Category Archives: Bitcoin
The Continual Power Of Intermittent Bitcoin Mining – Bitcoin Magazine
Many aspects of the Bitcoin mining industry are poorly understood and often misrepresented. But one practice in this sector stands apart for the misunderstandings and underappreciation that surround it: intermittent mining.
While most miners aim to achieve as much uptime as technically feasible meaning their machines are online and hashing instead of offline or powered down some miners dont. Instead of continuously mining, their uptime is far below industry norms and operates on more complex schedules built around variables like power supply and demand, time of day, intraday profitability and even temperature.
This article aims to give a brief but detailed overview of the economics and general operations of intermittent miners, and it highlights some discourse that shows how and why this part of the sector is often misunderstood.
This type of mining activity is often associated with renewable energy sources (i.e., wind and solar) since these types of power are also generated intermittently. Wind doesnt blow all the time, and the sun wont provide as much power on cloudy days renewable power is categorically intermittent. But bitcoin miners can easily adapt to the fluctuations in these power generation schedules, unlike most other energy consumers. Lancium is one example of a mining company building intermittent mining farms. Compute North is another example.
In fact, under normal operating conditions (meaning, without the balancing effect from miners demanding renewable power), these intermittent energy sources can create unnecessary stress on electric grids. The demand from miners, as discussed in more detail later, can serve to create a floor price for renewable energy generation projects, making them more attractive as infrastructure investments. Improving the economics of renewable power sources isnt the only use case for intermittent mining, but it is one of the most commonly discussed.
Demand-response programs that provide interruptible power sources to miners can be fueled by coal, natural gas or any other common fuel used to generate electricity. But to remain specifically focused on renewables, for examples sake, when bitcoin mining operations are paired with an intermittent renewable source of energy, both teams win.
A recent spate of somewhat negative commentary on intermittent mining came from Twitter posts written by several prominent proof-of-stake consensus advocates, including Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.
Martin Kppelmann, CEO of the decentralized trading protocol Gnosis, told his 33,000 Twitter followers that the idea of intermittent mining helping develop more renewable energy sources requires mental gymnastics. Buterin hopped in the tweets replies to say, I never understood how this concept of switching miners on and off frequently makes any sense at all. The end of the tweet betrays that, apparently, Buterin hasnt considered the issue closely though. He wrote, If you're paying for hardware but only using it half the time, in a competitive market you'll be running at a loss.
And these tweets are not exceptions. Alex De Vries (aka, Digiconomist), a long-time irrational mining critic, former Dogecoin promoter and an ex-employee of the Dutch Central Bank, has argued (without much supporting evidence) that Bitcoin mining and renewables make for the worst match.
Multiple bitcoin advocates and actual miners have attempted to clarify and correct the ideas behind intermittent mining strategies for Buterin and Kppelmann. Mining increases the elasticity of demand for electricity, explained HODL Ranch CTO Jesse Peltan. Cryptocurrency research and developer Noah Ruderman also countered Buterins misunderstanding. Mining monetizes energy that nobody wants. Much of that energy is renewable. It's just an energy subsidy, Ruderman wrote.
Intermittent mining is in fact widely praised across most of the Bitcoin industry. For example, Gideon Powell, CEO of Cholla Petroleum, wrote that [renewable energys] intermittent nature pairs beautifully with #bitcoin mining flexible load. And Mike Colyer, CEO of Foundry, described bitcoin mining as one of the most important innovations for the electrical grid in over 100 years. What innovation exactly? A large base load that is intermittent, Colyer wrote. The most obvious use case for bitcoin mining, according to Max Gagliardi, co-founder of Ancova Energy, is being paired with intermittent energy resources.
To the potential surprise of some critics, intermittent or interruptible mining strategies can sometimes be more profitable than continuous mining. A mining analyst at Galaxy Digital, for example, notee the case study of Riots Texas mining facilities in July. By selling power back to the grid instead of mining with it itself, it netted 30% more revenue over that period of time. And with that in mind, the next section takes a deeper look at intermittent mining economics.
One of the most important ways that interruptible mining operations are seeking a competitive edge in the current market is with increasingly sophisticated power purchasing agreements (PPAs). And when dealing with inconsistent power sources, miners need to develop customized strategies for determining how much power they can use, when that power is available, and what type and generation of mining hardware and firmware theyll energize with that power.
