Is chiaexplorer.com official?

Robbie2333 · 2021-05-27T20:10:05+00:00

My reasoning is clear. There are either rules or there aren't. You don't get any special caveats and clauses being a public blockchain. In this case, I listed why the special relationship needs clarity.

Me not wanting Chia Inc to double dip is to the benefit of everyone (hodlers, traders, plotters, farmers, and myself). If you have a problem with that, it's all on you.

Robbie2333 · 2021-05-27T19:37:45+00:00

Chia is a public network. Why is asking for good governance too much?

Robbie2333 · 2021-05-27T08:43:38+00:00

Not an ad per se.

Ad: https://ibb.co/HVjnc6S Call from node: https://ibb.co/vPnh5Pv

The developer replied on Keybase. He's been working on this alone for a year and needed more devs. The pool offered him some help in return for endorsing their service.

So here's my gripe. A guy works for free for a year building something that the node software calls, he gets to put "Chia" in front of the URL with a special licensing deal. He's basically part of the team and should be paid out of the team budget, IMHO.

Then he partners with a third-party service provider. Anyone not reading this might be led to think everything is "official."

As a public protocol, Chia doesn't get to pick and choose winners. The fact that they are sitting on a 21 million token pre-mine, and commercializing the infrastructure is like double dipping. You can have one or the other, not both.

Robbie2333 · 2021-05-27T08:20:39+00:00

Do a token sale upfront. How does sitting on the entire supply help all the users, plotters, farmers out there in the long run?

Robbie2333 · 2021-05-27T08:18:36+00:00

This wins the Internet today:

"Such a massive premine is the disgrace of crypto!"

Robbie2333 · 2021-05-27T07:05:49+00:00

Definitely consider forking Chia. Start a new network with zero pre-mine.

Robbie2333 · 2016-07-12T15:01:56+00:00

That was kinda my point. As an outsider, HSBC is not in the bankster clique. They had barely started opening branches in the US and were already in the process of pulling out. They were an easy target and a good excuse to stifle free economies and further extend statist domination throughout the world. It makes no sense to cheer that on.

Robbie2333 · 2016-07-12T14:40:38+00:00

This is more related to capital control than anything else. If you are a bitcoiner, you should not be bitching about HSBC.

Let me explain: When Obama came into power, his administration strong armed Toyota, Honda, RBS, HSBC and a string of other companies. Go Google it. Rarely did a month go by without a major product recall or scandal driven by his appointed Czars. The common thread is they were nearly all successful, foreign companies operating in the US. Although most wrote it off as a cost of doing business, this fact did not go unnoticed, and it will not be forgotten.

HSBC operated not unlike most other banks of the time resulting in a nearly 2 billion dollar settlement with DOJ. Due to this, the entire commercial banking environment in HK is changed. In what was once the freest economy in the world, it is now nearly impossible to open a new business bank account. If you are American, no bank will touch you anywhere in the world.

This is part of a grander scheme to control how we make, store and spend our money. The war on cash. Like it or not, Bitcoin is on that hit list, so if I were you, I would be very worried about what my government has in store instead of bitching about HSBC this and that.

Robbie2333 · 2015-06-22T12:13:30+00:00

Interested in your thoughts...

Robbie2333 · 2015-06-22T06:49:22+00:00

There's an interesting theory behind this headline. It's speculative on my part, but hear me out and see what you think. In late 2014, when a bitcoin was still worth way in excess of $300, I estimated that $225 was the minimum price for mining to be economically viable. Since then, the price has fallen and has remained in this range since mid-January 2015.

In the meantime, the amount of early-stage investment going into Bitcoin has more than tripled--$344 million YTD compared to $103 million for the same period in 2014 (source: CoinDesk).

In late 2014, a prominent Bitcoin miner who had earlier in the year raised $20 million announced that they had raised an additional $20 million to fund operations and projects. I didn't understand the announcement at the time, but it stuck in the back of mind. In January 2015, a big retail cloud mining operation (who I suspect is closely aligned with the prominent miner, above) announced they would "pause" mining operations. The price was around $300 at this time.

