“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
Lao Tzu
The First step …๐ค๐๐ค Brings me back on the memory lane… In the ancient times of 2011, when I read for the first time about this BitCorn thing…
Then, I read the WhitePaper… As much or little as I understood at the time, I had a strange Sehnsucht about it and went down the proverbial rabbit hole…
Only to discover with amazement and dismay… It’s the Moria’s Mines down here…
In a first, Bitcoin developers have done something amazing amid the criticism over the lightning network and issues associated with it. A team of developers has made an international payment using the radio … Continue reading International payment using the radio waves→
My inspiration for this page was given to me by my new aquired friend, a fellow Truth Seeker – Joris and to whom I dedicate this page… Wish you… as well as to … Continue reading Discipline Quotes→
Bitcoin white paper turns 15 and the Legacy of Satoshi Nakamoto lives on. โIโve been working on a new electronic cash system thatโs fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party,โ Satoshi Oct. 31, … Continue reading Bitcoin White Paper turn 15→
I bet you all the “Free” Cbdc’s the governments are going to give you in the next couple of years, that poor littl’ George Orwell rolls in his grave and burns inside of Envy… because his imagination fades compared to the nightmare bound to come in a city near you !!!
By all means and preety please DO NOT TAKE MY WORD FOR IT but instead D.Y.O.R. (Do Your Own Research) and reach your own conclusions !!!
In a first, Bitcoin developers have done something amazing amid the criticism over the lightning network and issues associated with it. A team of developers has made an international payment using the radio … Continue reading International payment using the radio waves→
My inspiration for this page was given to me by my new aquired friend, a fellow Truth Seeker – Joris and to whom I dedicate this page… Wish you… as well as to … Continue reading Discipline Quotes→
Bitcoin white paper turns 15 and the Legacy of Satoshi Nakamoto lives on. โIโve been working on a new electronic cash system thatโs fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party,โ Satoshi Oct. 31, … Continue reading Bitcoin White Paper turn 15→
Here are just a few examples of what that sort of total control may look like:
Government in total control
The government could not only withhold money whenever they deemed fit but they could also devalue the currency.
Lack of privacy
The government will be aware of all of your financial information, what you owe and to whom, what you are spending money on, and what assets you have.
The end of personal security
No longer can you โhideโ savings under your mattress. The government will always know how much you have and will have access to it.
Tracking of purchases
The government will be able to track everything you purchaseโand potentially stop you from buying it. Letโs say it is something the political party in charge disagrees with, such as legalized marijuana. They can track you and prevent you from purchasing it again.
Tracking pornography purchases, abortion payments, tax evasion, and more…
While you may not think this is a bad idea, what if it goes a step further? What if they think you need to eat less red meat?
Hacking and data breaches
My head spins just thinking of all the ways a CBDC could be attacked by hackers or cyber terrorists.
In a first, Bitcoin developers have done something amazing amid the criticism over the lightning network and issues associated with it. A team of developers has made an international payment using the radio … Continue reading International payment using the radio waves→
My inspiration for this page was given to me by my new aquired friend, a fellow Truth Seeker – Joris and to whom I dedicate this page… Wish you… as well as to … Continue reading Discipline Quotes→
Bitcoin white paper turns 15 and the Legacy of Satoshi Nakamoto lives on. โIโve been working on a new electronic cash system thatโs fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party,โ Satoshi Oct. 31, … Continue reading Bitcoin White Paper turn 15→
Let’s make a journey back in time to see where blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies came from. It will take us back to the CypherPunk Movement starting in the 1970’s.
Cryptography for the People
Encryption was primarily used for military purposes before the 1970s. People at that time were living in an analog world. Few had computers and even fewer could imagine a technology that would connect almost every human being on the planet – the internet.
Two publications brought cryptography into the open, namely the โData Encryption Standardโ published by the US Government, and a paper called โNew Directions in Cryptographyโ by Dr. Whitfield Diffie and Dr. Martin Hellman, published in 1976.
