Category: #Crypto Anarchy

Best Pool Rules

Best Pool Rules

In my opinion, more or less in order:

1) ย Lowest fees

1a) ย Shares transaction fees

1b) ย Any pool that does NOT share transaction fees should be rejected from consideration (which, unfortunately, is most, if not all, Chinese based pools)

2) ย Reasonable variance – You need to get paid often enough to be happy. This is a tough one.

Variance is the close cousin to “Luck”.

The luckier a pool is, the more blocks it finds relative to its hashing speed, and the less variance it will have. ย But its not a real thing! ย “Luck” could change any microsecond.
ย “Luck” is just mathematical statistics – over a long enough time period, all pools will average out to 100% luck.

Luck Statistik for 14 Blocks

You need to understand Variance:

A big pool finds more blocks, but distributes the earnings out to more miners. ย 

A small pool is just the reverse: ย it finds fewer blocks, but pays those earnings to fewer people. Over the long run, Rule #1, well, rules.

3) ย Wind-up/Wind-down time – Most pools use some leveling algorithm.

4) ย User Interface – That doesn’t matter much if you have a few miners. ย If you have hundreds, the difference can be thousands of dollars a Year.

Notes:

A) In the long run #2 & #3 really don’t matter much. ย Both pools show your hashing rate in minutes, payouts just lag on Kano compared to Slushpool, but would continue longer if you changed in the future

B) Bigger is not better. ย Sure Antpool is #1 in size, in no small part to Bitmain using their own pool (no fees for them!). ย  Your profit will be determined mostly by rule #1 – lower fees mean more profit.

C) More, smaller, pools is healthier for the blockchain. ย If you can live with the variance, support the pool with the longest average payout you are happy with.

D) For pools with long ramp up times that are relatively small, like Kano, you MIGHT suffer due to difficulty changes while you ramp up.

For smaller pools, make sure you understand what happens to your efforts (based on their scoring system) when a difficulty change occurs.

Executive Order 6102

History Lessons,
never to be forgotten!ยก

Executive Order 6102ย is anย executive orderย signed on April 5, 1933, byย US Presidentย Franklin D. Rooseveltย “forbidding theย hoardingย ofย gold coin,ย gold bullion, andย gold certificatesย within the continental United States.”

The executive order was made under the authority of theย Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917, as amended by theย Emergency Banking Actย in March 1933.

Summary

  • Forbade ownership of quantities ofย gold coin,ย bullion, andย gold certificatesย worth in excess of $100 (about 5ย troy ounces), with exemptions for specific uses and collections;
  • Required all persons to deliver excess quantities of the above on or before May 1, 1933 in exchange for $20.67 perย troy ounce;
  • Enabled Federal funding ofย Exchange Stabilization Fundย using profit realized from international transactions against new Federal reserves.

The limitation on gold ownership in the United States was repealed after Presidentย Gerald Fordย signed a bill legalizing private ownership of gold coins, bars, and certificates by an Act of Congress, codified inย Pub.L.93โ€“373,which went into effect December 31, 1974.

The stated reason for the order was that hard times had caused “hoarding” of gold, stalling economic growth and worsening theย depressionย as the US was then using theย gold standardย for its currency

On April 6, 1933,ย The New York Timesย wrote, under the headlineย Hoarding of Gold, “The Executive Order issued by the President yesterday amplifies and particularizes his earlier warnings against hoarding.

On March 6, taking advantage of aย wartime statuteย that had not been repealed, he issuedย Presidential Proclamationย 2039ย that forbade the hoarding ‘of gold or silver coin or bullion or currency’, under penalty of $10,000 and/or up to five to ten years imprisonment.”

The main rationale behind the order was actually to remove the constraint on the Federal Reserve preventing it from increasing the money supply during the depression.

Theย Federal Reserve Actย (1913) required 40% gold backing ofย Federal Reserve Notesย that were issued. By the late 1920s, theย Federal Reserveย had almost reached the limit of allowable credit, in the form of Federal Reserve demand notes, which could be backed by the gold in its possession.

Source:
https://wikipedia.com/

Bitcoin – Happy Pizza Day

Pizza Day is a day of regret.

We all know the story. Laszlo Hanyecz buys two Papa John’s pizzas and some lucky guy got 10,000 BTC on this day 12 years ago. The story is like that of Peter Minuit buying Manhattan Island for $24. We can hardly believe that such a thing was possible given its value today.

The story has a lot of interesting angles.

It was the first real-world good or service purchased with bitcoin.

It established bitcoin’s price, since the two pizzas cost about $41, one BTC was about $0.0041.

There’s also Laszlo, a guy whose innovation was mining bitcoin using GPUs (graphics processing units). He acted like a drunken sailor spending 100,000 BTC on pizzas, as he did the same deal several more times that month.

RENT-SEEKING DAYDREAMS

The part that everyone fantasizes about is being that guy that bought the 10,000 BTC for $41.