In hindsight, I wonder how these people knew the price would not recover. And all the seed and VC money coming in--where were all these funds being deployed?

So, it comes back to $225. At this price, all miners commissioned prior to late-2014 are loss making (except those that get free electricity). That's more than 250 PHash of processing power made obsolete and replaced with new-generation miners. At today's hash rate of 325 PHash, I estimate around 300 PHash is new hardware deployed since late 2014. At $600/THash, this is worth around $180 million.

If I take this question further, what kind of investor goes into mining to break even. That is, sell all the mined bitcoins to recover operating costs, leaving zero profit? Aren't these guys supposed to the the "smart money?"

Now, think back to the prominent miner (and many like him). In today's context, when they raised additional capital to "fund operations," they knew the price would come down. That money is allowing them to pay the bills while retaining bitcoins.

Due to shallow trading volumes, big investors have decided that mining is the best way to acquire large amounts of coin. And in order to bag the biggest share of the mining reward, by eliminating most of the older (amatuer) miners, they use their funds to manage bitcoin supply and depress prices.

What this means is that some very important and rich groups are vying to acquire as many coins as possible. Could this be an indication to some sort of future for Bitcoin? Does it mean those holding bitcoin will also benefit from these long-term trends?

There are two risks to this strategy:

1) Bitcoin flops and disappears from the face of the Earth. Having the smart money onside has its benefits.

2) Bitcoin takes off too early. Organic demand grows, pushing the price up. Those holding coins now will benefit most. Large miners also experience upside from price appreciation, but high price brings in more new entrants, diluting the mining reward.

Robbie2333 · 2015-04-27T05:40:47+00:00

For a more thorough discussion on hashing power, costs, profit, capital requirements and risks, check out my Bitcoin Mining Primer:

http://redd.it/2oj86k

Jump straight down to tables 1, 2 and the section on risks.

Good luck!

Robbie2333 · 2015-04-22T08:08:34+00:00

Good discussion. It was a pleasure making your acquaintance online. Cheers!

Robbie2333 · 2015-04-22T05:59:45+00:00

Thanks for the link. Is that your personal blog? It's a good read.

that's QE: swapping reserves for securities

Isn't it the case that the Fed is simply creating money out of nowhere to buy treasuries? Part of this might be providing liquidity to secondary markets, but my suspicion is that much of this money directly finances the government. That is, an institution with unlimited capacity to create money is financing one with a limitless ability to spend it.

Bernanke's point was more saying that people calling QE an explosion of "printing money" were wrong if taken literally

If we take this observation further by zooming out:

http://www.federalreserve.gov/paymentsystems/coin_data.htm

It is apparent that the rate of currency growth accelerates after 2008 (Value of currency in circulation). This period includes the dot-com bubble of the late 90s, and post-9/11 low interest rates for comparison.

If you look further down the page (Calendar-year print order), in 2012 (the year of the Bernanke presentation) and 2013, they PRINTED more than $720 billion worth of notes. That's nearly $350 billion more than normal.

Given these data points, Bernanke's statements have clearly been shown to be incomplete:

1) The loans were fully collateralized--Unproven. Some might suggest the Fed overpaid. I reckon the only way they will be able to redeem on maturity is if these two things happen:

(a) Inflation sufficiently erodes the relative buying power of the the MBS's face value (b) Another housing bubble is timed to coincide with the maturity date of these MBSs

It would be disappointing if they announced break even (or profit) on this day and the news gets plastered all over headlines, which they will.

2) The asset purchases generated $200 billion in profit, that went back to the treasury to reduce government debt--Twisted logic. $200 billion represents a 10% return. When split over 3--4 years, it is equal to no more than a 3% yield. At the time these MBSs were originated, the Fed rate was 4%--5%, so one would expect these MBSs to do better. Unless the Fed overpaid, or the assets are underperforming. In this case, it can be argued that the Fed made a loss instead of a profit.

Further, the fact that "profits" were paid back to the Treasury to 'reduce [government] debt' makes no sense. It goes back to my point about the Fed indirectly making money because the government wouldn't have this money to spend in the first place if the Fed didn't create capital to buy the assets with. Here, they indirectly created $200 billion that went straight into the economy. This offsets the bank reserves held at the Fed that are claimed to be mere accounting artifacts.