Dr. David Chaum started writing on topics such as anonymous digital cash and pseudonymous reputation systems in the 1980s, such as the ones described in โSecurity without Identification: Transaction Systems to make Big Brother Obsoleteโ. This was the first step toward the digital currencies we see today.
The Cypherpunks
We walk on shoulders of Giants! Hughes, May, Back, Finney, Gilmore, Szabo
It wasnโt until 1992 that a group of cryptographers in the San Francisco Bay area started meeting up on a regular basis to discuss their work and related ideas. They built a basis for years of cryptographic research to come.
Besides their regular meetings, they also started the Cypherpunk mailing list in which they discussed many ideas including those which led to the birth of Bitcoin.
In late 1992 Eric Hughes, one of the first cypherpunks, wrote โA Cypherpunkโs Manifestoโ laying out the ideals and vision of the movement.
Note: We encourage you to read A Cypherpunkโs Manifesto. The Manifesto is just as relevant today as it was in 1992. This short read takes only a few minutes of your time. Itโs astonishing to see how much foresight the early members had when most people didnโt even think about computers yet.
A Cypherpunksโs Manifesto
An excerpt from the Manifesto:
โPrivacy is necessary for an open society in the electronic age.
Privacy is not secrecy.
A private matter is something one doesnโt want the whole world to know, but a secret matter is something one doesnโt want anybody to know.
Privacy is the power to selectively reveal oneself to the world.โ
โPrivacy in an open society also requires cryptography.
If I say something, I want it heard only by those for whom I intend it.
If the content of my speech is available to the world, I have no privacy.
To encrypt is to indicate the desire for privacy, and to encrypt with weak cryptography is to indicate not too much desire for privacy.โ
โWe must defend our own privacy if we expect to have any.
We must come together and create systems which allow anonymous transactions to take place.
People have been defending their own privacy for centuries with whispers, darkness, envelopes, closed doors, secret handshakes, and couriers.
The technologies of the past did not allow for strong privacy, but electronic technologies do.โ
โWe the Cypherpunks are dedicated to building anonymous systems.
We are defending our privacy with cryptography, with anonymous mail forwarding systems, with digital signatures, and with electronic money.โ
Electronic Cash
Although you might have just heard about this movement for the first time, you have most definitely benefitted from the efforts of some of their members in building Tor, BitTorrent, SSL, and PGP encryption. It should not surprise you that many concepts and ideas that originated from this group led to the emergence of cryptocurrencies.
In 1997, Dr. Adam Back created HashCash, which he proposed as a measure against spam. A little later, in 1998, Wei Dai published his idea for b-money and conceived the ideas of Proof-of-Work and Proof-of-Stake to achieve consensus across a distributed network. In 2005 Nick Szabo published a proposal for Bit Gold. There was no cap on the maximum supply but he introduced the idea to value each unit of Bit Gold by the amount of computational work that went into producing it. Although this is not how cryptocurrencies are valued, the price of production (comprised of hardware and electricity cost) plays a role in the pricing of these digital assets.
In 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto released the Bitcoin white paper, citing and building upon HashCash and b-money. Citations from his early communications and parts of his white paper, such as the following on privacy, suggest Nakamoto was close to the cypherpunk movement.
โThe traditional banking model achieves a level of privacy by limiting access to information to the parties involved and the trusted third party. The necessity to announce all transactions publicly precludes this method, but privacy can still be maintained by breaking the flow of information in another place: by keeping public keys anonymous. The public can see that someone is sending an amount to someone else, but without information linking the transaction to anyone. This is similar to the level of information released by stock exchanges, where the time and size of individual trades, the โtapeโ, is made public, but without telling who the parties were.โ
Technology did not enable strong privacy prior to the 20th century, but neither did it enable affordable mass surveillance. We believe in the human right to privacy and work towards enabling anyone who wishes to claim his or her privacy to do so. We see a cryptocurrency with selective privacy as a good step in the right direction of reclaiming our privacy.