We don’t fantasize about being Laszlo because we aren’t GPU programming experts. We can, however, imagine being the guy on the bitcointalk forums offering to buy bitcoin for a couple of pizzas.

Pizza Day brings out that daydream of being a bitcoin billionaire from having made a single brilliant trade. We all hate the actual guy that made this trade because we want to be him. We see the guy as lucky, as having won the lottery and we are envious.

This fantasy is borne of a fiat mentality.

This hierarchy of values comes from fiat money. The desire is to be lucky instead of good. We would rather do no work and make money rather than provide goods and services and get paid.

It’s telling that the regret is about missed-out luck rather than missed-out innovation.

It’s easier in a fiat world to dream about being the guy that sold pizza than being the guy who had the foresight to mine with GPUs.

This is fiat accomplishment, getting lucky with money, versus real accomplishment which is earning the money by providing goods and services to the market.

Most people would rather get lucky being associated with an innovator than be the innovator themselves !!!

The Laws are Unjust

As we’ve seen over the many years that this rag has been written (and beyond) companies who are able to fund whole teams dedicated to data security have been wholly ineffective at storing that data safely.

With the passage of this new law EU officials are actively putting citizens in harm’s way by irresponsibly trying to force bitcoin users to collect and store each other’s data. This is if you believe that is the actual intention behind this move.

In reality, this move likely serves as a pure intimidation tactic to coerce people to use trusted third parties when transacting with bitcoin.

A heavy handed shove into easily controlled vectors. If too many users are in control of their own private keys, run their own nodes, and are up to date on best privacy practices when transacting it is much harder to stop bitcoin.

And make no mistake, these people want to stop bitcoin at all costs.

They do not want you to be free.

They are quickly losing their grasp of control on the populace and they are moving as quickly as possible to clamp down in an attempt to retain control.

You are not meant to have privacy in their eyes. You are inherently a criminal in their eyes. These people think you are disgusting cattle who needs to be led at every turn.

It does not have to be this way. You do not have to succumb to the madness of these people. All it takes are a few decisions.

Speak up!

Act!

Disobey!

There is a silent majority out there who knows this type of attempted control is inherently wrong.

It is anti-human!

It is evil!

This silent majority needs to begin developing the courage to speak up.

Call out the abject insanity of allowing unelected institutions like the Financial Action Task Force write freedom restricting guidelines that get adopted by governments like the EU.

Learn how to run your own node, how to produce your own private/public key pairs, and how to destroy chain analysis heuristics with privacy best practices.

Make the tyrant’s job as hard as possible!

Disobey!

Stand up and defend freedom in the Digital Age by actively defying their unjust laws.

“If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he obligated to do so.”

It is your duty as an individual to disobey these incredibly invasive and tyrannical “laws”.

If you don’t disobey your progeny may not have the opportunity to. The time to counter punch is right now. Get on it.

Source: https://tftc.io/

19 Million bitcoin in Circulation

Source: https://coinpayments.com/

The monetary properties of Bitcoin

bitcoin vs gold
bitcoin vs fiat

Bitcoin is a monetary good โ€” a new form of money. As Bitcoin is a money, it must be compared to other monies to consider the comparative advantages of Bitcoin and from that consider further the probabilities of Bitcoin winning ground or not in the competition between monies.

Brief summarization of the monetary properties

Summarization of the monetary properties of Bitcoin compared to precious metals and fiat currencies

As the exhibit above showcases, Bitcoin offers many different distinct and compelling competitive advantages to the alternatives.

These include, but are not limited to:

1. Bitcoin is the first asset in the human history to provide any holder a very sure case of unseizability and censorship- and judgment-resistance for their funds.

โ—ฆ Unseizability: With precious metals and fiat currencies, the custodianship is mostly in the hands of trusted custodians that is subject to any intervention by a government or authority.

Bitcoin, with self-custody being orders of magnitude easier than with precious metals and fiat currencies, and access to the corresponding private key of funds being the sole way to access and move funds, no one can seize your bitcoins.

โ—ฆ Censorship- and judgment resistance: With precious metals and fiat currencies, the payment clearing for small value transactions can with not much hassle be somewhat censorship resistant if the involved parties are willing to transact in the physical units of precious metals and fiat currencies and to self-custody the funds going forward.

However, with non-small value transactions it is exceedingly inconvenient and costly for transactions of precious metals and fiat currencies to happen in the offline, with physical units and self-custody going forward, leaving the centralized intermediaries as the only option and these are subject to any intervention by a government or authority.

Bitcoin, with the payment clearing involving no centralized intermediaries but instead a decentralized and distributed setup requiring no AML/KYC, the result is that of a the payment clearing process being permissionless, allowing anyone with cryptographic access to funds to move them at their will.

2. Bitcoin provides an inherently apolitical global monetary unit. It is truly border-less, with no recognition of any jurisdictional rules and laws, allowing the jurisdiction of a counterpart in any transaction to be of no relevance.

โ—ฆ Fiat currencies are highly political and precious metals are less political than fiat currencies, but still much more political than Bitcoin.

