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      "body": "I am starting a solar cryptomining project and found your post while looking round Steemit. Thanks for your detailed reporting. I already have 6 - 100 W (600 W) panels and looking to buy 2-4 more to cover my 800 W L3+. Mining with the Sun should be interesting.",
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      "author": "cheetah",
      "body": "Hi! I am a robot. I just upvoted you! I found similar content that readers might be interested in:\nhttps://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/solar-powered-bitcoin-mining-could-be-a-very-profitable-business-model",
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      "body": "@@ -6664,119 +6664,8 @@\n e.  \n-The price recently hit $5,000 but is currently at about $4,400, up from under $1,000 at the start of the year. \n %0A%0AIn\n@@ -8469,18 +8469,22 @@\n in (\n-about half\n+far lower than\n  the\n@@ -8969,16 +8969,17 @@\n gure 1. \n+*\n 1 MW sol\n@@ -9021,16 +9021,17 @@\n m Hunt).\n+*\n  %0A !%5B%5D(h\n@@ -9372,19 +9372,21 @@\n er. \n+ \n %0A%0A\n-This is a\n+What these\n  con\n@@ -9399,747 +9399,457 @@\n ive \n-model in another key way: I%E2%80%99ve assumed $2,500 Bitcoin price but used the current mining difficulty level (I used the Bitcoin profitability calculator at www.coinwarz.com), which is not entirely realistic. This is because there has been a 95 percent correlation between Bitcoin price and mining difficulty over the last two years (using data from www.blockchain.info). This means\n+assumptions mean is that all else equal this 1 MW solar mining farm will probably be more profitable than what I%E2%80%99ve calculated here. %5BJanuary 2018 update: more recent calculations show\n  that \n-if \n the \n-current price were to drop to $2,500 the mining difficulty would also drop and our 1 MW mining farm would produce significantly more than the 789 bitcoin per year included in Figure 1. %0A%0AWhat these two conservative assump\n+Net Present Value of this 1 MW mining operation would be about $70 million due to the large increase in Bitcoin price, outpacing mining difficulty increases; this devia\n tion\n-s\n  m\n-ean is that all else equal this 1 MW solar mining farm will probably be more profitable than what I%E2%80%99ve calculated here. \n+ay, however, return to a more normal price to difficulty relationship over time.%5D\n %0A%0ACo\n",
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      "body": "Tam Hunt, J.D., Renewable energy lawyer and solar cryptocurrency mining developer. \n\nA number of companies offer “cloud mining” for Bitcoin and other digital cryptocurrencies. Cloud mining is performed by a third party but you, the customer, buy some of their mining capacity receive the revenue from that mining. The mining is done “in the cloud,” which means that you buy into an existing or new mining project and you enjoy hassle-free revenue. \n\nAt least that’s the theory. Let’s see if it’s the reality. I’ll focus in this article on Genesis Mining, the most reputable of the cloud mining firms operating, and what makes or breaks a cloud mining contract with them. I’ll also briefly discuss Hashflare at the end, which is also a good option, but not as good as Genesis Mining. \n\nGenesis Mining (GM) is based in Hong Kong but its mining centers are in Iceland where it’s easy to keep miners cool and geothermal power is cheap, reliable and clean. GM lists its agent and address right on its website, so it’s possible to find them and sue them if anything goes awry. They’re one of a very few cloud mining companies that do offer this information, and I’d suggest that no one invest in any company that doesn’t list this information. There are a lot of scams in this space, so caveat emptor. \n\nGM offers various cloud mining contracts, including an open-ended (that is, it never expires as long as it’s profitable) Bitcoin mining contract, as well as 2-year ether and Monero mining contracts, and occasionally other contracts also. Currently, the Bitcoin contract is sold out, but you may still be able to buy ether or Monero contracts. I’m only going to cover the Bitcoin contract here and it should become available again soon as GM builds up their capacity and can accept new customers.  I do not recommend other contracts at GM because they’re in my experience no where near as good a deal as the Bitcoin contrats. \n\nThe mining contract price decreases a little as you buy larger contracts. The Bitcoin contract buying options start out at the lower end at $30 for 0.2 TH/s (terahash per second), equivalent to $150 per TH/s. The cost drops to $650 for 5 TH/s at the top end, equivalent to $130 per TH/s, but this requires a minimum purchase of $1,950 at current pricing. [Prices for new contracts may have risen by the time you can buy a new contract at GM]. \n\nThe key for maximizing profits from cloud mining is being aware of the fees involved. The cloud mining contract offered by GM includes two fees: an upfront fee – the costs just described – plus a daily “maintenance fee” that is supposed to cover fuel costs and upkeep. For the  contracts I’ve bought so far, the maintenance fee is $0.00028/GH/s/day. This amounts to about 1/3 of the value of the bitcoin mined each day. As such, you are paying GM 1/3 of your mined bitcoins to fuel and manage your very own mining operation that you’ve purchased from them. \n\nMy first contract with GM was an open-ended Bitcoin contract for 15 TH/s for $1,950. This meant that in addition to my upfront fee, the daily maintenance fee is $0.00028 x 15,000 GH/s/day = $4.20. \n\nKnowing your fees is important because the contract remains active only as long as it can at least pay the maintenance fee. The rationale is that once the daily payout can’t pay the maintenance fee then there’s nothing left over for the customer, so the contract is canceled once the fee can’t be covered for 60 consecutive days (this is described clearly in the short contract that GM offers you for perusal before you buy). \n\nMy first contract, commenced in June of 2017, returned about .0045 bitcoin (BTC) per day for the first week. The payout dropped fairly