In a first, Bitcoin developers have done something amazing amid the criticism over the lightning network and issues associated with it. A team of developers has made an international payment using the radio … Continue reading International payment using the radio waves→
My inspiration for this page was given to me by my new aquired friend, a fellow Truth Seeker – Joris and to whom I dedicate this page… Wish you… as well as to … Continue reading Discipline Quotes→
Bitcoin white paper turns 15 and the Legacy of Satoshi Nakamoto lives on. โIโve been working on a new electronic cash system thatโs fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party,โ Satoshi Oct. 31, … Continue reading Bitcoin White Paper turn 15→
The first ever bitcoin transaction from one person to another, on 2009-01-12 at 04:30 used Pay-to-Public-Key(P2PK), when Satoshi Nakamoto sent coins to Hal Finney in Block 170.
P2PK is no longer used because it is a more expensive, less private, and less secure way of receiving bitcoin than other methods.
In a first, Bitcoin developers have done something amazing amid the criticism over the lightning network and issues associated with it. A team of developers has made an international payment using the radio … Continue reading International payment using the radio waves→
My inspiration for this page was given to me by my new aquired friend, a fellow Truth Seeker – Joris and to whom I dedicate this page… Wish you… as well as to … Continue reading Discipline Quotes→
Bitcoin white paper turns 15 and the Legacy of Satoshi Nakamoto lives on. โIโve been working on a new electronic cash system thatโs fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party,โ Satoshi Oct. 31, … Continue reading Bitcoin White Paper turn 15→
Hy there my fellow citizens of this amazingly beautiful Mother Earth of… Not Ours !!! We tend to forget that and treat it as if we would have another habitable sphere on wich to live, in the back of our pocket…. but that’s a topic for another discussion…
A few day ago… I think it was days… maybe weeks… Time is an illusion Einstein was right! Anyway somewhere in the past I decided to make a little bit more wider my mark on this digital world we all drown into :))) and I started to build up a Library !
As I do believe and live by the motto…
“Sharing is caring!”
Here with delight and joy I present to You, Free Spirit’s Library named how else than…
*Note: It's a Never Ending work in progress, as I am one little โข that is bound to the same illusion of Time, as every other โข is ๐ :))
So I would suggest you make frequent visits on the Discord server, as I add books and much interesting food for the mind all the time !
Thank you for your time !!!
May knowledge enlighten your path and make you evolve and thrive, if not for us then for the generations to come, so they can walk and look behind them, and say...
"Hey look, we are walking on shoulders of giants..."
In a first, Bitcoin developers have done something amazing amid the criticism over the lightning network and issues associated with it. A team of developers has made an international payment using the radio … Continue reading International payment using the radio waves→
My inspiration for this page was given to me by my new aquired friend, a fellow Truth Seeker – Joris and to whom I dedicate this page… Wish you… as well as to … Continue reading Discipline Quotes→
Bitcoin white paper turns 15 and the Legacy of Satoshi Nakamoto lives on. โIโve been working on a new electronic cash system thatโs fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party,โ Satoshi Oct. 31, … Continue reading Bitcoin White Paper turn 15→
Join Honorary Chair Fran Finney and the Running Bitcoin Challenge Committee as we honor legendary cypher punk, Hal Finney.
This is THE EVENT that combines Hal Finney’s love of running and Bitcoin and is raising funds and awareness to help defeat ALS, which ultimately claimed his life in 2014.
You are challenged to run (or walk, roll, or hike) the equivalent of a half marathon — cumulatively or all at once — by the end of January 10, 2023.
From wherever you are, spread the word about Bitcoin, participate in a healthy activity, feel good about doing your part to defeat ALS, and start the year off right
Hal Finney, one of the earliest bitcoin contributors, died eight years ago from complications of nervous system disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
His spouse, Fran Finney, is now organizing a half marathon to raise funds for ALS research via bitcoin.
