NWR Selling bitcoin

I must stress: Bitcoin going up or down is almost never due to macroeconomic reasons or news announcements from the wider world. The last time it was, was COVID-19.

It’s almost always shenanigans inside the tiny, thin, unregulated, manipulated crypto market.
Thought this was interesting insight
 
Random discussion down the pub yesterday, how did Tesla buy $1.5 billion of bitcoin without anyone noticing? Is there really that level of liquidity in the market?
Indeed, that was my thought....and has Elon sold or still ”hloding” (sic) diamond hands.

Not shoe shiners, but overheard two young builders talking about it in the boozer yesterday, so surely peak.
 
Random discussion down the pub yesterday, how did Tesla buy $1.5 billion of bitcoin without anyone noticing? Is there really that level of liquidity in the market?
It would have only been between 30-40,000 bitcoins depending on when exactly they bought them, potentially upto 50,000 I'd say. Something like 8-900 or so are being mined a day at the moment so yeah, I think this would have been easily achievable. Trading volume for the last 6 months is easily in the hundreds of thousands a week: Bitcoinity.org
 
From the `FT (it is not news really but worth reading) Bitcoin’s growing energy problem: ‘It’s a dirty currency’

So now we have a private equity company having bought a power generating plant raising money on the premise they can mine at a cost of 3000$ a piece in New York State while a bitcoin quotes 40000$... generating a potential profit of over 90%.(I assume they are not alone to invest in this nefarious scheme with some having even lower "production" costs if based in China ...)

- So long for those who claimed the number of bitcoin would be limited....
- Good opportunity to boost global warming... as there is huge incentive to produce bitcoins/ sorry consume energy without any benefit
. Long term trend for Bitcoin value (probably investment will continue until price goes down to breakeven e.g 3000 $

Then the graph the FT:
"The puzzles are sufficiently hard to prevent hackers and other nefarious actors from taking control of the network"
Seems to me the nefarious actors are the creators of these so-called currencies... and making them hard is meant to keep the profit for them...

It could be argued that anybody investing at a price higher than the cost of production hoping to be able to sell at an even higher price is in a Ponzi scheme as the vine leaf does not operate... So today, every investor is in a Ponzi scheme (finding a fool ready to pay more than 10 times the production costs...)
 
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Joel, easy, Bitcoin total consumption is between whole consumption of Argentina and Italy and growing. As billions and billions of google searches are only a very small fraction of these countries consumption clarifies the issue
 
I do not wish to defend Google which I think is a monopoly abusing its power and a curse for society. They should be broken into small companies for anticompetitive practices, their top executives should be held responsible and in long term jail for massive theft for their abuses with their belongings confiscated (why do we punish small thieves and not big thieves is only because they have power)... and be fined hundreds of billions for tax fraud...
What is clear is that Bitcoin massive consumption of electricity and hardware (including whole power stations...) is massively accelerating global warming and destruction of value while it does not serve any value to humanity.... so they also deserve the "Guillotine". The fact some people make money is only through taking it from other people for no good reason.
So, Google bad, Bitcoin even worse!
(I am in a sensible mood today :oops: ;):):eek::rolleyes::cool:
 
Well that’s it! China bans it in order to avoid cutting electricity during the Winter. No such measure here… people just need to buy blankets… we’ll use the small gas we have to trade Bitcoins
 
Well that’s it! China bans it in order to avoid cutting electricity during the Winter. No such measure here… people just need to buy blankets… we’ll use the small gas we have to trade Bitcoins

China's anti-crypto stance has nothing to do with electricity and everything to do with concern over diminishing control over capital and in turn its citizens.
 
Still, it will be either trade bitcoins and buy blankets or give priority to useful uses of scarce gas and electricity. Which should we do?
I mean this is just a daft loaded question isn't it? This isn't a choice that is being made.

Unless this is just trolling/bait in which case fair enough you got me to bite
 
Not at all Max! And not about you either!
The issue is simple and quite factual:
Supply and demand: Electricity is a finite resource (not to mention, increasing production increases global warming)

We now know that we will have very short supply of Gas and electricity this Winter for a number of reasons. Electricity is required to satisfy Bitcoins, Industry, Business and People needs. It is quite certain that, at times, there will not be enough gas and electricity for everybody (with some gas used to generate electricity).
This already happens when supply/demand is tight and, often,some industries do stop operating in order to avoid collapse of the network.
If the demand is not managed the supply of electricity collapses and electricity goes off for everybody.

We, in the UK, are likely to have a much worse balance this year:
- UK is a big electricity importer: Electricity import capacity is curtailed because of a break down
- Part of UK and EU gas purchases are on the spot market
- Gas is used to generate electricity when there is a shortage
- The situation is tight in EU because while Russia is delivering all long term contracts, demand for extra volumes is very high both in EU and Far East (China)
- The relationship with EU has changed. UK has become a EU customer, no more an EU operator. EU will satisfy its own demand before offering extra volumes/quantities of gas and electricity to the UK

Reference end uses:
- The shortage of electricity this winter will require to very significantly curtail consumption especially when there is no wind (usually, there is also hardly solar energy in Winter) and there will be limited availability of gas to generate more electricity (UK only has 4 days average consumption storage capacity, other countries have much more...)
- Bitcoin has probably ensured secure supply (plenty of money) so unless HMG takes the decision to force them to stop operating, the shortfall will it other users: industry, Business operations, people home consumption (central heating, light, cooking...)