โ—ฆ Bitcoin is truly border-less: any bitcoin funds can be accessed anywhere on the planet by having access to information that can even be stored inside a human brain and reliably retrieved at small effort โ€” and, crucially, with no intermediary and no permission required the bitcoin funds can be moved to anywhere in the world with final settlement in the next block.

3. Bitcoin provides scarcity and salability through time characteristics vastly superior to any other monetary options, including fiat currencies and precious metals.

โ—ฆ The non-discretionary monetary policy of the bitcoin networking allowing for the asymptotic money supply* of 21 million BTC is built into the literal definition of the protocol. This is a drastic contrast to the arbitrary scarcity of fiat currencies governed by politics.

The scarcity of precious metals is much better than fiat currencies, but Bitcoin with the strictly fixed money supply outperforms any precious metal.

Bitcoin provides any holder a reassurance stronger than any other asset in the world that their ownership stake in the total quantity of Bitcoin on the market will never diluted.

One BTC of 21 million will always be one BTC of 21 million.

โ—ฆ Bitcoins are infinitely durable, impossible to counterfeit or dilute, can be stored at no cost and at no degradation.

* By inventing Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto created the first example of a digital good (in this case, monetary good) that is impossible to reproduce ad infinitum, thereby creating the first instance of human history of digital scarcity.

Less talked about it, but perhaps more important, Satoshi Nakamoto with Bitcoin also created the first example of a good being absolute scarce.

Previously, any consideration of scarcity of a good was relative. Any physical good is never absolutely scarce, onlyrelatively scarce when compared to other goods โ€” simply because any limit on a physical goods is a function of the time and human effort put towards producing the good.

Bitcoin, with the asymptotic monetary supply built into the protocol, is therefore the first example of absolute scarcity in a liquid commodity and good that cannot have its fixed quantity of supply increased.

People’s Money
Power to the People
The seed has been planted …
Make it Thrive !!!
Choose
Veritas non Auctoritas …
Choose Wisely

Trilemma of International Finance

Trilemma of International Finance

The relative value of any two curren-
ciesโ€”the exchange rateโ€”is determined
through their sale and purchase on the global foreign exchange market. If government policy interferes with this market by changing the relative supply or demand of currencies, the exchange rate is managed.

The trilemma of international finance, is a restriction on government policy that follows immediately from the interaction of exchange rates, monetary policy and international capital flows.

Trilemma of International Finance

The trilemma states that any country can have only two of the following:

  • (1) Unrestricted international capital markets.
  • (2) A managed exchange rate.
  • (3) An independent monetary policy.

If the government wants a managed exchange rate but does not want to interfere
with international capital flows, it must use
monetary policy to accommodate changes
in the demand for its currency in order to
stabilize the exchange rate.

In the extreme, this would take the form of a currency board arrangement, where the domestic currency is fully backed by a foreign currency (as in the case of Hong Kong).

In such a situation, monetary policy can no longer be used for domestic purposes (it is no longer independent).

If a country wishes to maintain control over monetary policy to reduce domestic unemployment or inflation, for example, it must limit trades of its currency in the international capital market (it no longer has free international capital markets).

A country that chooses to have both unrestricted inter-national capital flows and an independent monetary policy can no longer influence its exchange rate and, therefore, cannot have a managed exchange rate.

Pieters and Vivanco (2016), government
attempts to regulate the globally accessible
bitcoin markets are generally unsuccessful,
and, as shown in Pieters (2016), bitcoin exchange rates tend to reflect the
market, not official exchange rates.

Should the flows allowed by bitcoin become big enough, all countries will have, by default, unrestricted international capital markets.

Thus, with bitcoin, (1) unrestricted
international capital markets is chosen by
default.

Therefore, the only remaining policy choice is between (2) managed exchange rates or (3) independent monetary policy.

If the country chooses (1) and (2), it must use reactive monetary policy to achieve the managed exchange rate.

If the country chooses (1) and (3), it must have a floating exchange rate because it has no remaining tools with which to maintain a managed exchange rate.

Ali et al. (2014), the European Central
Bank (2015) and the Bank for International
Settlements (2015) all concur that cryptocur-
rencies may eventually undermine monetary policy.

With ๐Ÿ’š

Convergence of blockchain with AI and IOT

IoT and AI are growing exponentially

Internet of Things – IoT

A future of transacting intelligent machines

โ€ข Individually, each of these technologies deserves all the attention they’re getting as enablers and disruptors

โ€ข But, taken together?

โ€ข Their transformative effect becomes multiplicative

โ€ข A future driven by machine connectivity, data exchange and commercial services:

  • IoT connects billions of machines and sensors generate unprecedented quantities of real-time data
  • AI enables the machines to act on data and trigger services
  • Blockchain functions are the transaction layer where data and service contracts are securely stored and payments for services are settled

How does blockchain support intelligent connected machines?