Hardware lifespans are also a consideration, since repeatedly shutting off and turning on hardware can limit its long-term utility. According to analysis from Braiins, even if miners arent running the machines at full capacity, minimal hashing to prevent fully powering down can be a winning strategy. Miners participating in load balancing programs and those using intermittent energy sources can help preserve their hardware by keeping it running in all but the most extreme peak demand scenarios, a blog post from the mining company suggests.
Where is this need for intermittent mining as an energy subsidy seen in the real world? California is seeing the economic case for building more solar supply significantly undermined when prices drop and excess supply has no buyer. Bitcoin miners power buyers of last resort could easily mitigate these problems.
Interruptible mining strategies will certainly become more dominant as the number of farms with 99% uptime or higher begin to represent a slightly smaller share of the industry. This will happen as pure-play mining companies negotiate lucrative PPAs with generation companies. And, more importantly, intermittent mining will come to the industrys fore as power companies themselves build mining teams to either improve or salvage the economics of their power generation plans. Either way, the future of bitcoin mining is bright.
This is a guest post by Zack Voell. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.
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The Continual Power Of Intermittent Bitcoin Mining - Bitcoin Magazine
Nevermind The Bear: Developer Interest In Bitcoin Keeps Growing, New Study Shows | Bitcoinist.com – Bitcoinist
The market might be down, but developer interest in bitcoin isnt. Since the all-time high almost a year ago, it has grown more than 8%, according to a recent study. Telstra Ventures data science team performed health checks on 3 top blockchain ecosystems and concluded that open-source developers signal strength of web3 community. The story here, though, is bitcoin. Which isnt really part of the web3 community, but thats a topic for another time.
The studys introduction briefly mentions Terras collapse and Celsius and Three Arrows Capital disaster stories. It doesnt mention Tesla panic selling 75% of its bitcoin, which is another reason for the downturn. Since January, a 60% loss in crypto market cap wiped $1.3 trillion, and VC investments tumbled 25.6% to about $9.3 billion, down from a record $12.5 billion invested during last years first half, Telstra said.
Nevertheless, developer interest in bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana remains high. According to the companys General Partner Yash Patel, developers decisions about which protocols to use will be driven by use case and will point to the winning protocols.
Telstra buried the lead and downplayed the phenomenon. Bitcoin has seen a steady growth in the number of active developers over the past 8 years, the study says. The fact of the matter is that developer interest in the network has been growing since its inception 13 years ago. Bitcoin continues slow and steady growth through price volatility, such is the networks rhythm.
Consider that bitcoin doesnt need as much development, because its trying to be money and not a world computer of some sort. Also, consider that the network is much older than Ethereum and Solana. Those two facts make this next bullet point even more impressive.
During the same period, Ethereums developer interest had a drawdown of 9.0% and Solanas number of active contributors has declined 21.0%. It figures. And still, those numbers are not bad at all considering were probably in a bear market.
Also, consider that developer interest in the same period for Solana is growing 173.0% compound annual growth rate and Ethereum is growing 24.9% compound annual growth rate. It figures, since we used to be in a bull market and Altcoins tend to do well in that environment.
Its worth noting that Telstras study includes Stacks projects in the mix, and well, Stacks is not bitcoin at all. Its also important to point out that bitcoin is in a category of its own and its not part of the altcoins world. In any case, besides Stacks and general Web3 projects, the repositories with more development interest in bitcoin land include the Zeus Lightning wallet, the Bitcoin Development Kit, the phenomenal Sparrow Wallet, Galoys projects including stablesats, and the essential Mempool.
Its important to point out how Telstra Ventures data science team arrived at those developer interest numbers.
So, the study is comprehensive.
So, the study has limits and only considers developer interest in established projects.
So, the study is GitHub-heavy. Developer interest in non-GitHub projects is not considered.
Perfect. Understood.
In conclusion, developer interest in the three studied blockchains remains high. However, after the collapse, it only continued growing on bitcoin. It figures, because bitcoin developers are interested in something bigger than fiat gains. Bitcoin aims to separate money and state, and market action doesnt affect the mission. Tick Tock, next block.
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Nevermind The Bear: Developer Interest In Bitcoin Keeps Growing, New Study Shows | Bitcoinist.com - Bitcoinist
Skybridge’s Scaramucci says two things will prop up demand for bitcoin – CNBC
Bitcoin fundamentals are "quite good" in the long term due to factors which will "create a demand shock" for the cryptocurrency, Skybridge Capital's Anthony Scaramucci said Monday.