The โRunning Bitcoin Challengeโ is set to take place between Jan. 1 and Jan. 10. The timing of the occasion leads up to the anniversary of Hal Finneyโs โRunning bitcoinโ tweet, in which Finney famously disclosed he was deploying a Bitcoin node.
There is no set location โ participants can choose to join anywhere they wish. Players are encouraged to either run, walk, roll or hike the equivalent of a half marathon (Halโs favorite distance) either in one go or over the entire 10-day period.
Donors contributing at least $100 will receive an official shirt with the half marathonโs logo, while the eventโs top 25 fundraisers will get a Hal Finney collectible signed by his wife.
As of Wednesday morning, the event has already managed to secure nearly $10,000 in bitcoin donations.
An advocate of cryptography and digital privacy, Finney was the recipient of the first-ever bitcoin transfer from the networkโs pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto.
The bitcoin community often suspected Finney was Nakamoto, a claim he consistently denied. He reportedly found out about his condition in 2009 and decided to move away from the project.
Halโs name is high in the Bitcoin pantheon as one of the first people to voice support for Satoshi Nakamotoโs invention and for being the first person to receive a Bitcoin transaction from Satoshi.
He was, for a time, considered one of the top contenders on the list of potential Satoshis himself (many in blockchain who reject Dr. Craig Wrightโs statements still falsely believe Finney to be Bitcoinโs real creator).
Hal, who referred to himself as a โcypherpunk,โ was a cryptographic activist who went from developing video games to working on the Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) project in the 1990s. He described his PGP work as โdedicated to the goal of making Big Brother obsolete.โ
PGP creator Phil Zimmerman hired Hal as his first employee when PGP became PGP Corporation in the early 2000s. He described Hal as a โgregarious manโ who loved skiing and long-distance running.
Despite gradual paralysis that eventually forced him to stop working, Hal continued to code software and follow the Bitcoin project.
Almost as famous as his 2009 tweet is his โBitcoin and meโ post on BitcoinTalk.org in March 2013, the last heโd ever make.
Itโs a long post, and Hal was โessentially paralyzedโ at the time, using an eye tracker to type. Forum stats show the post has been read over 278,000 times.
โWhen Satoshi announced the first release of the software, I grabbed it right away,โ he wrote. โI think I was the first person besides Satoshi to run bitcoin. I mined block 70-something, and I was the recipient of the first bitcoin transaction when Satoshi sent ten coins to me as a test.
I carried on an email conversation with Satoshi over the next few days, mostly me reporting bugs and him fixing them.โ
Hal himself always denied being Satoshi Nakamoto, adding later that heโd sold most of the Bitcoins he mined (at pre-2014 prices) to pay for his treatments. He also mentioned putting some in a safe deposit box for his children.
โAnd, of course, the price gyrations of bitcoins are entertaining to me.
I have skin in the game.
But I came by my bitcoins through luck, with little credit to me.
In a first, Bitcoin developers have done something amazing amid the criticism over the lightning network and issues associated with it. A team of developers has made an international payment using the radio … Continue reading International payment using the radio waves→
My inspiration for this page was given to me by my new aquired friend, a fellow Truth Seeker – Joris and to whom I dedicate this page… Wish you… as well as to … Continue reading Discipline Quotes→
Bitcoin white paper turns 15 and the Legacy of Satoshi Nakamoto lives on. โIโve been working on a new electronic cash system thatโs fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party,โ Satoshi Oct. 31, … Continue reading Bitcoin White Paper turn 15→
It’s been 4 years already and it seems I haven’t done nothing at all… With the little time I could spare to work on this blog, I hope I bought a tiny seed of knowledge into your ๐ง zz my dear readers ๐๐๐๐
I will try the best of my abilities to continue the work on the blog !