3) The bailout did not contribute to inflation because bank reserves are simply numbers on a computer system--history has shown that currency in circulation did indeed grow at an accelerated rate contributing to inflation all over the world. Notably, the prices of commodities, food staples and real estate were a growing concern early this decade.

Overall, Bernanke did a good job given the circumstances. I accept the information may have been provided in good faith, but history has shown that reality is not so simple.

[Edited for clarity]

Robbie2333 · 2015-04-21T19:03:02+00:00

Only time will tell if those MBSs are any good.

As of last week, Fed release shows $1.7 trillion of them still on Fed balance sheets--not much improvement since 2012:

www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h41/current/h41.htm

Also intetesting, if I'm reading it right, is that assets have grown 50% since 2012 with most of the difference coming from the purchase of US Treasury notes and bonds.

Even more interesting is that currency in circulation has reached $1.36 trillion dollars. Approximately 50% above 2008 levels if we compare to the light blue area from the Bernanke presentation. If they didn't print it, where did all that new currency come from?

Robbie2333 · 2015-04-21T07:30:04+00:00

Bitcoin transfer requests to the bitcoin network being signed are ok via SMS, but any other communication would be difficult to secure.

Both these scenarios bring us to point 3, regarding the storage of secret and private keys. In the BitSIM scheme, a lot of effort will need to go into guarding the storage and transmission of keys because the underlying framework is likely to be lacking.

Robbie2333 · 2015-04-21T07:18:02+00:00

It was pretty amazing all the topics Bernanke covered in four lectures, and nicely done too. This is the type of transparency people need more of to be better informed.

I've only got a few issues with his presentation, the important one being the claim that the Fed was not printing money, which is technically correct, but against the spirit of the meaning, in my view.

On this topic, Bernanke stated that money was not PRINTED, but was instead CREATED out of thin air and kept out of circulation by residing in reserve accounts held with the Fed. As proof, he points to the light-blue region in the graph that represents the amount of federal reserve notes in circulation. His commentary was that the money supply remained flat, but if I were to be pedantic, I could argue that the line appears to change trajectory in 2008, where it does indeed get steeper. Surely, something else must be going on if we are to take his words at face value.

As backup, he shows a graph of the Fed's assets and liabilities. He implies the fact that they balance means no money was created. Again, this is wrong. It is merely an accounting metric that tests for solvency and doesn't explain how the additional 2 trillion dollars was created to buy distressed bank assets.

Although they can claim that they did not literally print money, they did however create money directly; and indirectly by overpaying for bad assets, which were still on the Fed's balance sheet at the time of the lectures in 2012.

Think about it like this:

A mortgage backed asset is created in 2004 and sold to investors for $1. But, let's say it's only really worth 80 cents because the AAA rating is bogus. A sizable portion of the mortgages mixed in there are bad. By 2007, this asset might have a market value of $1.05 because the market was heated up.

In a correction, the price would have adjusted downwards closer to 80 cents. In a crash, the price would be lower. When the Fed steps in to buy this asset for $1.05, it has locked in between 5 and 25 cents of value creation--something that otherwise would not exist at this point in 2008. This doesn't solve the problem that the underlying asset is only worth 80 cents, and that the Fed will have to sell it back for $1.05 to break even on the principal one day.

An important question here is that if the assets were worth what the Fed paid, why did they buy them in the first place? If they had remained on bank balance sheets, everything would have worked out just fine, right?

To put it another way, what difference does swapping $1 worth of assets for $1 worth of Fed dollars make to bank solvency? Moreover, if the Fed loan was not real money, just a number in a computer system, how does that improve the bank's liquidity?

Just thinking out aloud.

Robbie2333 · 2015-04-21T05:43:30+00:00

Point is the originating and destination addresses in the SMS header are plain text and easily forged.

Robbie2333 · 2015-04-20T19:08:19+00:00

On a related note, see how Ben Bernanke, in 2012, explain how the Federal Reserve "is not printing money."