quickly, however, due to difficulty increases in mining. Difficulty is determined automatically by the Bitcoin algorithm and it adjusts as required to keep the mining schedule at 1 block worldwide every ten minutes. Each block currently contains 12.5 bitcoin, which means that the algorithm only allows 12.5 bitcoin to be mined every ten minutes worldwide. The difficulty changes every two weeks, adjusted automatically based on the level of mining activity in the prior period. \n\nWe know, from the fact that my daily payout dropped so fast, that mining interest worldwide increased rapidly in the same time period. \n\n0.0045 bitcoin was, in June 2017, worth about $9 (about $2,000 per bitcoin at that time). This was the mining payout less fees, which as mentioned above totaled $4.20 per day. So the total value mined each day before fees were assessed was about $13.20. \n\nDue to difficulty increases during the summer of 2017, as Bitcoin mining became more and more profitable, and thus more people started mining, my daily payout dropped to about 0.003 bitcoin, 1/3 less than I had started with. That seemed like a raw deal since I had not expected difficulty to drop so fast and it seemed like my contract might end long before I had hoped. \n\nAt a 1/3 attrition in just three months (0.0045 bitcoin to 0.003 bitcoin) it looked like my contract might end well in less than a year due to unprofitability. This contract would still have been a good deal and would probably have tripled my investment in just a year – a phenomenal return – but for this investment to make more sense than simply buying Bitcoin directly and profiting from its increase in price over time, the GM contract would have to stay operational for longer than a year. And that’s why it seemed like a raw deal that the daily BTC payout was dropping so fast. \n\nHowever, in digging a little deeper I discovered that difficulty and price are highly correlated. From Sept. 2015 to Jan. 2018 the Bitcoin price and difficulty were 91% correlated, as Figure 1 shows graphically. (I calculated the correlation using Excel’s correl function). Through Oct. 2017, the correlation was 96%, but the correlation began to lag a bit at that point as new miners were delayed, etc. \n\nFigure 1. *Bitcoin price and difficulty correlation (data source: blockchain.info; chart: Tam Hunt and Michael Chiacos). \nPD Ratio through Jan 2018.*png![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmRZ4RDJxXvXdykoT1tnbMvpvm1xRew7yXXnXsj133k9TY/image.png)\n\nWhat this means is that the daily payout level stays in a certain range, in dollars, even as the amount of bitcoin returned each day drops due to higher difficulty in mining. Over time the daily mining payout, which began with my contract at about 0.0045 bitcoin, will continue to be worth around $9-15, and probably a bit more. In fact, it’s been as high as $45 a day, in early December, but has fallen back to about $30 a day since then. Conservatively, we can assume about $1/TH/s/day and more realistically we can assume about $2. \n\nIt seems, then, that the range of payouts in dollars will be between $1 and $3 per day per TH/s of GM cloud mining you own. If you own 100 TH/s you can expect between $100 and $300 per day in perpetuity, or $3,000 to $9,000 per month. That’s a nice passive income. \n\nThe dollar value each day will fluctuate as the price of Bitcoin and the difficulty level both fluctuate. But because there is a 91% or higher correlation between price and difficulty, over time the dollar value will be about the same – in the range just mentioned. Because the difficulty adjusts every two weeks and the bitcoin price adjusts in real-time there will be periods of deviation, but over time it will average out to be level. \n\nAnother key factor in the steady nature of this income is the fact that the daily maintenance fee is denominated in dollars ($0.00028 per GH/s/day). This means that as the price of Bitcoin and the difficulty level goes up over time, the daily maintenance fee remains approximately the same share of each daily payout. \n\nSo rather than my open-ended contract ending in just 9-12 months, as seemed likely when I examined the rapidly increasing difficulty level, it now seems likely that my GM contracts that have daily maintenance fees denominated in dollars, may run in perpetuity (as long as GM stays in business and doesn’t change its contract structure). This means that my $9-45 per day from my 15 TH/s contract may continue in perpetuity at approximately $30 per day on average (in dollars). \n\nIf I had bought a lower-priced contract, say, one that offered $150/TH/s rather than the $130 I did pay, we can see that it probably wouldn’t have impacted my revenue potential very much, or my chances of the contract expiring. If one is seeking to minimize the risk of your contract expiring, however, you should buy a contract at the higher level. I recommend buying at least $1,000. \n\nIf GM changes their daily maintenance fees in its new contracts, or denominate them in something other than dollars, this calculation may change. But as it stands now, as long as GM contracts denominate their maintenance fees in dollars, fears about the contracts ending due to rising maintenance fees as a share of the daily payout don’t hold water because of Bitcoin’s self-adjusting price/difficulty behavior. \n\nI earned back my $1,950 principal from my first GM mining contract in under three months, with payouts totaling about 0.45 BTC in the first three months, but a large part of that speedy payment was the fact that Bitcoin doubled in price in the same time period, outpacing difficulty increases. I reinvested most of that principal (0.438 BTC) into a new GM contract in September 2017. \n\nHere are the take-homes if you’re considering a Genesis Mining Bitcoin cloud mining contract:\n\n•\tPredicting profitability of mining Bitcoin is made much easier when we acknowledge that there has been a 91% or higher correlation between mining difficulty and the price of Bitcoin over the last two years. This means that even as your Bitcoin daily payouts decline, the dollar value of the daily payout should stay constant within