Untill then dear readers never forget :
Let’s find the courage and strenght, if not for us then for Them… the Future Generations that are to come after us and Go…
In a first, Bitcoin developers have done something amazing amid the criticism over the lightning network and issues associated with it. A team of developers has made an international payment using the radio … Continue reading International payment using the radio waves→
My inspiration for this page was given to me by my new aquired friend, a fellow Truth Seeker – Joris and to whom I dedicate this page… Wish you… as well as to … Continue reading Discipline Quotes→
Bitcoin white paper turns 15 and the Legacy of Satoshi Nakamoto lives on. โIโve been working on a new electronic cash system thatโs fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party,โ Satoshi Oct. 31, … Continue reading Bitcoin White Paper turn 15→
Happy Genesis Block Day! January 3 is the 14th anniversary of Bitcoinโs Block Zero, its anchor in time.
The first sentence of the email has become iconic among the Bitcoin community:
โIโve been working on a new electronic cash system thatโs fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party.โ
On January 3, 2009, the genesis block of the Bitcoin blockchain was mined by its pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto, marking the first time in history that a completely digital and decentralized currency went online.
In the 14 years and three halvings since, Bitcoin has grown to become one of the most important financial instruments, clearly demonstrating that a non-central bank-controlled currency is capable of challenging the established monetary order.
That time, in 2009, was one of economic turmoilโand the aftershocks from that turmoil are still rocking our world in 2023.
The Genesis Block was never โminedโ like every other Bitcoin block. That started with Block #1 when Satoshi Nakamoto released the software on SourceForge.
The hash from Block #0 was done with different software and hard-coded into the original Bitcoin protocol.
โChancellor on brink of second bailout for banksโ was the Times headline. Satoshi hid in the first blockโs coinbase hash as a timestamp to prove there had been no mining on the Bitcoin network before he released the software to the public.
The Times – January 3 2009
โThe Chancellor will decide within weeks whether to pump billions more into the economy,โ the original article in the Times said. In 2009 these seemed like desperate measures, and they were. Since 2009, though, governments across the Western world have indeed pumped billions, even trillions more, into their economies.
Satoshi was making a statement on irresponsible government interventions in the economy and their eventual erosion on markets.
โThey actively sought to incentivise bad behaviour and push in typical Keynesian style the problem down the road. It would be a bigger problem, but it would be someone elseโs problem.โ
Just like the economy at large, Bitcoin is a long-term struggle against the worse aspects of human nature.
In the 14 years and three halvings since, Bitcoin has grown to become one of the most important financial instruments, clearly demonstrating that a non-central bank-controlled currency is capable of challenging the established monetary order.
10 most important Bitcoin Milestones
Bitcoin has reached numerous major milestones and faced several considerable obstacles over its nearly decade-and-a-half-long history.
Here are 10 events that had the biggest impact on Bitcoin so far:
November 28, 2012: First Bitcoin halving
February 28, 2014: Mt. Gox, the biggest Bitcoin exchange at the time, files for bankruptcy
July 9, 2016: Second Bitcoin halving
August 1, 2017: Bitcoin Cash hard fork
May 11, 2020: Third Bitcoin halving
February 8, 2021: Tesla invests in Bitcoin
February 20, 2021: Bitcoin reaches $1 trillion market cap for the first time
September 7, 2021: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender
November 14, 2021 – Taproot upgrade is activated
November 11, 2022: Major crypto exchange FTX files for bankruptcy
Bitcoin has never closed in the red zone 2 years in a row: Will the trend continue?
Bitcoin price decreased by over -60% over the span of the last 12 months. However, there is a strong bullish precedent in play that could spell a major trend reversal in the coming months.
For starters, Bitcoin has never closed in the negative two years in a row. Granted, there is a relatively short set of historical price data to work with.
However, roughly speaking, Bitcoin has operated on 3 years of growth followed by 1 year of market retracement periods, at least so far
Bitcoin Change Year-over-Year
For world-renowned charities such as Save the Children, the White aper and the subsequent creation of Bitcoin have benefited the organization.