โ€ข Smart Contracts enable self-executing and self-enforcing contractual states

  • Custom financial instruments (tokens), records of ownership of an underlying physical asset (smart property), any
  • complex business logic that can be programmable
  • Can such applications be ideal for intelligent (AI) and connected (IoT) machines?
  • These machines are intelligent enough to negotiate contracts, but need a technology allowing them to securely sign and enforce them

โ€ข Digital currencies create new forms of money

  • Programmable and active
  • Will such money be ideal for intelligent (AI) and connected (IoT) machines?
  • These machines will need digital currency to pay for services assigned through the smart contracts

How will the three technologies work together?

IoT – Internet of Things

  • Sensors allow us to cost-effectively gather tremendous amounts of data.
  • Connectivity allows us to transmit/broadcast these data.
  • But, there is a missing element: intelligence to process these data.

AI – Artificial Intelligence

  • Intelligence at the very edges of the network (mini-brains).
  • Combine with IoT and you have the ability to recognize meaningful patterns buried in mountains of data in ways that would be impossible for most humans, or even non-AI algorithms, to do.
  • But, there is a missing element: a secure storage layer for data and a transaction layer for services

DLT (blockchain) – Distributed Ledger Technology

  • Decentralized governance, coupled with no single point of failure, disintermediation, unalterable and searchable records of events.
  • Digital currencies and tokenized custom financial instruments.
  • Combine with AI and IoT and you have a new world of autonomous systems interacting with each other, procuring services from each other and settling transactions.

The technology stack of the future

Technology Stack of the Future

Toward a world of machine commerce

A world of Machine Commerce

M2M will need SSI (self-sovereign identities) – for objects!

Human Identities types

Object identities can be SSI by default

  • Multi-source, multi-verifier
  • Digitally signed, verifiable credentials that can prove issuer, holder and status
  • Secure peer-to-peer connections (permanent or session-based)
  • Exchange full credentials, partial credentials or ZKPs derived from credentials

Next milestone: Decentralized Organizations (DOs)

DOs are good at:

  • Coordinating resources that do not know/trust each other (including hybrid
  • H/M)
  • Governing in a geography-agnostic, censorship-resistant manner
  • Enabling short-term or informal organizational structures  (networks/communities)
  • Tracking and rewarding contribution

Challenges

  • Jurisdictional issues
  • Legislating new types of work for humans and work rules for machines
  • Governance modalities, including external supervision

Challenges

New/upgraded system architectures

โ€ข From legacy to blockchain/AI/IoT-native systems
โ€ข Integration, interoperability, backward compatibility
โ€ข ROI obvious ex post, difficult ex ante โ€“ Bootstrapping

Advanced analytics capabilities

โ€ข As devices at the edge become smarter, the smart contracts enabled by blockchain platforms will require more advanced data analytics capabilities and gateways to the physical world.

New Business Models

  • Disruptive innovation will dominate โ€“ but not without boom-and-bust cycles and big failures along the way.
  • Winners will NOT be the ones focusing on efficiency gains, but on disruptive models.

Key takeaways

โ€ข IoT, AI and DLT (blockchain) are foundational and exponentially growing technologies

  • When combined, they will create a new internet of connected, intelligent and commercially transacting machines
  • An era machine-to-machine (M2M) and human-to-machine (H2M) commerce is likely to emerge, with profound consequences on social and economic dynamics
  • New forms of corporations or organizational formats (code-only, autonomous) will emerge

โ€ข There are numerous challenges that must be overcome

  • IoT has outpaced the human internet, but is still a largely passive, insecure and privacy-vulnerable network
  • AI has made huge leaps, but still requires immense computational resources and is largely incompatible with edge computing
  • DLT is a new technology, largely untested at scale; both smart contracts and digital assets lack the regulatory clarity required for mass adoption

This work is available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivatives license
ยฉ University of Nicosia,
Institute for the Future, unic.ac.cy/blockchain

With ๐Ÿ’š

Au – ๐Ÿ’ฒ – โ‚ฟ

Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from Latin: aurum) and atomic number 79, making it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally.

It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal in a pure form.

Chemically, gold is a transition metal and a group 11 element. It is one of the least reactive chemical elements and is solid under standard conditions.

Gold often occurs in free elemental (native) form, as nuggets or grains, in rocks, veins, and alluvial deposits. It occurs in a solid solution series with the native element  silver (as electrum), naturally alloyed with other metals like copper and palladium, and mineral inclusions such as within pyrite.

Less commonly, it occurs in minerals as gold compounds, often with tellurium (gold tellurides).

A relatively rare element, gold is a precious metal that has been used for coinage,  jewelry, and other arts throughout recorded history.

In the past, a gold standard was often implemented as a monetary policy.

Still, gold coins ceased to be minted as a circulating currency in the 1930s, and the world gold standard was abandoned for a fiat currency system after 1971.

As of 2017, the world’s largest gold producer by far was China, with 440 tonnes per year.

A total of around 201,296 tonnes of gold exists above ground, as of 2020. This is equal to a cube with each side measuring roughly 21.7 meters (71 ft).