"Everybody is a long-term investor until they have short term losses," Scaramucci told CNBC on "Capital Connection."
Investors may be seeing some losses on bitcoin "but I think long term, the fundamentals are quite good," he added.
Bitcoin is still more than 60% below its all-time high of almost $69,000 in November.
In June, bitcoin plunged to $17,958, its lowest level since December 2020, according to Coin Metrics data. Bitcoin was last trading at $24,047.28 , down 2.4% in the last 24 hours at 4:57am ET on Monday, CoinDesk data showed.
Scaramucci said he's optimistic that "two major things have happened on the institutional side" that will likely generate demand for bitcoin.
"Fidelity is allowing for their 401k products to offer bitcoin," he stated as the first reason, referring to financial services company Fidelity Investments allowing companies to offer employees the option to invest up to 20% of their retirement and savings plan in bitcoin.
Scaramucci cited Blackrock's offering of a private trust for clients to invest in bitcoin as another reason that will generate tailwinds for the cryptocurrency.
"Blackrock said in addition to teaming up with Coinbase on their Aladdin risk management program that they're going to offer a private trust that will give their clients an opportunity to invest directly in bitcoin."
The investment management firm, which has about $8.5 trillion in assets under management, recently announced a partnership withCoinbasethat allows its institutional clients to buy crypto, starting with bitcoin.
Scaramucci said ethereum's upcoming so-called "merge" is a reason why the decentralized blockchain-based network went up in value.
"Ethereum is about to merge and reduce their gas fees and transactions fees. And that's one of the reasons why ethereum is up about 70 plus percent over the last five and a half weeks."
Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market value, ran a final dress rehearsal last week ahead of a long-awaited upgrade that's been billed as one of the most important events in crypto's history.
Ether, which is used to power the ethereum blockchain network, soared to a two-month high after the final dry run for the merge. The token was last trading at $1,905.40, down 4.7% in the last 24 hours, according to CoinDesk.
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Skybridge's Scaramucci says two things will prop up demand for bitcoin - CNBC
Bitcoin May Have More Inflation-Fighting Credentials Than Meet the Eye – ETF Trends
One of the results of persistent inflation is debate pertaining to which assets offer adequate protection against rising consumer prices.
As inflation proved more persistent than transitory, there was hope that bitcoin would be additive to investors inflation-fighting toolkits. After all, the largest cryptocurrency is often referred to as digital gold. However, bitcoin slumped through the first half of this year, prompting some market participants to doubt the assets ability to protect against inflation.
Still, some market observers see things differently, and if their views ultimately prove accurate, there could be benefits to considering exchange traded funds such as the Invesco Alerian Galaxy Blockchain Users and Decentralized Commerce ETF (BLKC). Steven Lubka, the managing director of private consumers at Swan Bitcoin, is among those who believe that bitcoin can be an inflation buffer.
According to Lubka, Bitcoin works well as a hedge against rising prices when inflation is caused by monetary expansion. It is less effective when inflation is caused by the disruption of the food supply and energy, which he sees as the leading cause of this years rampant inflation, reported Marco Castrovilli for CoinTelegraph.
BLKC, which follows the Alerian Galaxy Global Blockchain Equity, Trusts and ETPs Index, is home to 63 holdings, making it a broad play on a potentially lengthy bitcoin recovery as well as an avenue for investors looking to gauge the digital assets inflation-fighting durability.
BLKCs direct bitcoin exposure is sourced via a 13.09% allocation to the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust BTC (GBTC). Additionally, the Invesco ETF is home to shares of multiple bitcoin miners. Those stocks were repudiated in the first half of 2022 as the digital currencys price slumped.
However, some analysts say that some of the higher-quality bitcoin miners may now be offering valuation opportunity, and as the digital asset rebounds, some BLKC mining holdings are likely to follow suit.
As for inflation, Swan Bitcoins Lubka says bitcoin may ultimately prove more effective in warding off inflation than it is being given credit for today.
He also points out that Bitcoin is a better hedge against inflation than stocks or real estate since it doesnt need maintenance, nor is it affected by the risk involved in stock-picking, according to CoinTelegraph.