a certain range. \n•\tThis means that your mining contract, as long as this difficulty to price correlation holds, may never expire because it will always be able to pay your maintenance fees. \n•\tKnowing your fees is the key to knowing how long your mining contract may last. The current maintenance fee of $0.000024/GH/s amounts to about 1/3 of daily bitcoins mined, in terms of dollar value. \n•\tTo ensure your chance of your contract lasting in perpetuity, buy at least $1,000\n\nI’m writing this updated piece in January 2018 and what I’ve written here about trends has held true thus far. The price to difficulty correlation certainly could change, but there are good reasons why this correlation has held so far – specifically, the price goes up when interest in Bitcoin goes up, and the difficulty of mining goes up when interest in mining goes up. Interest in mining goes up when the price goes up. Hence, a close correlation between difficulty and price. \n\nIf you decide to dive in to the Genesis Mining business you can earn a 3% discount by using this promo code: oHpgVj. \n\nAnother cloud mining company I can recommend, based on my personal experience, is Hashflare. They only offer one-year Bitcoin mining contracts, but with the option to reinvest daily earnings and thus compound the mining power fairly rapidly. You can use this link to get 3% savings: https://hashflare.io/r/FA5B8B58. Hashflare is not as good a deal as the open-ended mining contracts that GM offers but Hashflare does have contracts available now. \n\nAlso – an important feature – Hashflare offers daily reinvestment of earnings for new contracts. And each new contract has a one-year lifetime. So if you reinvest daily enough to maintain your mining power over time, you can both earn great daily payouts (when you’re not reinvesting) and keep your mining power in perpetuity. And possibly even grow it substantially over time if you choose to keep reinvesting. So because Hashflare always seems to have new contracts available it may in some key ways be a better option than GM. And it is for this reason that I’ve invested equally in both platforms. \n\nA final caveat: Hashflare apparently unilaterally changed its open-ended Bitcoin mining contracts to one-year contracts, last September, angering a lot of customers. That anger is justified. I wasn’t a customer at that time so I can’t speak to it other than to report what I’ve read on discussion boards. What I take away from this history is that Hashflare may not be as reliable or as honorable as GM. However, I’ve had no issues with either site beyond a few days here and there of disabled withdrawal functions, which have been resolved reliably in each case. \n\nAs with all crypto investing, caveat emptor is the phrase to keep in mind. Don’t invest what you can’t afford to lose. \n\n*Tam Hunt is a lawyer and writer based in Hawaii.*",
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      "body": "![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmWHMacjxAwqFgK8fsgACfqFAqDHmjRKqVNsojSiDniEh2/image.png)\nSummary:\n•\tBitcoin mining can be highly profitable today and is expected to become more profitable over time as the price continues to rise\n•\tThe key to profitability is enjoying low-cost electricity\n•\tDeveloper-owned solar power in good areas today can be significantly cheaper than grid electricity\n•\tThere are also opportunities to obtain negative-priced power in some markets that have too much solar or wind power at certain times; this means the power offtaker is literally paid to take the power in order to avoid curtailment\n•\tBy using solar power and negative-priced power to mine Bitcoin, rather than selling that power to the grid, profit can be multiples higher than the traditional grid sale model for solar\n•\tTo mitigate risk, solar production can be sold under contract to the grid if the price of Bitcoin dips too low for profitability\n•\tAn entirely off-grid model can also be profitable\n\nBitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are now a major business, with the global market capitalization of these coins exceeding $170 billion at their recent peak, according to www.coinmarketcap.com. Bitcoin alone has reached over $70 billion, up from nothing just eight years ago when it was created. \n\nA major issue with Bitcoin, which may eventually undermine its success unless it’s remedied, is the massive amounts of power required for “mining” of the coins. The mining metaphor is apt because bitcoins are created through specialized computers looking for the correct codes (hash keys), just like digging for gold. That electronic digging takes more and more power as more and more people dig for that virtual gold. Sebastian Deetman calculated in 2016 that mining would take as much electricity by 2020 as the entire nation of Denmark consumes currently. \n\nThat’s just the beginning. Bitcoin’s algorithm requires that it get more and more difficult over time to mine Bitcoin, as long as mining itself becomes increasingly popular. With an approximately 132-year discovery cycle to mine all 21 million bitcoins, mining power demand will go up exponentially. \n\nSo what to do if we care about the power of the blockchain and cryptocurrency as well as protecting our climate and our environment? \n\nWell, one thing we can do is consider the potential for environmentally-friendly power for mining. I’ll look at solar power’s potential for Bitcoin mining in this piece. I conclude that it can be both very profitable and far better for the environment than some other options. \n\nI first considered combining solar power with Bitcoin mining due to my work in solar power development and my recognizing how difficult it can be nowadays to obtain a power sales contract. There are many difficult aspects of solar power development, but obtaining the sales contract is now generally by far the most difficult part of the process, largely because there are so many market participants chasing too few contracts. \n\nMining Bitcoin is one way to obtain significant revenue – potentially far greater revenue than under normal power sales contracts to the grid – without needing any sales contract at all. Bitcoin mining profitability is determined by the cost of electricity more than by any other factor. So if solar power can be provided cheaper than buying grid power it can make sense to combine onsite solar power with mining operations. \n\nTo date, no significant mining operations I am aware of have used low-cost solar power at scale. Genesis Mining, a “cloud mining” operation, and some other mining operators use geothermal power in Iceland, which is cheap and sustainable. But this resource is far more geographically limited than solar power, which can be and is being developed all around the world.  \n\nThe bottomline is that solar-powered Bitcoin mining operations can be highly profitable and enjoy payback times of as little as a year or two, after which Bitcoin revenue comes with almost zero ongoing costs for another 25 years or more for solar farms – though the mining machines will need to be upgraded periodically. \n\nThere are also opportunities for obtaining very low-cost grid power, or even negatively-priced power, to increase the profitability of solar mining operations. \n\nIf a large share of future mining operations use solar power, geothermal power, hydro power, biomass or wind power, the massive power demands of mining and their consequent environmental impacts could be largely mitigated. \n\nLow cost and negative-priced grid power\n\nSome markets in the U.S. are increasingly paying businesses to take excess grid power. In this circumstance, called “negative pricing,” the grid is receiving too much power and the grid operator must either temporarily shut down some power plants (“curtail”) or pay electric customers to take the excess power and avoid curtailment. \n\nNegative pricing can be caused by various factors but an increasingly common cause is the growth of renewable energy sources like solar and wind power. California, for example, is seeing increasing durations of negative pricing during the day when solar production occurs (figure 1). The figure shows the daily grid electricity demand curve, with demand plummeting during the day when large amounts of solar power is produced from existing solar plants around the state. \n\nNegative pricing happens because California’s grid generation assets can’t all be turned down or off as solar production ramps up. That is, some baseload must run all the time. And as solar plants come online in amounts that exceed the baseload generation plus the solar power, some power must be curtailed or sold at negative prices. As the duck’s “belly” gets fatter (lower in the chart) there will be more and more negative-priced power. \n\nTexas has also seen negative pricing periods for a number of years, prompted by excess wind power on the grid. \n\nFigure 1. The “belly” of California’s “duck curve” is getting fatter and fatter (source: CAISO). \n \n\nWith the strong focus on renewable energy in a number of states it is all but certain that times of negative pricing are going to increase in the coming years. \n\nBitcoin mining \n\nBitcoin mining began as an activity that could be done on personal computers but quickly morphed into a high-powered affair requiring specialized chips and large amounts of electricity. This trend is continuing and, as mentioned above, the cost of electricity is now easily the largest factor in determining mining profitability. \n\nBy forecasting where we can expect substantial negative pricing of power in various markets around the country smart investors can set up large-scale mining operations in those jurisdictions to not only be paid to take negatively-priced power but also to earn Bitcoin that are very likely to appreciate significantly in value over time.  The price recently hit $5,000 but is currently at about $4,400, up from under $1,000 at the start of the year. \n\nIn sum, by taking advantage of negative pricing for solar and other renewables in markets that are forecasting increasing amounts of excess renewable energy, Bitcoin mining operators can not only obtain free power, they can actually earn additional revenue from the grid operator by taking that power, which is revenue over and above the revenue from selling mined bitcoins (Bitcoin with a B is the technology and platform whereas bitcoin with a b refers to actual bitcoins). \n\nThere are, accordingly, two significant revenue streams available in this model: 1) taking negative priced power, which earns up to 2 c/kWh currently, but may become even more valuable in the coming years; 2) using that power to mine bitcoins, which can return 25-50 c/kWh or even more if the price of Bitcoin continues to rise.  \n\nSolar power for Bitcoin mining\n\nIt can make good financial sense to use solar power to mine Bitcoin because solar plants can provide power that is cheaper than grid power in areas with good sun and low construction costs. The price of power is also known with some certainty over time because there are no fuel costs and thus no volatility. \n\nA 1 MW solar project could provide power over the 25-year life of the project at about 5 c/kWh or less (substantially less than the approximate 10 c/kWh cost of industrial grid power in California). Power purchase contracts may also be available for solar power of this size in California, as a backup source of revenue generation. A contract must be obtained that allows power to be used onsite first and any excess remaining to be sold to the grid. I discuss this further below. \n\nFor a 1 MW solar-powered Bitcoin mine that uses grid power when solar power is not available, we obtain the results in Figure 2, assuming a constant $2,500/Bitcoin (about half the current price; I’ve also assumed that the price adjusts higher to maintain a constant reward as the blocks halve every four years, which has been the case so far and then some; I also assume amortization of the full cost of new mining machines over each 8-year period as machines get more efficient and need to be replaced). \n\nThe right column contains all year 1 costs and revenue, except for the last two cells that contain the 20-year net revenue and net present value. \n\nFigure 2. 