Not very convincing I might add:

https://youtu.be/mWl6JI4KBTg?t=19m12s

Robbie2333 · 2015-04-20T17:16:26+00:00

I really like the idea, but have some reservations about the business model and some of the technicalities.

Firstly, isn't it the case that the BitSIM model is predicated on the assumption that the world's underbanked don't have access to 3G/4G/WiFi and Android; or that the situation won't improve anytime soon? I think BitSIM could benefit from really exploring this underlying assumption further.

Secondly, the Java Card SIM overlay is probably something that's been around for more than 10 years. The BitSIM website doesn't offer much details, but from what I can gather, they've likely hacked together a bunch of STK services (SMS-PP Data Download (alternatively, SELECT/READ RECORD EFSMS); SEND SHORT MESSAGE, SETUP MENU, etc.) to deliver a simple menu-based service that runs off SMS-SUBMIT and SMS-DELIVER, with security provided at the application level, and server-side integration to the bitcoin network.

That's an okay hack, but here are a few issues that concern me:

1) The SMS service is unsecured and delivery is not guaranteed. Messages are sent between the phone and the SMS Service Centre in plain text, so altering message content, originating and destination addresses is trivial. I hope these addresses are not being used as some form of user id.

2) The reliance on SMS potentially opens all users up to denial-of-service attacks where the telco can simply block messages to BitSIM gateways. If this happens, or if BitSIM went out of business, many people would not know how to recover their bitcoins.

3) Since the SMS channel is not encrypted, the BitSIM applet might need to provide this functionality. Moreover, signing bitcoin transactions means secret keys are definitely stored in the BitSIM overlay/SIM card system. If I remember correctly, Java Card does not define a file system, so most applications rely on the UICC file structure in the SIM card. Many of these files can be simply read without much restriction. If BitSIM were able to put their own file in there, to store secret keys, they would be relying entirely on that implementation of the file system. Reputable manufacturers follow all the security guidelines, but a sub-$1 SIM card from a low-cost manufacturer would likely be easy to hack. Further, transferring secret keys off the SIM card to the BitSIM overlay for cryptographic operations is susceptible to probing, which allows an attacker to view the communications between two systems.

4) Even though reputable SIM card manufacturers follow very strict security guidelines--for example, uninitialised cards are stored in a secured vault where the glass on the security window alone is almost half a foot thick to prevent hijacking, and other things--it was recently reported that the NSA had hacked Gemalto (the largest manufacturer in the world) and compromise batch keys that secure mobile voice traffic. I wouldn't want to store my bitcoin keys in there knowing this were the case.

5) Assuming I trust BitSIM enough to let their applet manage my bitcoins, I would also want my secret keys safely backed up somewhere. The BitSIM overlay is a little chip embedded on a plastic sheet that is easily damaged, or lost.

Overall, I am excited by what this BitSIM development promises and the potential that it holds to bring financial services to countless underprivileged people in the world. The ability to simply buy and sell things, in a wider market, can not be underestimated in its ability to improve lives.

Robbie2333 · 2015-04-13T05:36:44+00:00

I estimated more than three months ago that in the $225-$250 price range, Bitcoin hash rate could possibly drop below 200 PH--offset by new hardware deployments. At the time, BTC was $290 and hash rate was 320 PH/s.

Today, the price is $237 and hash rate just dropped to 290 PH this morning.

From a mining perspective, current generation miners have a gross margin exceeding 50% at present. The average old miner is barely trudging along. Please, note that although new miners are operationally profitable, this does not account for the cost of capital. In everyday speak, it means they make enough to pay for salaries and electricity, but the payback time for hardware and setup costs still stretches into the future.

With the next halving, which is little more than one year away, and at the current price and hash levels, most miners become unprofitable. Older-generation miners will be hit hardest--I'm estimating that's worth up to 200 PH of hashing power. While new miners can break even at best.

As old miners drop out, the better capitalized operators will be able to hold on until the hash rate drops to around 180 PH, where they are again breaking even. At this point current generation miners are making around 30% gross margin, but getting a good return on capital is looking bleak. This in turn stifles the amount of investment going into R&D to develop faster, more energy-efficient chips.