For more news, information, and strategy, visit theCrypto Channel.
vettafi.com is owned by VettaFi, which also owns the index provider for BLKC. VettaFi is not the sponsor of BLKC, but VettaFis affiliate receives an index licensing fee from the ETF sponsor.
The opinions and forecasts expressed herein are solely those of Tom Lydon, and may not actually come to pass. Information on this site should not be used or construed as an offer to sell, a solicitation of an offer to buy, or a recommendation for any product.
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Bitcoin May Have More Inflation-Fighting Credentials Than Meet the Eye - ETF Trends
Crypto Alert: Why Are Bitcoin Prices Plunging Today? – InvestorPlace
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Crypto prices are down about 8% over the past 24 hours. In particular, market leaders Bitcoin (BTC-USD) and Ethereum (ETH-USD) are both down by about 9%. As of this writing, Bitcoin prices are trending around $21,500 per coin. Meanwhile, ETH is trading closer to $1,700.
This action which has accompanied a fall in global stocks is wiping out a recovery rally that had put BTC closer to the $25,000 mark on Aug. 14. The coin had traded at $47,000 earlier in 2022, but Bitcoin prices fell as low as $17,700 in June. Per Decrypt, liquidations over the past 24-hour period are estimated at $540 million.
Basically, traders who thought the crypto winterwas over may have been mistaken. The groundhog seems to have seen his shadow.
Traders who believed that cryptocurrency could protect value in a downturn are instead seeing digital assets trade like semiconductor stocks. For example, Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) whose chips are at the heart of many mining rigs has shares currently down 40% so far this year.
Bankruptcies of exchanges like Celsius and Voyager Digital have certainly hurt the market this summer. Publicly traded exchange Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN) is also down more than 65% year-to-date (YTD).
Cryptos problems are compounded each time another exchange goes under. German exchange Nurifiled for insolvency in early August. Zipmex also filed for bankruptcy protection in Singapore back in late July.
Now, Sam Bankman-Fried the 30-year old crypto billionaire and CEO of FTX is trying to buy up and consolidate the space, much like JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM)saved the stock market in 1907. Venture capitalists have also been tiptoeing back into the crypto field.
So, what should investors consider as Bitcoin prices fall?
Advocates compare crypto to cash, saying you can trust cryptocurrency more than the central banks who manage dollars, euros and yen. But theres not much behind BTC beyond scarcity, the fact that there can only be 21 million answers to its cryptographic puzzle.
If your bank fails, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) offers insurance for your account, up to $250,000. But there is no FDIC in crypto. As long as crypto remains buyer beware, investors should be wary.
On the date of publication, Dana Blankenhorn held a long position in NVDA. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.
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Crypto Alert: Why Are Bitcoin Prices Plunging Today? - InvestorPlace
The Ballad of Heather Morgan and Ilya Lichtenstein, Bitcoins Bonnie and Clyde – Vanity Fair
It was around 3 a.m. the first time they arrived. An unmarked, nondescript government-issued vehicle pulled up to the towering brown brick and blue glass building in downtown Manhattan known simply by its address: 75 Wall Street. The city that never sleeps was in that rare moment when the ostinato of car horns and rattling subway cars had been replaced by a deep, albeit brief, slumber. The agents stepped out of their vehicle and walked through the revolving doors of the 42-story building, crossing the shiny white oak floors of the lobby to reach the doorman on duty that night. It was 2021, in the midst of the second wave of the COVID pandemic, and the bottom 18 floors of 75, which had originally opened as the Andaz Hotel, had shuttered because of the virus. Seeing anyone at this hour was rare for the doorman, but seeing a group of federal agents was an utter anomaly.
Were picking up signals that someone in this building is trafficking child pornography, one of the agents said to the doorman. We need to go up to the roof to see if we can track where the signal is coming from. The doorman, though slightly taken aback, obliged and pointed the way to the elevators.
As the agents stepped in one of the buildings four elevators, the doorman wondered which resident of the 346-unit building, where condos can cost as much as $7 million, could be trafficking child porn. After a while, the agents came back to the lobby and left the building.
A couple of weeks went by and the feds returned. And again a few weeks after that. At one point, the night doorman offered them a little investigative advice. You sure youre in the right building? he said. Seems more like something youd find at 95 Wall Street? Indeed, 95 was far more malefic than 75. Over that same summer of 2021, the shiny glass building across the street had been the site of a series of drug busts by the NYPD; reviews of the building online had called it a haven for coke dealers, gangsters, and all-night Airbnb parties. Most recently, a high-end escort had been killed there, stuffed into a 55-gallon drum and wheeled out the back door before being dumped in New Jersey.