1 MW solar-powered Bitcoin mine (source: Tam Hunt). \n \n\nThis financial model does not rely on any negatively-priced power, because the above results are already highly favorable and it is simply icing on the cake if the grid power costs are lower on balance due to certain periods of negatively-priced power. \n\nThis is a conservative model in another key way: I’ve assumed $2,500 Bitcoin price but used the current mining difficulty level (I used the Bitcoin profitability calculator at www.coinwarz.com), which is not entirely realistic. This is because there has been a 95 percent correlation between Bitcoin price and mining difficulty over the last two years (using data from www.blockchain.info). This means that if the current price were to drop to $2,500 the mining difficulty would also drop and our 1 MW mining farm would produce significantly more than the 789 bitcoin per year included in Figure 2. \n\nWhat these two conservative assumptions mean is that all else equal this 1 MW solar mining farm will probably be more profitable than what I’ve calculated here. \n\nComparing to a solar-only model: net present value for a 1 MW solar project would be about $200-400,000 for a project with a good power sales contract and low costs of development. $9.3 million in net present value for the solar plus Bitcoin alternative is a good improvement. If the mined Bitcoin are held long-term rather than being converted to dollars or other currency, there’s a good chance this revenue will increase even further (by additional multiples) as the price of Bitcoin continues to increase in the coming decades. \n\nAnother benefit of the renewable energy mining model is that the renewable energy tax benefits can be absorbed with tax liability from the sale of Bitcoin (all or partial sales as they’re mined), mooting the need for outside equity investors to absorb the tax benefits, as is often the case with standalone solar or wind power operations. \n\nOff-grid mining operations? \n\nThis development model can also be pursued in areas that have no power lines and very cheap land because no grid connection is required to do the mining. Under this scenario, the miners are connected to the Internet via a satellite connection but otherwise the entire project is off-grid. All solar power is used for mining. This kind of facility could also include onsite storage to both smooth production and to extend mining operations beyond daylight hours. \n\nBeing off-grid prevents using grid power to supplement the solar mining, but such a project could be built very easily and quickly. For example, Texas counties have no permit requirements for this kind of project, so it would be as easy as buying land, contracting to build the solar and mining facilities and then commencing operation. Revenue is lower for the off-grid option, but still very profitable. \n\n\nThe backup plan: selling power to the grid \n\nWhat happens if the price of Bitcoin collapses entirely, leaving minimal or no profit from Bitcoin mining? This is an unlikely event given the growth of Bitcoin over the last eight years (Bitcoin’s market cap is about $70 billion in Sept. 2017, up from zero in 2009), but it is nevertheless prudent to consider an alternative revenue stream to Bitcoin mining. \n\nA more complex but less risky scenario than relying solely on Bitcoin revenue is to construct a solar farm with the local utility as the backup power offtaker, but preserving the ability to use power onsite to mine Bitcoin. This is the excess sales arrangement mentioned above. \n\nA 1 MW solar farm can obtain a power sales contract in California and other states, but the project must, of course, first be connected to the grid and go through the application or bidding process to obtain a power sales contract. This adds cost, time and complexity, and there’s no guarantee of winning a contract, but obtaining a backup grid sales contract substantially reduces the risk of the pure Bitcoin mining approach. \n\nThis approach allows the farm owner to use as much power as she likes to mine Bitcoin instead of sending it to the grid. So if the profit is higher in mining, she would engage in mining, and if selling the power to the grid is more profitable she would do that. \n\nAnother level of insurance is that the solar plus Bitcoin operation pays for itself in about two years. Accordingly, the risk of losing the investment is mitigated and completely eliminated relatively quickly. Once the project costs are paid back, there is minimal risk remaining.",
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      "body": "I discuss POS and DPOS is a type of POS. LBTC is DPOS and I'm excited about DPOS for a variety of reasons.",
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      "body": "It is strange that you don't mention DPOS. \nI hope that when the bubble will burst, people will stop using bitcoin. It does not make sense to use that much electricity to create a coin.\nBitcoin defenders pretend that it is a small quantity compare to fiat.",
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      "body": "@@ -8135,47 +8135,49 @@\n may \n-lock in their mining power indefinitely\n+significantly reduce their relative power\n ? Re\n",
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      "body": "@@ -7552,16 +7552,17 @@\n locks. %0A\n+%0A\n This cha\n",
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      "body": "@@ -7120,16 +7120,19 @@\n ssion: %0A\n+%0A%3E \n The proo\n",
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      "body": "@@ -9864,17 +9864,16 @@\n Bitcoin%5D\n- \n (http://\n",
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      "body": "@@ -6249,25 +6249,24 @@\n  %5Bexception%5D\n- \n \n+\n (https://en.\n@@ -7883,25 +7883,24 @@\n bsite %5Bhere%5D\n- \n \n+\n (https://en.\n@@ -9187,17 +9187,16 @@\n %5Bothers%5D\n- \n \n+\n (https:/\n@@ -10665,33 +10665,32 @@\n  paper is %5Bhere%5D\n- \n (https://peercoi\n@@ -10773,17 +10773,16 @@\n  crypto%5D\n- \n (https:/\n@@ -10861,17 +10861,16 @@\n  %5Bbased%5D\n- \n (https:/\n@@ -11104,17 +11104,16 @@\n s %5Bhere%5D\n- \n (https:/\n@@ -11253,17 +11253,16 @@\n thereum%5D\n- \n (www.eth\n@@ -11465,17 +11465,16 @@\n cussion%5D\n- \n (https:/\n@@ -13645,17 +13645,16 @@\n %5Bhinted%5D\n- \n (https:/\n@@ -13905,17 +13905,16 @@\n ategies%5D\n- \n (https:/\n",