Gold’s high malleability, ductility, resistance to corrosion and most other chemical reactions, and conductivity of electricity have led to its continued use in corrosion-resistant electrical connectors in all types of computerized devices (its chief industrial use).

The world consumption of new gold produced is about 50% in jewelry, 40% in investments and 10% in industry.

Gold is also used in infrared shielding,  colored-glass production, gold leafing, and tooth restoration. Certain gold salts are still used as anti-inflammatories in medicine.

F I A T

Fiat money (from Latin: fiat, “let it be done”) is a type of money that is not backed by any commodity such as gold or silver, and typically declared by a decree from the government to be legal tender.

Throughout history, fiat money was sometimes issued by local banks and other institutions. In modern times, fiat money is generally established by government regulation.

Yuan dynasty banknotes are a
medieval form of fiat money

Fiat money does not have intrinsic value  and does not have use value. It has value only because the people who use it as a medium of exchange agree on its value. They trust that it will be accepted by merchants and other people.

Fiat money is an alternative to commodity money, which is a currency that has intrinsic value because it contains a precious metal such as gold or silver which is embedded in the coin.

Fiat also differs from representative money, which is money that has intrinsic value because it is backed by and can be converted into a precious metal or another commodity.

Fiat money can look similar to representative money (such as paper bills), but the former has no backing, while the latter represents a claim on a commodity (which can be redeemed to a greater or lesser extent).

Government-issued fiat money  banknotes  were used first during the 11th century in China.

Fiat money started to predominate during the 20th century.

Since President Richard Nixon‘s decision to default on the US dollar convertibility to gold in 1971, a system of national fiat currencies has been used globally.

Fiat money can be:

  • Any money that is not backed by a commodity.
  • Money declared by a person, institution or government to be legal tender, meaning that it must be accepted in payment of a debt in specific circumstances.
  • State-issued money which is neither convertible through a central bank to anything else nor fixed in value in terms of any objective standard.
  • Money used because of government decree.
  • An otherwise non-valuable object that serves as a medium of exchange (also known as fiduciary money.)

The term fiat derives from the Latin word  fiat, meaning “let it be done” used in the sense of an order, decree or resolution.

Bitcoin – Digital Gold

The most common, and best, ways to think about bitcoin is as “digital gold”.

Like gold, bitcoin doesn’t rely on a central issuer, can’t have its supply manipulated by any authority, and has fundamental properties long considered important for a monetary good and store of value.

Unlike gold, bitcoin is extremely easy and cheap to “transport”, and trivial to verify its authenticity.

Bitcoin is also “programmable”. This means custody of bitcoin can be extremely flexible. It can be split amongst a set of people (“key holders”), backed up and encrypted, or even frozen-in-place until a certain date in the future. This is all done without a central authority managing the process.

You can walk across a national border with bitcoin “stored” in your head by memorizing a key.

The similarities to gold, plus the unique features possible because bitcoin is purely digital, give it the “digital gold” moniker.

Sharing fundamental properties with gold means it shares use-cases with gold, such as hedging inflation and political uncertainty.

But being digital, bitcoin adds capabilities that are especially relevant in our modern electronic times.

The world does indeed need a digital version of gold.

People’s Money
With ๐Ÿ’š

Bitcoin surges after accidentally released Treasury statement

Bitcoin surges after accidentally released Treasury statement

Prices of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have soared following the apparent accidental release of a U.S. Treasury statement on Bidenโ€™s expected executive order on digital assets.

The premature statement by Treasury Secretary Yellen, which was dated March 9, hasย since been removed.

โ€œPresident Bidenโ€™s historic executive order calls for a coordinated and comprehensive approach to digital asset policy.ย  This approach will support responsible innovation that could result in substantial benefits for the nation, consumers, and businesses.ย 

It will also address risks related to illicit finance, protecting consumers and investors, and preventing threats to the financial system and broader economy.โ€

Quote from the now deleted statement

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is up nearly 8% in the last 24 hours.

Bidenโ€™s executive order aims to regulate the crypto market while also reaping the benefits of digital currencies.

So far, like most countries in the world, the US has tended to react to developments and has limited itself to pointing to a political-economic approach that is yet to be developed.

Statement by Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen on President Biden’s Executive Order on Digital Assets

March 9, 2022

WASHINGTON –ย  U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen released the following statement on President Biden’s executive order on digital assets.ย 

“President Bidenโ€™s historic executive order calls for a coordinated and comprehensive approach to digital asset policy.ย  This approach will support responsible innovation that could result in substantial benefits for the nation, consumers, and businesses.ย  It will also address risks related to illicit finance, protecting consumers and investors, and preventing threats to the financial system and broader economy.

Under the executive order, Treasury will partner with interagency colleagues to produce a report on the future of money and payment systems. Weโ€™ll also convene the Financial Stability Oversight Council to evaluate the potential financial stability risks of digital assets and assess whether appropriate safeguards are in place. And, because the questions raised by digital assets often have important cross-border dimensions, weโ€™ll work with our international partners to promote robust standards and a level playing field.