Nope, the agents said. Definitely this building. And off they went to the roof again. Then, one evening, the pattern changed. The agents showed an interest in one specific floor. The signal they were after, it seemed, was getting stronger.
In reality, the agents were not at 75 because of child pornography. The crime they tracked there had originally taken place in Hong Kong in the summer of 2016, when someone had found a flaw in the code of the Bitfinex crypto exchange and stolen 119,754 Bitcoin, worth around $72 million at the time. Its value had since grown 70-fold and was now in the billions. After a half decade tracking and tracing, climbing on roofs and skulking through the dead of night, the feds had finallyfinally!found the people who had somehow gotten their hands on that stolen Bitcoin. A married couple in their early 30s, with a wild online presence and a Bengal cat named Clarissa (who had her own Instagram account). The husband, Ilya Dutch Lichtenstein, a Russian-born migr, was an investor and part-time mentalist magician. His wife, Heather Razzlekhan Morgan, who was from the U.S., was an entrepreneur, journalist, and rapper.
That was just the beginning, as I discovered in more than 50 interviews with friends and former colleagues of the couple, investigators close to the case, and employees and residents of 75 Wall Street. As the feds were about to find out, this would prove to be one of the strangest cases in the ever-evolving world of crypto crimeand the first clue of just how bizarre this case would become was sitting right there on the couples social media accounts.
Ah, Bitcoin, a new era of money. That invention-slash-ideology that promised to usher in an era of glittering, sparkling, frolicking financial technotopia. Our generations fiscal Woodstock! And by God, did the internet need it. Back at the turn of the aughts, when this bizarre Bitcoin thing was slowly being squeezed from the birth canals of the webs most arcane forums, financial anonymity simply didnt exist online. You bought something digitally, and a database somewhere was tattooed with every microscopic detail about you.
Bitcoin, which made its hushed debut in 2009, promised to change that. It went on to upend the global financial landscape in ways that no one could have ever believed possible (anyone who tells you they foresaw the world we live in today is either a liar or a Bitcoin billionaire). Crypto now makes up $3 trillion in wealth, and the worlds largest financial institutions, including Chase and the Bank of England, cite digital currencies as the future of finance, although a major collapse in value this year has even some true believers wondering if that prediction will pan out.
It was as if Lichtenstein and Morgan HAD A STOLEN Ferrari and as they were TRYING TO HIDE IT in their garage, it turned into a sparkling diamond-encrusted jumbo jet with GOLDEN toilet seats.
The rise of cryptocurrencies also brought with it a new era of crime unlike anything weve ever seen before. Sites soon popped up on the dark web that made it easy to buy drugs, guns, murder, fake diplomas, ricin, body parts, bombs, rocket launchers, and even uranium, all using Bitcoin. And a few years later, because of that promise of financial anonymity, came the rise of a relatively obscure crime called the ransomware attack, where a companys or persons computer system is taken hostage and the only way to unlock it is by paying a fee inyou guessed itcrypto. While this kind of computer hijacking dates to the early 90s, payment was often made by cash or credit card, and as such, was few and far between. Last year, the FBI released a report saying there are now 4,000 ransomware attacks every day (compared to seven bank robberies a day), and that online perpetrators stole $14 billion in Bitcoin in 2021 alone (traditional bank robbers, by comparison, only got away with a couple hundred million). Because of the ease of crypto, hospitals are now taken hostage and held at financial gunpoint. Banks and hedge funds grind to a halt. Even a meatpacking plant was recently forced to pay $11 million in Bitcoin to get access to its beef patties, chicken cutlets, and pork sausages.
Then there are the other crimes, where new waves of hackers phish, spoof, rootkit, worm, cloak, and brute-force their way into stealing all sorts of digital assets, from NFTs to literally (and sometimes figuratively) making off with millions in digital gold.
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The Ballad of Heather Morgan and Ilya Lichtenstein, Bitcoins Bonnie and Clyde - Vanity Fair
The Financialization Of Real Estate Is The Problem, Bitcoin Is The Solution – Bitcoin Magazine
This is an opinion editorial by Jeremy, an advisor to Escape to El Salvador which is a community of professionals who assist expats in gaining residency and citizenship in El Salvador.