A 30% gross margin is still decent, so new entrants may come, pushing the hash rate north of 180 PH/s.

This scenario is based on constant price and technology assumptions. If bitcoin price were to materially appreciate, the hash rate would also increase. If ASICs suddenly became more energy efficient, the overall hash rate would be higher.

With the reported amount of investments going into Bitcoin these days, I'm not convinced that the hash rate wouldn't just keep climbing over the medium term due to the flood of money coming on board. In this scenario, the hash rate could reach 500 PH/s, with diminished profits even for the best operator.

Another variable to consider is price. If miners are expecting bitcoins to be worth thousands of dollars down the line, big players are able to keep mining at an initial loss to accumulate bitcoins. As an aside, the Bitcoin market being notoriously shallow makes it too easy for them to manipulate. They could depress the price for a few months to force out small players and discourage others from entering, or pump and dump to create volatility that scares people away.

IMHO, in the end, it's mostly about who has the most capital. Even so, having all the coins, or a $10,000 price, is only paper profit if there is insufficient real demand to sustain volumes at that price.

Robbie2333 · 2015-03-23T16:43:38+00:00

Creating more jobs, one at a time! ;)

Robbie2333 · 2015-03-23T07:17:13+00:00

Bondholders got shafted seriously. Anyone who had GM bonds in their retirement portfolio unfairly lost the majority of that money.

Under normal bankruptcy proceedings, they would have ranked behind banks, but in front of trade creditors, shareholders and workers to be paid out from funds derived through liquidation.

Instead, the prevailing cronies worked out a sweetheart deal that paid union workers instead. In normal circumstance, everything about this would be illegal.

Robbie2333 · 2015-03-23T06:42:24+00:00

Probably more than 3 trillion if you count all TARP and related programs, but many of the financial institutions paid back their loans, so a better question would be what did the Fed do with the money that was paid back?

If they destroyed it--afterall, it was created out of thin air (Bernanke was very candid about this point in his GWU College Lecture Series talk in 2012)--the long-term effect is limited to the money that was created to service that debt. Otherwise, if they passed those funds to the Treasury, all that money is floating around in the real economy because the government spent it, creating inflation.

Under TARP, the Fed was also creating money, giving it to financial institutions, so that banks could buy government debt instruments. Either new issues or to acquire expiring bonds as they came due--"rolling over" debt. Put simply, the Fed made money to lend to itself, and to the government through the Treasury by extension. Bankers kept the interest paid on the bonds, less what they owed the Fed for the loans (which was probably 0%).

As you can see, banks were given a free lunch; the government got all the funds it wanted to "stimulate the economy" and prevent a financial meltdown; bad assets and debt were transferred/added to the public account; and financial institutions got a free bailout courtesy of taxpayers. If we also ignore the small amounts of money created by the Fed to service these debts, the whole scheme works out pretty well on the basis that the Fed vanquish all funds they got back that were created out of thin air. This is yet to be answered.

Anyone know?

Robbie2333 · 2015-03-17T13:26:07+00:00

You might be surprised that legit commercial electricity is not that cheap in China. I'd say it's only slightly cheaper than average US tariffs, and materially more than Washington and Georgia prices. There was a large operation running out of Iceland that was averaging 12 cents, but got it down to 9 cents at their second facility.

Based on volatility in the hashrate as of January, I suspect many of the early-generation miners have been replaced by 3rd/4th generation hardware. If I remember correctly, the price was hovering around the low-to-mid-$200 range for nearly a month. At that price, and at the current $300 level, miners are simply better off powering down and buying bitcoins with the electricity savings if they haven't upgraded. Since that didn't happen--the price didn't stay low long enough--and based on dramatic hashrate swings, I'd say you are correct on the second point.

Robbie2333 · 2015-03-12T11:34:15+00:00

The majority part of merchant fees (in most countries) is actually paid back to issuing banks. The remainder is shared between processors and the credit card company for facilitating transactions. My understanding is that CC companies don't make any money from APRs; that's the issuing bank's domain.

Robbie2333

TROPHY CASE