This will nicely demonstrate the terrible impact of bitcoins on society especially when one considers totally electrcity consumption for these currencies is bigger than Australia electricity consumption and should reach very soon Italy whole electricity consumption.

You will be aware that industry plants have been stopped for other shortages.
 
Something of a false dichotomy there Antoine. There's no denying Bitcoin uses a huge amount of electricity, but there's a big movement to using renewable power, if only because it's fundamentally cheaper. Most new mining capacity is built with its own solar or wind power generation, or situated close to hydroelectric plants where it uses cheap off-peak power. The big dirty facilities using coal-generated power and the like were largely in China, and enormous amounts have been taken offline over the last couple of years. Of course power use is still power use, no matter how it's generated, but it's a problem that's actually getting smaller, although definitely still a problem.

Additionally there are moves to reducing power consumption - the world's second-largest cryptocurrency, Etherium, will move from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake at the end of this year - which means mining rate is governed by how much Etherium you already own, not by how much computing power you have. A smallish step in itself but an example of how things are changing.

Decentralised finance is inherently unbannable, precisely because it's decentralised. There's no Bitcoin "central bank" to shut down. Even if mining facilities were all shut down tomorrow, that wouldn't affect Bitcoin particularly - we'd just go back to how things worked years ago when mining was a hobby for kids in their basements. Due to the scalability at the core of the Bitcoin design, it makes no real difference whether the global mining power use is the equivalent of <pick some random country here> or a small hobby - either way Bitcoins get generated at the same rate. But, like it or not, Bitcoin has a huge market value, even if you might think it has no real value. So by all means ban power-hungry organised mining if you like but that'll just close down relatively (and I only say relatively!) "green" Western mining facilities, while countries that just don't care and criminal enterprises will throw up loads of dirty powered mines and fill the void.

I'm no apologist for Bitcoin and I don't own any cryptocurrency, but I do think DeFi is here to stay one way or another.

I am surprised Alex likes this as I think your point is absurd. It is not a false dichotomy, it is an actual one.
There are 2 dimensions to bitcoins:
- Electricity consumption in a world where capacity is constrained at least seasonally (California, Germany,...). Whether clean or dirty, when there is shortage there is shortage
- Contribution to global warming

Capacity constrained (my post): Demand (seasonal, night and day,...) varies, Supply varies (especially wind, sun), so when there is not enough electricity, you need to cut useage: Bitcoin? People?, Industry?...
Simple: you have 1000 KWH available, demand is 2000 KWH, you need to restraint consumption.
What have your points to do with this simple imbalance.

If you leave the market decide, it will sell the 1000 KWH to bitcoin (who probably, as you say, have secured/purchased supply) industry and people will have to decrease useage

Your point about proximity is irrelevant. Freeing hydroelectric capacity by forbidding bitcoins makes this capacity available for other usage and diminishes capacity shortfall decreases the impact on global warming by decreasing the need for dirty energy

"clean" energy (alledgedly solar and wind) can only be produced sporadically and require dirty electricity to be produced when ther is either no wind and/or no sun. So, actually, if you consider it over a whole year, Wind and solar energies are very dirty. You only have to look at Denmark and Germany energy footprint.

UnfortunateIy, I agree with you that bitcoin may survive until there is a big crash . This is an utter disaster but money talks and will probably bring humanity to its fate. COP 26 and subsequent COP will remain jokes until the international community makes it a crime to operate such activity with adequate punishment. Forbidding them would be a very significant step in the right direction and an easy one to implement... but requires laws to be passed (given US extraterritorial laws capacity, it would take a set of laws to extend the ban worldwide)
 
I didn't mean to I thought it was directed at me personally! I just meant I'm not sure there's much intention of engaging in any good faith discussion, and that post in particular is indicative of a general retreat to moralising and unwillingness to really learn about what you're railing against.

Most of your last post is about gas supply issues which I won't argue with, Brexit has really set us up for a bit of a sh*tfest in that respect!

My main issue is this statement -

- Bitcoin has probably ensured secure supply (plenty of money) so unless HMG takes the decision to force them to stop operating, the shortfall will it other users: industry, Business operations, people home consumption (central heating, light, cooking...)

which I think again demonstrates a lack of understanding about Bitcoin, the mechanism of mining/validation, and the global nature of the market/geographic distribution of computing hashpower and thus energy use.

'Bitcoin' isn't a centralised entity which has secured an energy supply for itself. Private individuals or businesses may set up to validate bitcoin transactions, which at a base level is what consumes energy and is rewarded with bitcoin issuance, this is 'mining'. Without going into boring detail the key thing to understand here is this is an economically unviable activity if your electricity costs outweigh the money you would make selling the bitcoin earned on a spot basis.

Less than 0.25% of Bitcoin network hashpower is based in the UK. This is becuase with our current energy costs it is ALREADY for the most part economically unviable, and inevitable price rises this winter should only exacerbate that.

Basically what I'm getting at is that there isn't really localised competition for more essential consumption, market forces effectively self-correct as network hashpower relocates to areas with lower electricity costs.

I think what really gets me about this is that I'm not actually a big Bitcoin fan in particular at all for myriad reasons (although obviously am pro crypto in a wider sense). I don't even disagree that Proof-of-Work is inherently quite wasteful and not sustainable long term. I just think using particularly emotive false equivalencies and calling for things to be banned without much understanding is very dangerous, and stifling what I believe will be very net beneficial technology in its awkward youth is short sighted.
 
If bitcoins are only 0.25% of all UK consumption, then of course, you are right it is not relevant. Granted! On a global basis, this is a different matter of course.
 
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