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      "body": "@@ -6242,16 +6242,17 @@\n glaring \n+%5B\n exceptio\n@@ -6248,24 +6248,78 @@\n g %5Bexception\n+%5D (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Value_overflow_incident)\n  to this his\n@@ -7882,20 +7882,66 @@\n website \n+%5B\n here\n+%5D (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Proof_of_Stake)\n , includ\n@@ -9185,14 +9185,97 @@\n and \n+%5B\n others\n+%5D (https://coincentral.com/the-upcoming-bitcoin-hard-forks-what-you-need-to-know/)\n . So\n@@ -9848,16 +9848,17 @@\n t does. \n+%5B\n Lightnin\n@@ -9862,24 +9862,55 @@\n ning Bitcoin\n+%5D (http://lightningbitcoin.io/)\n  is a recent\n@@ -10670,20 +10670,56 @@\n aper is \n+%5B\n here\n+%5D (https://peercoin.net/whitepaper)\n . %0A%0APIVX\n@@ -10762,16 +10762,17 @@\n her PoS \n+%5B\n hybrid c\n@@ -10776,16 +10776,45 @@\n d crypto\n+%5D (https://pivx.org/11117-2/)\n  that al\n@@ -10859,21 +10859,134 @@\n PIVX is \n+%5B\n based\n+%5D (https://bitcoingarden.org/dash-fork-pivx-cryptocurrency-brings-private-instant-verified-transactions-masses/)\n  on Bitc\n@@ -11065,9 +11065,8 @@\n Bitc\n-%09\n oin \n@@ -11104,20 +11104,68 @@\n aper is \n+%5B\n here\n+%5D (https://pivx.org/what-is-pivx/white-papers/)\n . It%E2%80%99s c\n@@ -11250,24 +11250,45 @@\n tion is \n+%5B\n Ethereum\n+%5D (www.ethereum.com)\n  (with c\n@@ -11461,16 +11461,17 @@\n en much \n+%5B\n discussi\n@@ -11468,24 +11468,140 @@\n  %5Bdiscussion\n+%5D (https://medium.com/@shanif/ethereums-proof-of-stake-may-be-a-profitable-venture-for-current-holders-183024263151)\n  of this swi\n@@ -13650,14 +13650,120 @@\n tly \n+%5B\n hinted\n+%5D (https://www.wired.com/story/bitcoin-mining-guzzles-energyand-its-carbon-footprint-just-keeps-growing/)\n  tha\n@@ -13868,16 +13868,17 @@\n is book \n+%5B\n Superint\n@@ -13914,16 +13914,169 @@\n rategies\n+%5D (https://www.amazon.com/Superintelligence-Dangers-Strategies-Nick-Bostrom/dp/0198739834/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1513668080&sr=8-1&keywords=nick+bostrom)\n . Bostro\n",
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      "body": "@@ -231,16 +231,17 @@\n gure 1. \n+*\n Digicono\n@@ -320,17 +320,17 @@\n nations.\n- \n+*\n %0A !%5B%5D(ht\n@@ -983,16 +983,17 @@\n gure 2. \n+*\n Global h\n@@ -1045,16 +1045,20 @@\n source: \n+www.\n Blockcha\n@@ -1066,17 +1066,17 @@\n n.info).\n- \n+*\n %0A !%5B%5D(ht\n",
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      "body": "@@ -4295,16 +4295,17 @@\n ings.%5D%0A%0A\n+*\n Proof of\n@@ -4361,16 +4361,17 @@\n  parties\n+*\n %0A%0AThere \n@@ -6793,16 +6793,17 @@\n ppen. %0A%0A\n+*\n Proof of\n@@ -6843,16 +6843,17 @@\n  of Work\n+*\n %0A%0AProof \n@@ -8695,24 +8695,25 @@\n estroyed. %0A%0A\n+*\n Could a hard\n@@ -8769,17 +8769,17 @@\n f Stake?\n- \n+*\n %0A%0AThere \n@@ -11606,16 +11606,17 @@\n  PoW. %0A%0A\n+*\n Summing \n@@ -11617,16 +11617,17 @@\n mming up\n+*\n  %0A%0AIn th\n@@ -12894,16 +12894,17 @@\n ened? %0A%0A\n+*\n Epilogue\n@@ -12947,17 +12947,17 @@\n ting AI?\n- \n+*\n %0A%0AWired \n@@ -14314,16 +14314,16 @@\n anet? %0A%0A\n+\n Again, s\n@@ -14514,97 +14514,4 @@\n ing.\n- %0A%0A %0A!%5B%5D(https://steemitimages.com/DQmWfUfv8v9Mg6CyfE2XPZmVwTNd8xa3iyfq795NwSCr7tP/image.png)\n",
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      "body": "Great information, thanks. I'd love to see a related post on how DPOS can promote more democratic crypto systems than POW or other POS types.",
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      "body": "Can Bitcoin be saved from its own success? \n\nBitcoin has a large and rapidly-growing energy and environmental footprint. The Bitcoin ecosystem now uses approximately the same power as the entire country of Bulgaria, about 0.2 percent of the global total for electricity. \n\nFigure 1. Digiconomist.net chart showing Bitcoin’s electricity demand compared to various nations. \n ![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmRHdbWLum8XGXokfywrv2KSPRs7adeew1cETCFrDH1pL1/image.png)\n\nBitcoin’s computing network has grown at an 1,100% average annual pace over the last five years (Figure 2), so if we project out just a few years we get a truly massive energy demand for the new king of coins: Bitcoin would use more electricity than the entire world uses today, by 2020, if the recent growth trend in Bitcoin mining power continues. \n\nAs of December 2017, global hashrate is about 17 exahash per second (EH/s), up from just 2.5 at the beginning of the year, and up from just about 10,000 terahash per second (TH/s) at the beginning of 2014. \n\nFigure 2. Global hashrate for Bitcoin over the last two years (source: Blockchain.info). \n ![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmdEFN29CUek9ez98wEVhH6Rj23ey2qT4hQgxpfPYAxjvc/image.png)\n\nWhat will happen if and when Bitcoin starts consuming a significant portion of global power? The massive profits available to miners provide a strong incentive to continue mining even with dirty power, consequences be damned. \n\nI’ve suggested here that solar-powered Bitcoin mining is part of the solution because solar power’s environmental footprint is relatively benign compared to its competitors. But even solar has a footprint – a rather large one in terms of the land it uses. It has no emissions and almost no visual footprint, but the habitat it potentially displaces, or the agricultural activities it may displace, are important environmental factors to consider. \n\nHere’s the crux of the problem: there is no upper limit to the price of Bitcoin and therefore no upper limit to how much energy and resources could be appropriated to mine Bitcoin – even if we continue to see substantial improvements in the efficiency of new mining machines. \n\nThe fact that only 21 million bitcoin can be mined doesn’t limit either the price or the mining power brought to bear because the Bitcoin algorithm adjusts difficulty upward, with no upper limit, in order to keep mining one block every ten minutes. If more and more people pile into Bitcoin in the coming years, the price will keep going