Over the last few years, a lot of fuss has been made about so-called crypto-colonizers moving to the developing world and taking advantage of affordable housing and other amenities provided by disadvantaged locals. The Washington Post, Business Insider and even the New York Times reported from Puerto Rico, throwing around terms like gentrification, and associating this new class of wealthy, globe-trotting entrepreneurs with words like utopian, idealist, and the slimier evangelist.
Now, Im not here to defend any particular individual or how they made their money, or even what they plan to do with it. Instead, I want to drill into one, very specific foundation for these types of accusations: that the rise in prices is due to demand. Superficially, thats partly true. As anyone who has taken an intro to economics course can tell you, prices are set by the law of supply and demand. Each of these, in turn, can be influenced by a variety of factors. For the purposes of this article, I want to focus completely on real estate.
Real estate has a supply problem: They arent making any more land and all of it is already spoken for. Outside of a few eccentric efforts to raise islands from the sea, if you want a place to live, you have to buy it or rent it from someone. The seller is going to decide how much they are willing to accept for it based on a variety of factors: primarily its location, but also its use and the quality of its improvements. You can break this down even further and consider the view, the legal jurisdiction, the applicable tax regime, the soil quality of the land, its ease of access, perhaps whether it contains rare or useful minerals or other natural resources and finally, whether there may be a conservation or historical element to its valuation.
On the demand side of the equation, there are just as many nuances. A buyer will decide how much they are willing to pay by considering all of the above, plus one additional truth: You gotta live somewhere. Not choosing a place isnt a realistic strategy unless the ambiance of a highway overpass or the unique aroma of the dry patch behind the dumpster in the alley downtown really speaks to you. There is one additional factor that weighs heavily on the minds of both buyer and seller that has caused real estate prices to rise more than any other: financialization.
As a thought experiment, imagine what the cost of a house would be if its value were completely dependent on its utility as a house. In other words, how much would you be willing to pay to keep the rain from dripping on your head when you sleep, or for having a safe place to raise a family? How much do the materials of its construction contribute to its price? Size is important, as well as aesthetics and so on, but surely youll agree that the price requested for most homes greatly exceeds its utility value solely as a house. The remainder of its price has more to do with its utility as a financial asset. In fact, that might be the primary driver of price in most real estate markets today. So how did we get here?
Our current global economy is designed around a simple idea: By slowing eroding the value of money through inflation, you stimulate investment and growth. Sounds easy, right? The problem is that most people arent savvy enough to invest in a complex marketplace, so investing in real estate becomes a proxy for a long-term store of wealth. This kind of system is inherently unstable given the fate of every fiat currency that has ever been tried. Ultimately, every issuer of currency succumbs to the desire to print ever-expanding amounts, leading to hyperinflation. Asset prices rise in accordance with the supply of money and everything ends up being too expensive to buy toward the end of the cycle.
If it werent obvious, were at the end of the cycle. Prices of everything are setting records and it is human nature to want to assign the blame for the fact that home ownership, which once seemed to be a reachable goal, is now a distant fantasy. If you look around and the only folks that seem to be able to afford the home you wish you had are the nouveau riche, then they can seem convenient to blame even more so if they are flagrantly terrible people. But, and this is the important part: They arent to blame for the rising prices. Blaming them for the unaffordability in the market is like blaming a baby for its pregnancy. Scammers arent the disease, theyre a symptom.
So now that youre thoroughly depressed, you may be asking, What can we do about it? The answer is simple, although to those disadvantaged locals it may seem counterintuitive. The answer is to adopt bitcoin as quickly as you can. Switch yourself, your family, your neighborhood, and your country over to a bitcoin standard without delay. Only by taking the ability to print money out of the hands of the ruling class, can we put an end to the hyperinflationary death spiral we are now experiencing. If you are in a developing country, one of the best ways you can get started with this is to reach out to that bitcoin immigrant you might have been quick to blame. Realize that if they spend bitcoin on a house in your community, for example, thats a great way to get bitcoin flowing through the local economy, and thats what adoption looks like.
There is no shortcut here and the transition will be bumpy. But unless we switch to a deflationary currency that doesnt create the incentive to financialize assets like real estate, the situation will get worse.
