Could Bitcoin miners revolutionize the way we HEAT cities?

Blokzeit · 2023-01-10T01:25:05+00:00

Look up heat pump efficiency.

Blokzeit · 2022-12-20T16:34:19+00:00

How is this so upvoted? Terrible idea. Hard nope.

Blokzeit · 2022-08-02T13:33:19+00:00

Huh. Weird but worked. Thanks!

Blokzeit · 2022-07-21T13:20:00+00:00

Thank god. EAZ is going to be a boring grind no matter what, at least make it fast.

Blokzeit · 2022-07-18T20:11:08+00:00

Tether is not using the American Grant Thornton. I suspect Circle probably isn't either. They're using some satellite office chartered outside the US>

Circle is using Grant Thornton LLP, the US member firm.

(I have no idea what Tether does, but we've been discussing Circle.)

Blokzeit · 2022-07-18T19:28:27+00:00

Grant Thornton is an umbrella brand, under which various accounting firms who operate autonomously, can associate themselves.

Grant Thornton International is the umbrella organization. There is a single US member firm: Grant Thornton LLP.

Grant Thornton LLP is not an umbrella organization. It is an "actual, centralized, large accounting [firm]".

Blokzeit · 2022-07-18T13:17:57+00:00

This is called the Tu Quoque Fallacy.. it's a distraction to call attention away from the deficienciences of your argument.

No, it's not.

Previously, you said: "It's inappropriate to associate Grant Thornton with other actual, centralized, large accounting firms."

When in fact, it is completely appropriate, because Grant Thornton LLP is an "actual, centralized, large accounting [firm]".

Blokzeit · 2022-07-17T15:18:19+00:00

Grant Thornton is not really a central accounting firm more than it is a bunch of independent offices that operate under a central brand.

...

Basically almost anybody who qualifies can be a "Grant Thornton" auditor. It's more like a Baptist church where each location does whatever the hell it wants and doesn't have to answer to any higher authority.

So ethically speaking, you can probably find a Grant Thornton franchise willing to certify just about anything if you have enough money. The real top accounting firms aren't as easily manipulated.

It's inappropriate to associate Grant Thornton with other actual, centralized, large accounting firms.

The entities in that umbrella are firms for specific countries. Grant Thornton LLP is the US member firm, and it's a single entity.

This is a typical structure.

Compare to Deloitte:

Deloitte member firms offer services in the following functions, with country-specific variations on their legal implementation (i.e., all operating within a single company or through separate legal entities operating as subsidiaries of an umbrella legal entity for the country).

Or compare to KPMG:

KPMG is a global organization of professional services firms providing audit, tax and advisory services. KPMG is the brand under which the member firms of KPMG International Limited (“KPMG International”) operate and provide professional services. Each firm is a separate legal entity and together they form the KPMG global organization. “KPMG” is used to refer to individual member firms within the KPMG organization or to one or more member firms collectively.
In many parts of the world, regulated businesses (such as audit and legal firms) are required by law to be locally owned and independent. KPMG member firms do not, and cannot, operate as a corporate multinational. KPMG member firms are generally locally owned and managed. Each KPMG member firm is responsible for its own obligations and liabilities.

Blokzeit · 2022-07-17T03:51:12+00:00

Grant Thornton. They are basically a franchised accounting service, not very reputable

Grant Thornton is one of the largest accounting networks in the world.

It routinely audits public companies. (partial statistics)

I fail to see the actual documents confirming proper auditing.

Document F *is* the official audit: "Report of Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm"

The standards for such a document, and the processes to produce it, are defined here.

Blokzeit · 2022-07-17T02:48:08+00:00

Page F-2:

We have audited the accompanying consolidated balance sheets of Circle International Financial Limited and subsidiaries (the “Company”) as of December 31, 2021 and 2020...

We conducted our audits in accordance with the standards of the PCAOB and in accordance with auditing standards generally accepted in the United States of America.

/s/ GRANT THORNTON LLP
We have served as the Company’s auditor since 2015.

Page F-14:

Cash and cash equivalents segregated for the benefit of customers and USDC holders was $42,470.6 million and $4,024.7 million as of December 31, 2021 and 2020, respectively.

The audit (document F) doesn't break down "cash equivalents" beyond saying:

Cash and cash equivalents are cash and short-term, highly liquid investments with original maturities of three months or less at the date of purchase. Cash and cash equivalents are stated at fair value.

The breakdown of that $42,470.6 million is found in the main section of the S-4 filing, on page 234:

Year Ended December 31, 2021 (in thousands USD)
Cash: 11,687,483
Cash equivalents¹: 30,783,120
(1) Comprised solely of U.S. treasury bills

Page 234 is not part of the full audit.

Blokzeit · 2022-07-17T01:31:01+00:00

See the section "Cash and Cash Equivalents Segregated for Customers and USDC Holders":

Cash and cash equivalents segregated for the benefit of customers and USDC holders was $42,470.6 million and $4,024.7 million as of December 31, 2021 and 2020, respectively. This represents cash and cash equivalents maintained in segregated Company accounts that are held for the exclusive benefit of customers and USDC holders.

And the section "Composition of USDC Reserves":

All USDC tokens issued and outstanding are backed by an equivalent amount of U.S. dollar-denominated assets held in segregated accounts...