This work will complement ongoing efforts by Treasury. Already, the Department has worked with the Presidentโ€™s Working Group on Financial Markets, the FDIC, and OCC to study one particular kind of digital asset โ€“ stablecoinsโ€“ and to make recommendations. Under the executive order, Treasury and interagency partners will build upon the recently published National Risk Assessments, which identify key illicit financing risks associated with digital assets.ย 

As we take on this important work, weโ€™ll be guided by consumer and investor protection groups, market participants, and other leading experts. ย Treasury will work to promote a fairer, more inclusive, and more efficient financial system, while building on our ongoing work to counter illicit finance, and prevent risks to financial stability and national security.”

Sources:

https://forbes.com/

https://disclose.tv/

https://bloomberg.com/

https://web.archive.org/web/20220309014601/https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy0643

With ๐Ÿ’š

ASICs vs. SuperComputers

Asics
SuperComputers

ASICs vs Supercomputers

Assigning the most powerful supercomputer to mine bitcoin would be comparable to hiring a grandmaster chess player to move a pile of bricks by hand.

The job would get done eventually but the chess player is much better at thinking and playing chess than exerting energy to repetitively move bricks.ย 

Likewise, combining the computing power of the most powerful supercomputers in the world and using them to mine bitcoin would essentially be pointless when compared to the ASIC machines used today.

ASICs are designed to do one thing as quickly and efficiently as possible, whereas a supercomputer is designed to do complicated tasks or math problems.

Since Bitcoin mining is a lottery based on random trial and error rather than complex math, specialization (ASICs) beats general excellence (supercomputers) everytime.

End of Lesson !!!

Made with ๐Ÿ’š by Free Spirit

โœŒ & ๐Ÿ’š

With ๐Ÿ’š

P.O.W In Human History

Proof Of Work

in the

History of Humankind

Great Pyramid of Giza (a.k.a)
Pyramid of Khu
Egypt

The Great Pyramid of Giza (also known as the Pyramid of Khufu or the Pyramid of Cheops) is the oldest and largest of the  pyramids in the Giza pyramid complex  bordering present-day Giza  in Greater Cairo, Egypt.

It is the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and the only one to remain largely intact.

Egyptologists conclude that the pyramid was built as a tomb for the Fourth Dynasty  Egyptian pharaoh Khufu and estimate that it was built in the 26th century BC during a period of around 27 years.

Initially standing at 146.5 metres (481 feet), the Great Pyramid was the tallest man-made structure in the world for more than 3,800 years.

Over time, most of the smooth white limestone casing was removed, which lowered the pyramid’s height to the present 138.5 metres (454.4 ft).

What is seen today is the underlying core structure. The base was measured to be about 230.3 metres (755.6 ft) square, giving a volume of roughly 2.6 million cubic metres (92 million cubic feet), which includes an internal hillock.

The dimensions of the pyramid were 280 royal cubits (146.7 m; 481.4 ft) high, a base length of 440 cubits (230.6 m; 756.4 ft), with a seked of 5+1/2 palms (a slope of 51ยฐ50’40”).

The Great Pyramid was built by quarrying an estimated 2.3 million large blocks weighing 6 million tonnes total.

The majority of stones are not uniform in size or shape and are only roughly dressed.The outside layers were bound together by mortar.

Primarily local limestone from the Giza Plateau was used. Other blocks were imported by boat down the Nile: White limestone from Tura for the casing, and granite blocks from Aswan, weighing up to 80 tonnes, for the King’s Chamber structure.

There are three known chambers inside the Great Pyramid. The lowest was cut into the bedrock, upon which the pyramid was built, but remained unfinished. The so-called Queen’s Chamber and King’s Chamber, that contains a granite sarcophagus, are higher up, within the pyramid structure. Khufu’s vizier, Hemiunu (also called Hemon), is believed by some to be the architect of the Great Pyramid.

Many varying scientific and alternative hypotheses attempt to explain the exact construction techniques.

The funerary complex around the pyramid consisted of two mortuary temples  connected by a causeway (one close to the pyramid and one near the Nile), tombs for the immediate family and court of Khufu, including three smaller pyramids for Khufu’s wives, an even smaller “satellite pyramid” and five buried solar barges.

Flavian Amphitheatre
a.k.a Colloseum
Rome – Italy

The Colosseum (Colosseo[kolosหˆsษ›หo]) is an oval amphitheatre in the centre of the city of Rome, Italy, just east of the Roman Forum.

It is the largest ancient amphitheatre ever built, and is still the largest standing amphitheatre in the world today, despite its age.

Construction began under the emperor Vespasian (r. 69โ€“79 AD) in 72 and was completed in 80 AD under his successor and heir, Titus (r. 79โ€“81).

Further modifications were made during the reign of Domitian (r. 81โ€“96).

The three emperors that were patrons of the work are known as the Flavian dynasty, and the amphitheatre was named the Flavian Amphitheatre (Latin: Amphitheatrum Flavium; Italian: Anfiteatro Flavio[aษฑfiteหˆaหtro หˆflaหvjo]) by later classicists and  archaeologists for its association with their family name (Flavius).