Antonia Roupell, Web3 lead at Save the Children, told Cointelegraph that the organization recognizes โBitcoinโs potential to be a force for good and a force for financial inclusion,โ adding:
โOn Bitcoinโs 14th anniversary, and at a time of increasingly global financial inequality, the phrase โbitcoin is for anyoneโ really resonates.โ
In a first, Bitcoin developers have done something amazing amid the criticism over the lightning network and issues associated with it. A team of developers has made an international payment using the radio … Continue reading International payment using the radio waves→
My inspiration for this page was given to me by my new aquired friend, a fellow Truth Seeker – Joris and to whom I dedicate this page… Wish you… as well as to … Continue reading Discipline Quotes→
Bitcoin white paper turns 15 and the Legacy of Satoshi Nakamoto lives on. โIโve been working on a new electronic cash system thatโs fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party,โ Satoshi Oct. 31, … Continue reading Bitcoin White Paper turn 15→
In a first, Bitcoin developers have done something amazing amid the criticism over the lightning network and issues associated with it. A team of developers has made an international payment using the radio … Continue reading International payment using the radio waves→
My inspiration for this page was given to me by my new aquired friend, a fellow Truth Seeker – Joris and to whom I dedicate this page… Wish you… as well as to … Continue reading Discipline Quotes→
Bitcoin white paper turns 15 and the Legacy of Satoshi Nakamoto lives on. โIโve been working on a new electronic cash system thatโs fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party,โ Satoshi Oct. 31, … Continue reading Bitcoin White Paper turn 15→
“A fixed money supply, or a supply altered only in accord with objective and calculable criteria, is a necessary condition to a meaningful just price of money.”
Fr. Bernard W. Dempsey, S.J. (1903-1960)
In a centralized economy, currency is issued by a central bank at a rate that is supposed to match the growth of the amount of goods that are exchanged so that these goods can be traded with stable prices. The monetary base is controlled by a central bank. In the United States, the Fed increases the monetary base by issuing currency, increasing the amount banks have on reserve or by a process called Quantitative Easing.
In a fully decentralized monetary system, there is no central authority that regulates the monetary base. Instead, currency is created by the nodes of a peer-to-peer network.
The Bitcoin generation algorithm defines, in advance, how currency will be created and at what rate. Any currency that is generated by a malicious user that does not follow the rules will be rejected by the network and thus is worthless.
Currency with Finite Supply
Block reward halvingControlled supply
Bitcoins are created each time a user discovers a new block. The rate of block creation is adjusted every 2016 blocks to aim for a constant two week adjustment period (equivalent to 6 per hour.)
The number of bitcoins generated per block is set to decrease geometrically, with a 50% reduction every 210,000 blocks, or approximately four years. The result is that the number of bitcoins in existence will not exceed slightly less than 21 million.
Speculated justifications for the unintuitive value “21 million” are that it matches a 4-year reward halving schedule; or the ultimate total number of Satoshis that will be mined is close to the maximum capacity of a 64-bit floating point number. Satoshi has never really justified or explained many of these constants.
Cumulated bitcoin supply
This decreasing-supply algorithm was chosen because it approximates the rate at which commodities like gold are mined. Users who use their computers to perform calculations to try and discover a block are thus called Miners.
In a first, Bitcoin developers have done something amazing amid the criticism over the lightning network and issues associated with it. A team of developers has made an international payment using the radio … Continue reading International payment using the radio waves→
My inspiration for this page was given to me by my new aquired friend, a fellow Truth Seeker – Joris and to whom I dedicate this page… Wish you… as well as to … Continue reading Discipline Quotes→
Bitcoin white paper turns 15 and the Legacy of Satoshi Nakamoto lives on. โIโve been working on a new electronic cash system thatโs fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party,โ Satoshi Oct. 31, … Continue reading Bitcoin White Paper turn 15→
The supply of Bitcoin is fixed at 21 million BTC, and as a hard coded monetary policy of the protocol, the fixed supply of the dominant cryptocurrency cannot be altered.