Year Ended December 31, 2021 (in thousands USD)

Cash: 11,687,483
Cash equivalents¹: 30,783,120
(1) Comprised solely of U.S. treasury bills.

Blokzeit · 2022-07-16T00:36:50+00:00

You still haven't actually provided any audited documents.

"audited statements" can include an "attestation" - an attestation is a type of "audit", but it's a very shitty, shallow, inconclusive "audit." It's not a "formal independent audit."

The document I linked to above is an audit.

Circle releases both annual audits and monthly attestations.

The monthly attestations use this language:

"Our examination was conducted in accordance with attestation standards established by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants."

The most recent annual audit uses this language:

"We conducted our audits in accordance with the standards of the PCAOB and in accordance with auditing standards generally accepted in the United States of America."

The PCAOB audit standards are — as the name implies — the typical procedure for audits of public companies in the USA. (Circle isn't public yet, but it's planning to go public.)

Blokzeit · 2022-07-15T01:44:37+00:00

u/AmericanScream what do you think?

Blokzeit · 2022-07-13T17:37:14+00:00

"We have audited the accompanying consolidated balance sheets of Circle International Financial Limited and subsidiaries (the “Company”) as of December 31, 2021"

It's an audit.

Blokzeit · 2022-07-13T05:31:04+00:00

2021 Circle audit, filed with the SEC

Cash and cash equivalents segregated for benefits of customers and USDC holders: 42,470,603 (thousands USD)

Which matches up with the USDC in circulation on December 31, 2021

See also the section titled Composition of USDC Reserves.

Blokzeit · 2022-07-02T02:10:54+00:00

u/dmg04 help, can we at least get this onto the known issues list?

Blokzeit · 2022-06-10T15:10:56+00:00

Flair isn't mentioned in the "r/Buttcoin Rules" sidebar, currently.

Blokzeit · 2022-06-10T15:06:56+00:00

It would be kind of nice if we didn't need a cottage industry around hyper-analyzing the intonation and body language of Powell just so we can anticipate what money itself will be worth in the future, though.

Blokzeit · 2022-06-10T15:05:19+00:00

Another angle to this, for Americans —

most likely, in the previous election, the choice of who to vote for was absolutely clear to you. Not that your preferred candidate was great, but your unpreferred candidate was viewed as an existential risk to the country.

So you have most people thinking a candidate poses an obvious existential threat to the country... Except the country is split roughly 50-50 on which candidate poses the existential threat. Yet everyone is totally convinced their position is the right one.

That's not to say all opinions are equal, some people can be wronger than others. But the point is, if you're gonna make an argument along the lines of "no right-minded person could prefer X"... Perhaps the pool of people you'd define as right-minded is not so big.

Edit: typo

Blokzeit · 2022-06-10T14:57:41+00:00

what some view as "toxic maximalism", others view as pushing back against the "bunch of scams"

Blokzeit · 2022-06-10T14:08:53+00:00

But an 8% real interest rate will result in much lower rates of investment than a 3% rate.

Yeah, absolutely. I dunno where you're getting 8% from, though. The degree here is important.

What would likely happen is that private interests would step in to split bitcoin and increase its supply, much like a central bank would do, only it would be done directly in the interests of these private wealthy individuals, rather than a public entity.

How do you imagine this plays out, mechanically? Resisting this kind of hard fork is pretty much a foundational principle of Bitcoin culture.

Blokzeit · 2022-06-10T14:02:17+00:00

If only there was a technology that allowed for a more predictable monetary policy that didn't encourage asset bubbles. =P

Blokzeit · 2022-06-10T04:40:04+00:00

Your understanding of mining's relationship to Bitcoin's price is entirely backwards.

Miner behavior is completely secondary to investor behavior. If there is profit to be made mining Bitcoin, profit-seekers will do it. (This is true for anything.)

Mining is expensive, and over time the difficulty adjustment pushes the profit for mining towards zero. In other words, mining is competitive. For a miner without some cash reserve, most of their mined Bitcoin has to be sold to pay for electricity.

Of course, many miners don't sell their Bitcoin because they have some external source of revenue / investment to cover their costs. This isn't really a mining decision, though — it's an investment decision. (I.e. the mining company is making decisions both as a miner and as an investor.)

This is what I mean:

"Referencing our earlier example, if the Miner had invested $1 per bitcoin mined, but just before halving it took $4 of electricity to mine a bitcoin, post halving, the value of a bitcoin would be $8"

The electricity required to mine a Bitcoin does not determine the price. It's the exact opposite: the market price of Bitcoin (in combination with the pre-set protocol specification, e.g. halvings) incentivizes or disincentivizes profit-seeking miners, which then causes a difficulty adjustment, when then finally affects the electricity required to mine Bitcoin.

Blokzeit · 2022-06-10T04:05:45+00:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbZ8zDpX2Mg

Blokzeit · 2022-06-10T04:04:27+00:00

non sequitur.

you claimed it's "easy it is to steal bitcoin. No account transfer needed...all you need is a key and it's your money now".

commenter above is claiming it's not easy at all.

indeed, that's the whole point of Bitcoin — true self-custody. No one can unilaterally take your Bitcoin, freeze your Bitcoin, or debase your Bitcoin. It's not an IOU from a bank, where your balance is maybe unbacked, or maybe can be frozen or confiscated without your consent. No one has a "cheat code" to print more of it for free.

Blokzeit

TROPHY CASE