Ukraine busts Bitcoin mining operation, Texas embraces one

[thewayne]

The Ukraine operation was stealing power from the grid at an order of $260,000 PER MONTH! using rigged power meters. The equipment seized included 5,000 PCs and 3,800 PlayStations, along with various other things. One hopes they also seized a bunch of the mined Bitcoins!

https://www.yahoo.com/news/look-inside-underground-crypto-mining-090129713.html


The Texas operation. Sigh. Because Texas has cheap energy and an absolutely infallible power grid, an operation has started up there that, when completed, will consume 750 MEGAWATTS of energy. The mayor of the town is so invested that he himself has his own server rack mining Bitcoin.

As an example, 750 megawatts is enough to power 150,000 homes. And Bitcoins are backed by - absolutely nothing. They're vaporware backed by the faith of the people who have bought them and are willing to buy and sell them. They've been proven to be no where near as anonymous as originally touted, witnessed by the number of people in prison for illegal drug, weapon, and murder for hire attempts, such as the operators of the Silk Road.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-miners-break-ground-texas-213205425.html


Greed over common sense, any and every day.

Comments

[dewline]

Well, this is one more terrifying thing.

[warriorsavant]

Technically ALL currency is only backed by faith. No one still on the gold standard, but for that matter, believing gold has value is itself a leap of faith. The difference is that there is a remote chance that the US, Canadian, or Chinese gov't (maybe) will honor their commitments. Bitcoin started out as an alternative currency, but has become simply a speculative investment vehicle. (Plus, as you say, it is not as anonymous as touted.)

[thewayne]

I agree, currency really is backed by faith, but at least you have a government that is taking a great risk by defaulting on the value of it.  I didn't have the time to, nor feel like, exploring that angle this morning when I did the original post.  Gold was a somewhat reasonable standard in its day, but very limited in what it could represent and the industrial revolution rapidly eclipsed it until it was meaningless and currency standards became an abstraction.  What I love are the idiots who think it's possible to return to the gold standard!

[silveradept]

I would have thought we taught people better about valuations and fiat currencies, but apparently you say the word "blockchain" and there are plenty of rubes who think that the technology itself is valuable enough, even though it's pretty clear that the price of coins and NFTs is like any other thing - whatever the market will bear for them.

[thewayne]

I read an interesting description of what bitcoin is: it's a fan club.  I think that's an excellent summary of it.  There may be some value behind blockchain, I haven't yet had it conclusively proven to me, but there may be something to it.  But it's just a fan club for people to throw money at.  Well, a pyramid scheme and a fan club.  If you got in and out at the right times, you could have made a lot of money.  Otherwise, it's just a weird game.

[silveradept]

I mean, that describes the stock market pretty well. Really well, actually. So I think you've got the right of it.

[thewayne]

At least there's a little substance behind the stock market: you own a piece of paper that represents fractional ownership in a company, and sometimes a piece of say in the direction of the company.

[silveradept]

True. Never really enough that any one person who isn't already fabulously wealthy would be able to influence the direction of things, but some amount of investment in the hopes that the company does well. (Even if most of the time, we're doing things for their money-making purposes rather than whether we believe in the company and its direction.