverage, at least for a period.

---

The way you restated your point here makes more sense than the way I read it before. I thought you meant the miners themselves were colluding to manipulate the price, but it sounds like you're saying that the manipulated price (regardless of who's doing the manipulating) is what keeps the mining rails greased. Is that right?

To the extent that's what you're saying, I agree that's a factor. If some miners are online under the pretense of a certain price but the theoretical unmanipulated price is lower, then those miners are akin to what you're describing.

Generally speaking, more miners --> more hash rate --> more network security --> more demand --> higher price --> more miners, etc. I think that's how it will look in the long term. While some % of Bitcoin price/demand is manipulated and skews the aforementioned cause/effect relationship, alot of it is organic too. It's not going away.

That's why I'm all for extracting Bitcoin from trading in sh*tcoin casinos and into CFTC regulated exchanges. Allow for price discovery in fair, regulated markets. If the price drops another 50% while manipulation is weeded out, so be it. I also think fair price discovery and fair markets for Bitcoin (separate from alts, defi, 50x casino leverage, etc) will help usher in a new wave of entrants who are currently skeptical of that very thing and ultimately that's a big net positive.

what's the verdict on holding BTC?

sell when it pops to $30K?

HODL forever?

When it hits 1 million I can retire.

Bitcoin is good to use as a Currency not as an Investment.
It's up today to 26k today.
I keep like 1000.00 on hand in my Coinbase account.
I've primarily used it to buy non controlled substance pharmaceuticals like Blood Pressure Meds and Generic Viagra among others.
If you wanted Ivermectin they have it.
Credit Cards are a pain and are often denied as is Paypal which is currently not allowed in India.

Here is a typical Wallet Address to send money to

15TXs5fWz9QPwWzqvNxygFy7q6H3JU5nn

My bad. Just looked weird. Carry on.

It's an example not a real address.
But this is what an address looks like for those who have never sent Bitcoin.
Money is usually received in 15 minutes.
You have to provide a government ID to set up an account but the transactions from
1 address like this to another are almost impossible to trace.