This is a guest post by Jeremy. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.
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The Financialization Of Real Estate Is The Problem, Bitcoin Is The Solution - Bitcoin Magazine
How Will Bitcoin (BTC) Price Perform In the Last 4 Months of 2022? – Coinpedia Fintech News
The start of this wasnt that favorable towards the crypto market as it began on a bearish note. The market is still signaling red, hence might end the week on a bearish note. The overall crypto has plunged by 3.02% in the last 24hrs and is now positioned at $1.09 trillion.
While the volatility continues since May, its becoming extremely difficult for traders and investors to make their decisions. Though there was some bull run seen last month, currently Bitcoin price is trading downwards. The flagship currency has lost its $23,000 mark and is currently trading at $22,807 with a fall of 2.86% over the last 24hrs.
Meanwhile, cryptoquant cryptoquant On-Chain Followers : 0 View profile , an analytic firm claims that the current phase is nothing like earlier bear cycles. The present bearish market is comparatively mild when looking at the 2014 and 2018 cycles.
It all started in November 2021 when the overall market began sliding down along with Bitcoin declining. Also, negative macroeconomic events have played a major role in bringing down the market.
As per the survey, considering the previous bear market performance, Bitcoin might find itself positioned at the $15,000 area in a few months. The analytic firm states that if the King currency decides to repeat the earlier bear cycles, then by the end of the year the pressure will see its heights.
As a result, as the year 2023 approaches, the market may be in for a long-term crypto rally. If Bitcoin begins to fall in price in the coming months, it may well continue until the end of the year.
On the other hand, Bitcoin price is also predicted to trade around the short-term target ranging between $21,000 and $20,000. This is likely to happen if there is short-term selling pressure on BTC.
Overall, If the current movement repeats, the king coin can see maximum pressure at the end of the year, starting in October trading range between $10,000 $14,500.
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How Will Bitcoin (BTC) Price Perform In the Last 4 Months of 2022? - Coinpedia Fintech News
Bitcoin Is The New Retirement Strategy – Bitcoin Magazine
This is an opinion editorial by Robert Hall, a content creator and small business owner.
Do you dream of retiring someday? You work all day and put in the hard work to grow your business or to do an excellent job for your employer so you can get a promotion and make more money. What are we supposed to do with our paychecks after the bills are paid, food is put on the table and the kids are taken care of?
Conventional wisdom tells us that we should save for retirement to enjoy our "golden years." This isn't bad advice per se as we can't keep working forever. Having money to rely on after you stop working is prudent financial planning. As you know, a whole industry is dedicated to planning for your future self.
Most financial advisors will tell you to invest your money in a 401(k) and let it grow over time. This has worked out for millions of Americans. For example, the S&P 500 10-year annualized return was 14.25%. This isn't bad when you take it at face value, but once you factor in inflation, this number becomes much lower. Instead of reaping the entire 14% gain, your purchasing power adjusted for inflation is more like 12% after you factor in the Federal Reserve target of 2% inflation target every year. If inflation continues the way it has this year for an extended period, your retirement savings could look much smaller than you thought. This 2% loss also compounds year over year the same as your gains; keep that in mind.
This isn't right! Why should we suffer because of the monetary policies set by the Fed? Mind you, we never voted for any of these jokers causing so much hardship for us and the rest of the world. The Federal Reserve's policy of printing trillions of dollars and buying up government treasuries is creating an unsustainable situation that could lead to the monetary collapse of the dollar.
Everyone thinks that it can't happen here, but it can. No one is immune to stupidity and hubris. Jerome Powell and the rest of the Federal Reserve have come down with a bad case of it. Do they honestly think they can control the economic lives of millions of people? How crazy do you have to be to believe this? Once people lose faith in the dollar, it's all over, folks, and that day is coming sooner than you think. Inflation raging at a 7% clip is a good way to scare people away from the dollar. I'm not saying it is imminent, but the overall trend is not good for the U.S.
So with all of this economic turmoil, how do you effectively save for retirement?
Bitcoin is the perfect vehicle for retirement for a variety of reasons. The first is that it is designed to appreciate into perpetuity. There are only 21 million coins that will ever be produced. This is called an inelastic supply. This means that as demand for bitcoin goes up, the price of bitcoin will also go up due to the scarcity of the supply. Did you know that there have been an estimated three million coins lost, so the total supply will be closer to 18 million by the time the last coin is produced in the year 2140?