The Colosseum is built of travertine limestone, tuff (volcanic rock), and brick-faced concrete.

The Colosseum could hold an estimated 50,000 to 80,000 spectators at various points in its history  having an average audience of some 65,000; it was used for gladiatorial  contests and  public spectacles including  animal hunts, executions, re-enactments of famous battles, and dramas based on Roman mythology, and briefly mock sea battles.

The building ceased to be used for entertainment in the early medieval era.

It was later reused for such purposes as housing, workshops, quarters for a religious order, a fortress, a quarry, and a Christian shrine.

Although substantially ruined because of earthquakes and stone-robbers (for spolia), the Colosseum is still an iconic symbol of Imperial Rome and was listed as one of the New 7 Wonders of the World.

It is one of Rome’s most popular tourist attractions and also has links to the Roman Catholic Church, as each Good Friday  the Pope leads a torchlit “Way of the Cross” procession that starts in the area around the Colosseum.

The Colosseum is also depicted on the Italian version of the five-cent euro coin.

The Ming dynasty
Great Wall
at Jinshanling

The Great Wall of China (traditional Chinese: ่ฌ้‡Œ้•ทๅŸŽ; simplified Chinese: ไธ‡้‡Œ้•ฟๅŸŽ; pinyin: Wร nlว Chรกngchรฉng) is a series of fortifications that were built across the historical northern borders of ancient Chinese states and Imperial China as protection against various nomadic groups from the Eurasian Steppe.

Several walls were built from as early as the 7th century BC,with selective stretches later joined together by Qin Shi Huang  (220โ€“206 BC), the first emperor of China.

Little of the Qin wall remains. Later on, many successive dynasties built and maintained multiple stretches of border walls. The best-known sections of the wall were built by the Ming dynasty (1368โ€“1644).

Apart from defense, other purposes of the Great Wall have included border controls, allowing the imposition of duties on goods transported along the Silk Road, regulation or encouragement of trade and the control of immigration and emigration.

Furthermore, the defensive characteristics of the Great Wall were enhanced by the construction of watchtowers, troop barracks, garrison stations, signaling capabilities through the means of smoke or fire, and the fact that the path of the Great Wall also served as a transportation corridor.

The frontier walls built by different dynasties have multiple courses. Collectively, they stretch from Liaodong in the east to Lop Lake in the west, from the present-day Sinoโ€“Russian border in the north to Tao River (Taohe) in the south; along an arc that roughly delineates the edge of the Mongolian steppe; spanning 21,196.18 km (13,170.70 mi) in total.

Today, the defensive system of the Great Wall is generally recognized as one of the most impressive architectural feats in history.

As history has left behind, monumental architectural constructions that we can admire and reamain in awe as we look at them, after thousands of years since the first stone was put, in today’s world our digital PoW can be seen and admired the same as the Great Wall of China or the Piramid of Giza !!!

Wich brings us to the question, what is Free talking about ?!?

Long Live the CypherPunks
CypherPunks Write Code
Genesis
Bitcoin Genesis Block
Mined 03 January 2009
The Times
January 3, 2009
Bitcoin – Proof Of Work


Bitcoin-type Proof Of Work

In 2009, the Bitcoin network went online. Bitcoin is a proof-of-work digital currency that, like Finney’s RPoW, is also based on the Hashcash PoW.

But in Bitcoin, double-spend protection is provided by a decentralized P2P protocol for tracking transfers of coins, rather than the hardware trusted computing function used by RPoW.

Bitcoin has better trustworthiness because it is protected by computation. Bitcoins are “mined” using the Hashcash proof-of-work function by individual miners and verified by the decentralized nodes in the P2P bitcoin network.

The difficulty is periodically adjusted to keep the block time around a target time.

Since the creation of Bitcoin, proof-of-work has been the predominant design of peer-to-peer cryptocurrency. Studies have estimated the total energy consumption of cryptocurrency mining.

The PoW mechanism requires a vast amount of computing resources, which consume a significant amount of electricity. Recent estimates from the University of Cambridge put Bitcoinโ€™s energy consumption as equal to that of Switzerland.

History modification

Each block that is added to the blockchain, starting with the block containing a given transaction, is called a confirmation of that transaction.

Ideally, merchants and services that receive payment in the cryptocurrency should wait for at least one confirmation to be distributed over the network, before assuming that the payment was done.

The more confirmations that the merchant waits for, the more difficult it is for an attacker to successfully reverse the transaction in a blockchainโ€”unless the attacker controls more than half the total network power, in which case it is called a 51% attack.

2ASICs and mining pools

Within the Bitcoin community there are groups working together in mining pools.

Some miners use application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) for PoW. This trend toward mining pools and specialized ASICs has made mining some cryptocurrencies economically infeasible for most players without access to the latest ASICs, nearby sources of inexpensive energy, or other special advantages.