Former Google Product Director Steve Lee stated that only 1 percent of the worldโs population can own more than 0.28 BTC, due to the fixed supply of Bitcoin.
If you own 0.28 BTC and HODL, you can be certain no more than 1% of the current world's population can EVER own more BTC than you. A modest investment of $1,830 today can ensure you are a 1%er in a future Bitcoin world. https://t.co/9k3XZa09Yo
In late 2017, Chainalysis, a blockchain forensics company that monitors and investigates cryptocurrency transactions, revealed in a research paper that up to four million BTC are permanently lost on the blockchain as a result of theft, loss of wallets and private keys, and the dormant wallet of Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto, which experts have said is no longer accessible.
Kim Grauer, Senior Economist at Chainalysis, said at the time, that the lost supply of BTC is not taken into consideration by the market cap.That means, the real price of BTC could be substantially higher, as 4 to 6 million BTC are estimated to be lost.
Based on the estimate that the supply of Bitcoin is around 17 million, only 0.8 percent of the world population can own more than 0.28 BTC and less than 0.2 of the world population can own more than 1 BTC.
The 0.28 BTC figure introduced by Lee assumes the supply of Bitcoin to be 21 million, as it divides 21 million by 0.28 and divides the outcome of that by the world population that is 7.442 billion. If the research of Chainalysis is accurate and that 4 to 6 million BTC are lost on the blockchain, the supply of Bitcoin should be closer to around 16 to 17 million
The fact that any investor in the global market can be within the 1 percent of the world population with a $1,830 investment demonstrates that the cryptocurrency market is still at its early phase, and in terms of adoption, market development, infrastructure, and regulation, the sector can still grow significantly in the mid to long-term.
In a first, Bitcoin developers have done something amazing amid the criticism over the lightning network and issues associated with it. A team of developers has made an international payment using the radio … Continue reading International payment using the radio waves→
My inspiration for this page was given to me by my new aquired friend, a fellow Truth Seeker – Joris and to whom I dedicate this page… Wish you… as well as to … Continue reading Discipline Quotes→
Bitcoin white paper turns 15 and the Legacy of Satoshi Nakamoto lives on. โIโve been working on a new electronic cash system thatโs fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party,โ Satoshi Oct. 31, … Continue reading Bitcoin White Paper turn 15→
First time/Small miner reference for getting started.
If you want to start mining here is what you need… and what you need to know.
This is written for home miners/small farms, but can be used as a guideline for most operations. Use this as a reference for what you need to research, or what questions you need to ask before jumping in.
What you need to mine can be broken down into the following categories:
You CAN NOT meaningfully mine bitcoin today with CPU, GPU or even FPGAs. Bitcoin difficulty adapts to match the amount of mining done on the network and has reached levels trillions of times too high to mine meaningfully with PCs, laptops, tablets, phones, webpages, javascript, GPUs, and even generalised SHA hardware.
Even if you combined all the computers in the world, including all known supercomputer, you would not even approach 0.1% of the bitcoin hashrate today.
There isn’t any point attempting to mine bitcoin with CPU or GPU even in the interests of learning as it shares almost nothing with how bitcoin is mined with ASICs and will not teach you anything.
Hardware
Asic Miner:
Here is a list of the companies currently manufacturing Miners for public purchase.
Each one has their Pro’s and Con’s it is up to you to do your research and decide what is best for you.
A few points to consider while researching are :
efficiency
reliability
warranty period/policy
power draw
Each company has a different way of handling warranty repairs, depending on your situation and the policy repairs can become cost prohibitive. I will touch more on efficiency and power draw in the electricity section.
โข Current list of competitive hardware
Power supply: You will need to purchase a power supply to run your miners. You will find ATX and Server grade PSU’s, the latter being preferred for mining BTC.