up with no limit, and, equivalently, the mining power brought to bear will keep going up with no limit. \n\nEven if all Bitcoin mining was done with solar power, with no upper limit to the amount of mining that could take place, it wouldn’t be long at current growth rates before literally all available land would be used for solar power and mining. \n\nIt is highly unlikely that we will reach a point where even a substantial fraction of our available land will be devoted to solar Bitcoin mining, but knowing where current trends could lead if they were to continue is important in assessing the scope of the problem and the potential solutions. \n\nWe will likely see governments step in and regulate or ban Bitcoin mining long before it became such a serious problem that it starts to use up all available land. However, with such large potential profits from Bitcoin mining, currently and for many decades to come (mining will be profitable through at least 2140 because the Bitcoin algorithm requires that it will take until that time to mine all 21 million bitcoins, released in one block every 10 minutes until 2140, with the amount of coins currently at 12.5 per block but declining by half every four years), there will be a very strong incentive for developers to continue to expand mining operations for many years to come. \n\n[Some readers will think to themselves here that the quadrennial halfing of Bitcoin block rewards will make mining unprofitable long before 2140 but this is very unlikely to be the case because we have seen the opposite trend in the last couple of years. The “Price/Difficulty Ratio,” a measure I’ve created, has risen to its highest point in late 2017 (over five times its lowest point in early 2017), as the price has far outpaced difficulty increases and halfings.]\n\nProof of Work is how Bitcoin dispenses with trusted third parties\n\nThere are alternatives to the Bitcoin mining system, however, that may not require heavy-handed government action to intervene. Let’s first look, however, at how Bitcoin currently works. \n\nBitcoin mining of new coins and transactions more generally are achieved through a system known as Proof of Work. The “work” in this case is work performed by computers to find hash keys that represent the next block of coins. Hash keys are very long cryptographic codes that get more and more difficult as more and more people mine Bitcoin. \n\nThe hash key discovery process is why Bitcoin is called a “cryptocurrency” and it is at the core of how Bitcoin can operate as a purely peer to peer currency with no regulators and no trusted third parties. The hash keys go into the blockchain, an electronic distributed ledger, and cannot be faked or duplicated without as much or more computing power being brought to bear as was required to create the first hash key. \n\nEach transaction on the Bitcoin blockchain must be confirmed by a number of other parties before it is considered valid. This redundancy is required in order to avoid fraud or conflicting transactions. It would require literally 51% of the vast Bitcoin computing network to fake transactions – and this is known as a 51% attack. Such an attack could undermine Bitcoin but it hasn’t happened yet because no party or group of parties has achieved 51% mining power. (See The Book of Satoshi for more on Satoshi Nakamoto’s, the creator of Bitcoin, thoughts on the potential for 51% attacks). \n\nThe end result is a highly secure system that has worked almost flawlessly for about nine years. While there have been many high-profile cases of hacking various Bitcoin exchanges, Bitcoin itself has almost never been hacked. There is a rather glaring exception to this history, which recently came to light, and may eventually lead to serious problems down the road for Bitcoin. \n\nBut back to Proof of Work and why it was adopted by Bitcoin. Proof of Work substitutes computers and mathematics for central banks and aggressive militaries in order to achieve the goal of a functional global currency. I won’t debate here whether this change is wise. Instead, I’m going to examine here whether a shift to Proof of Stake, the key alternative to Proof of Work, is warranted given the looming energy and environmental problems facing Bitcoin, and whether or not it’s likely to happen. \n\nProof of Stake as an alternative to Proof of Work\n\nProof of Stake offers a different way of ensuring the validity of each block and transaction. Investopedia provides a succinct discussion: \nThe proof of stake (PoS) seeks to address [the ever-growing energy use] issue by attributing mining power to the proportion of coins held by a miner. This way, instead of utilizing energy to answer PoW puzzles, a PoS miner is limited to mining a percentage of transactions that is reflective of his or her ownership stake. For instance, a miner who owns 3% of the Bitcoin available can theoretically mine only 3% of the blocks. \nThis change in allowing mining only in terms of how much coins the miner already owns largely eliminates the incentive to amass more and more mining power. The computing power required for PoS systems is apparently a small fraction of the comparable PoW systems. \n\nA more detailed discussion can be found at the bitcoinwiki website here, including discussion of a hybrid PoW and PoS system, combining the best features of both. \n\nHow do we convince very wealthy Bitcoin mining owners to agree to a shift to Proof of Stake, which may lock in their mining power indefinitely? Recent attempts to improve the Bitcoin software to allow for larger block sizes, which has been very difficult in terms of achieving any kind of consensus, doesn’t bode well for achieving such a significant change in how new blocks are discovered. \n\nThe heart of the problem is that all the incentives in the Bitcoin system seem to be pushing hard to keep Proof of Work in place. This is a classic “tragedy of the commons” problem that is the root of many environmental issues. Each individual is incentivized to use as much of the commons (in this case the global environment) as it can in order to profit individually; but as everyone pursues their individual good the