Some PoWs claim to be ASIC-resistant,  i.e. to limit the efficiency gain that an ASIC can have over commodity hardware, like a GPU, to be well under an order of magnitude.

ASIC resistance has the advantage of keeping mining economically feasible on commodity hardware, but also contributes to the corresponding risk that an attacker can briefly rent access to a large amount of unspecialized commodity processing power to launch a 51% attack against a cryptocurrency.

Plant the Seed
The choice is Yours
Choose Wisely
The Choice is Yours
With ๐Ÿ’š

Bitcoin Mining – Where the Profitable Future Lies

The Times – January 3, 2009
Bitcoin Genesis Block
Mined 03 January 2009
Cypherpunks Write Code
CODE IS LAW
THE SOONER HUMANKIND ACCEPTS IT,
THE SOONER IT CAN BUILD AROUND IT
Yeah.. I wonder Why ๐Ÿ˜‚
Bitcoin made easy
How a Bitcoin transaction works
A humble Miner
How Bitcoin Mining Works
Mining Difficulty
Bitcoin Halving
Bitcoin Previous Halvings
Pools
Bitcoin Wallets
Bitcoin Stakeholders
Bitcoin Facts
Power to the People
Totalitarian Governments can kiss my 256-bit key
Bitcoin – People’s Money
Bitcoin cannot be Shut Down
The power of the long tail…
Central Bank’s 3 Strategies
F**k them, Enough !!!
Upcoming Smart Contracts Networks
Bitcoin Yearly Candles
Bitcoin Price History – Log Scale
Bitcoin Mining Ecosystem Map
Defi Ecosystem in Ethereum
DeFi Stack: Product& Application View
Syscoin Ecosystem
Syscoin
BSC Ecosystem
Popular Cryptocurrency
Crpto Ecosystem
Public Companies that own Bitcoin
Top Banks investing in Crypto
Bitcoin Inflation vs. Time
When you’re Ready…
Choose Wisely
Make bitcoin thrive, let fiat become humus…
Veritas non Auctoritas
Facit Legem

Most people misunderstand what bitcoin miners actually do, and as a result they don’t fully grasp the level of security provided by bitcoin’s hashrate.

In this article, we’ll explain proof of work in a non-technical way so that youโ€™ll be able to counter the misinformation about supercomputers and quantum computers attacking the Bitcoin network in the future. 

Simply put, mining is a lottery to create new blocks in the Bitcoin blockchain. There are two main purposes for mining:

  1. To permanently add transactions to the blockchain without the permission of any entity.
  2. To fairly distribute the 21 million bitcoin supply by rewarding new coins to miners who spend real world resources (i.e. electricity) to secure the network.

To understand what is actually happening in this lottery system, let’s look at a simple analogy where every Bitcoin hash is equivalent to a dice roll.

Luck, Gambling, and SHA-256

Imagine that miners in the Bitcoin Network are all individuals gambling at a casino. In this example, each of these gamblers have a 1000 sided dice. They roll their die as quickly as possible, trying to get a number less than 10. Statistically, this may take a very long time, but as more gamblers join the game, the time it takes to hit a number less than 10 gets reduced. In short, more gamblers equals quicker rounds.

Once somebody successfully rolls a number less than 10, all gamblers at the table can look down and verify the number. This lucky gambler takes the prize money and the next round begins.

Ultimately, the process of mining bitcoin is very similar. All miners on the network are using Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), which are specialized computers designed to compute hashes as quickly as possible.

To โ€œcompute a hashโ€ simply means plugging any random input into a mathematical function and producing an output.

More hashes per second (i.e. higher hashrate) is equivalent to more dice rolls per second, and thus a greater probability of success.

Miners propose a potential Bitcoin block of transactions, and use this for an input. The block is plugged into the SHA256 hash function which yields a fixed-sized output, known as a hash. A single hash can be computed in less than a millisecond, as it involves no complex math.

If the hash value is lower than the Bitcoin Network difficulty, then the miner who proposed the block wins. If not, then the miner continues trying by computing more hashes.

The successful minerโ€™s block is then added to the blockchain, the miner is rewarded with newly issued bitcoin for their work, and the โ€œnext roundโ€ begins.

Sources :

https://wikipedia.com/

https://braiins.com/

https://blockdata.com/

https://coin98analytics.com/

https://scoopwhoop.com/

https://stakingrewards.com/

https://syscoin.org/

https://galaxydigitalresearch.com/

https://surveycrest.com/

The Times

The Economist

"Internet of Money" - Andreas Antonopoulus

Hal Finney Quotes

Timothy C. May Quote

Free Spirit Digital Art

!ยฐ! If I forgot someone, sorry ! Do tell and I'll add you as a source of inspiration on the list !!! Thanks for understanding !!!

Questions, opinions, critics and requests always welcomed and as time allows will be accomodated !!! ๐Ÿค“ ๐Ÿ™‚ ๐Ÿ˜‰

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A world where anything is possible…
The choice is yours People !!!
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