When it comes to selecting a PSU purchase something with a capacity 25% higher than your miner is rated to draw. This will have you operating within the 80% rule.(explained further in the electricity section)
EX. Miner draws 1000 PSU should be able to provide 1250W.
** Many current generation miners are now being manufactured with Integrated PSU. Again do your research to see if your unit comes with or without. Generally you will still need to source a power cable.**
Auxilliaries – Avalon miners require an external controller, 1 per 20 miners. You may have to run additional fans for intake and exhaust depending on your location.
PSU’s can be purchased large enough to run 2 Miners; or the opposite 1 Miner fed by 2 PSU’s. Ensure the PSU you have selected will have the correct amount of PCI-E connectors required to operate your miner(s)
You can also find a large supply of used miners and PSU’s. Again it’s up to you to do your research as these often are a no return transaction.
Electricity
Follow all local codes and regulations
This is the number 1 factor in whether mining is right for you. As discussed with Miners being a 24/7 machine drawing power those costs will make it cost prohibitive for some people to mine. You need to be aware of what your costs/kWh are and run the numbers.
This will be done in a profitability calculator. This is just an example of 1 there are many out there.
( Miner usage in kW ) * ( Hours run per day ) 24 * ( Cost/kWh ) = Cost per Day to Operate
( Ideally less than the FIAT value of BTC mined )
The second part to the electrical requirements of mining is the available service; written for North America.
You will need to figure out the amperage you can spare, what circuits and receptacles you have in place, are you setting up on 220V or 110V. You will need to make sure that you have the right cord end for your PSU to match the receptacle, picking the wrong one can cost you a few days of mining if it has to be shipped.
If you can try and set up on a 220V circuit for 2 reasons :
– You will pull half the amps, and it is more efficient.
– Doing so requires 2 breaker spaces in your panel. Breaker sizing will depend on how many miners you plan to run. Here is the formula for calculating amps.
Watts / Voltage = Amps
Here is where you will bring the 80% rule back into play by sizing the continuous miner load to 80% of the breaker rating. 12 Amps on a 15 Amp breaker, 16 Amps max on a 20 Amp breaker, 24 Amps on a 30 amp breaker.
If/when you increase the amount of miners you are running you may want to look into PDU’s, as opposed to more receptacles.
Location
This is something that is often overlooked to the headache and frustration of many would be miners. These machines are loud and hot . You essentially have an electric heater that also uses an industrial fan to keep it from melting itself. This space will need to have the electrical requirements as discussed previously.
So make sure you have a space that is well ventilated with a plan to exhaust heat, and bring in fresh dust free air. I say this as using AC to cool the room will eat into your profits and may even make mining unprofitable.
The noise issue is a consideration you can sort out depending on whats available. (garage, basement, remote building)
Both of these issues can be handled with hosting, which is further explained in the information section.
Internet connection
Some miner setups have the option to use wifi. It is advisable to use a wired connection where available. This will provide a more stable connection and ensure you are submitting the expected amount of shares which is directly related to your payouts.
Please note that mining uses a negligible amount of bandwidth, and will not affect your other internet usage.
Information
You can use this information in this post as a good baseline to get you going. In addition to this you will want to research network difficulty; this readjusts every 2016 blocks to maintain a 10 minute block time on average. While this can go down it generally increases.
Solo or Pool?
You can solo mine but this is essentially a lottery even as a large scale miner. Should you chose this you can check this out as a starting point.
solo.ckpool.org 1% fee solo mining USA/DE 250 blocks solved!
Odds are most of you will join a pool. I will only say that it is in your best interest to mine at a pool that pays transaction fees (miner rewards). Then you will want to consider the fees associated with the pool.
When it comes to these pools you want them to be large enough that they are getting at least 1 block every Difficulty adjustment period. Larger pools will offer smaller rewards paid out more frequently, and vice versa.
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