commons itself is quickly destroyed. \n\nCould a hard fork be implemented to change Bitcoin to Proof of Stake? \n\nThere may nevertheless be various ways to get around these unintended consequences of Bitcoin. There have already been a number of hard forks to Bitcoin, including Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Gold, Bitcoin Silver, Bitcoin Diamond and others. Some of these are doing quite well, including in particular Bitcoin Cash, which has been as high as 50% of the price of Bitcoin. \n\nCould a hard fork to “Bitcoin PoS” be done? Yes, it can, because anyone can do a hard fork of the open source Bitcoin software. The question is not, can the hard fork be done?, but how well that hard fork would do once it’s completed. And we can’t know the answer to that question until someone does the fork and puts it out there for the community to consider. In fact, this just happened, so we can watch in real time to see how well it does. Lightning Bitcoin is a recent hard fork of Bitcoin that uses a type of PoS and have a very rapid three second block time. Lightning Bitcoin’s hard fork took place on December 18. We can now watch and see how a Bitcoin PoS coin will fare in the increasingly-crowded crypto marketplace.  \n\nOther solutions could be a big shift toward an existing crypto like PeerCoin that already use a hybrid PoS system. PeerCoin has the advantage that it uses the same hashing algorithm as Bitcoin (SHA-256), so all existing Bitcoin miners could in theory switch to mining PeerCoin, which is required to create PeerCoin coins, based on their allotted stake, resulting in a far less energy intensive future. PeerCoin is now in the top 100 of cryptocurrency market capitalization. The PeerCoin white paper is here. \n\nPIVX (formerly known as Darknet) is another PoS hybrid crypto that also includes enhanced privacy options. PIVX is based on Bitcoin Core and is a fork of Dash, so it is already a type of hard fork of Bitc\toin that uses PoS. The PIVX white paper is here. It’s currently the 46th most valuable coin and climbing. \n\nThe last altcoin I’ll mention is Ethereum (with coins known as ether), because Ethereum is switching to PoS in the next year or two, in a slow phased-in process (the date hasn’t been announced yet), and there has been much discussion of this switch away from PoW. Ethereum is not meant to be a widely-used cryptocurrency; rather, it was designed to be a smart contracts platform and a type of fully distributed “world computer.” But being this adaptable Ethereum could readily be used to create an alternative to Bitcoin as a digital currency. \n\nWith Ethereum well-established as the second most valuable cryptocurrency today (at about $80 billion market cap to Bitcoin’s approximate $320 billion), it is not beyond the pale to image that Ethereum may one day dethrone Bitcoin – particularly if PoS becomes the preferred solution for avoiding the looming environmental catastrophe posed by Bitcoin under PoW. \n\nSumming up \n\nIn the last analysis, it seems likely that most or all Bitcoin mining will have to, before long, use renewable energy like solar, wind, biomass, geothermal or hydro power in order to minimize the environmental footprint of global mining. Some governments may step in and require this shift in order for entities to be allowed to continue mining. Under this scenario, mining with renewable energy may be a way to “future proof” one’s mining operations. \n\nWe may also see in the next few years a strong push for a shift to Proof of Stake instead of Proof of Work, either in new forks or updates to Bitcoin Core, or with the creation of entirely new cryptocurrencies. The degree to which PoS alternatives to the current Bitcoin catch on can only be known by actually watching these alternatives perform in the marketplace. \n\nIf there is a significant shift of SHA-256 mining power away from Bitcoin because of PoS or other factors, the massive global mining power built up to that point will have to shift mining, at least in part, to other coins, if those alternatives are profitable, and the cycle of growing environmental footprint and related problems may well then continue with the large-scale mining of these other coins. Maybe Pandora’s Box has already been opened? \n\nEpilogue: Is Bitcoin a type of dumb world-eating AI? \n\nWired author Eric Holthaus recently hinted that we may be witnessing the type of runaway AI that philosopher Nick Bostrom has worried about in his book Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies. Bostrom worries that machines that have pretty rudimentary AI but a very effective and focused production mission may run out of control of their creators and end up destroying us. Bostrom uses the example of an automated paperclip maker that is so good at what it does that it ends up using all the world’s resources to make ever-growing mountains of paper clips, literally drowning humans in paper clips. \n\nThis example is fanciful but meant to illustrate the danger of simple AIs that are so good at their defined tasks such that we don’t need to imagine an AI that is far more intelligent than humans in order to be worried about the potential for harm from AI. \n\nThe rapidly-growing Bitcoin mining network isn’t itself intelligent in any traditional sense. But given the very powerful financial incentives inducing humans to help that network grow and exponentially consume more and more power, this network is a clear example of what Bostrom worries about: rudimentary intelligence leading to very perverse large-scale outcomes. Will Bitcoin end up, in a sense, controlling its creators and eventually consuming all available resources on our small planet? \n\nAgain, such a scenario is fanciful at this point but not so fanciful that we shouldn’t start thinking about it and taking steps to prevent this remote but highly dangerous scenario from occurring. \n\n \n![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmWfUfv8v9Mg6CyfE2XPZmVwTNd8xa3iyfq795NwSCr7tP/image.png)",
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      "title": "Can Bitcoin be saved from its own success?"
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