The inelastic supply of Bitcoin is exactly what you want to see in a retirement fund asset. Investing your retirement savings in Bitcoin will secure your future retirement needs to the point where you can live comfortably.
Bitcoin is the perfect retirement vehicle because you are in control of your assets and not the bank or some assets manager. Believe it or not, neither of these actors have your financial interests at heart. Banks and asset managers are in the business of making money for their business and themselves. This means there are a bunch of hidden fees that you have to pay them to manage your money. This hides the actual cost of saving your money with a bank, and they will go to great lengths to ensure you don't fully understand all the fees. These entities want to take your money and for you to shut up.
When you compare this experience to buying and holding bitcoin, the experience couldn't be more different. The price of bitcoin is transparent and fees associated with buying, selling and sending to a non-custodial wallet are not hidden. This price transparency gives you a better picture of how much you are spending on fees. The cost of holding your bitcoin long term is meager. Buy a hardware wallet for cold storage and you are good to go. There is no ongoing cost to store your bitcoin wealth. The money you save on fees alone by investing in bitcoin instead of a 401(k) or IRA will add up over the years.
What can't be understated is the fact that you control your wealth and not your retirement administrator. The economy is not exactly excellent right now, and with inflation surging to 7% having easy access to your wealth in times of crisis will make all the difference. Can you imagine a bank run during which you cannot withdraw cash? Can you imagine your stock portfolio going to zero? This can happen to all of us. Lebanon is a good example of what can happen when the debt bomb explodes and everything becomes unaffordable. You are going to wish you had bitcoin! Luckily for you, it doesn't have to end up this way if you buy bitcoin now.
Forgoing a 401(k) or IRA may seem like a radical idea but have you stopped to think about why you invested in a 401(k) in the first place? What benefit do you get out of it other than having money when you retire? The most obvious reason beyond having savings for the future is the tax breaks you get from investing your money in the stock market.
I get it; it becomes very attractive when you can deduct your retirement contributions from your tax liability. You are being coerced into doing that if you think about it though. The government is telling you that we will take more of your money away if you don't invest your money in the stock market. Retirement investing is not entirely a free will choice.
If there were no tax breaks, would you save for retirement? Would retirement even be a concept? That's for another article, but you get my drift.
Saving for retirement with self-custodied bitcoin won't reap you any tax write-offs at the end of the year, but you get the security of knowing that your wealth is entirely secure and appreciating. I would gladly take that trade-off any day of the week. Who would you rather be in control of your wealth? Big banks or yourself? What do you trust more, Bitcoin or stocks? This is the choice we all have to make.
This is a guest post by Robert Hall. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.
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Bitcoin Is The New Retirement Strategy - Bitcoin Magazine
How The Early Days Of The Internet Is Similar To Building On Bitcoin – Bitcoin Magazine
This is a transcribed excerpt of the Bitcoin Magazine Podcast, hosted by P and Q. In this episode, they are joined by Nate of Voltage to talk about how the Lightning Network can transfer value instantly between two parties without having to involve an intermediary. The Lightning Network will allow the Bitcoin network to scale exponentially into the payments world.
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Q: What does Layer 2 mean? Could we equate it and give examples back to the current internet infrastructure and how we interact with that to make it digestible? I found that explanation is most helpful.
Nate: So the internet is decentralized information. Bitcoin is decentralized money. When the internet was first being put together by geniuses 40-50 years ago, they [engineers] were just excited to pass bits and bytes to different college campuses. None of them had any idea of music streaming, video streaming, what we're doing right now, none of that was possible.
Different protocol layers had to be built on the internet on the TCP/IP protocol. I'm not an expert on it, but what we're doing right now is interacting with five or six layers of that base internet protocol. That increases things like throughput, bandwidth and quality, all that kind of stuff.
So the internet is this layered cake that you can visualize. You could Google internet protocol layers, and I'm pretty sure theres some cool graphics for that. And Bitcoin is only a little over 12 years old now or something? Layer 1 is great. It's very secure. It's immutable, censorship resistant, all these really cool features. But the throughput has a problem if you impose global finance on top of it.
Layer 2 is this idea where you could do bitcoin transactions without having to fill the blocks or jam up the pipes of the base layer. We could still have that security apparatus in a way, but also get the instant settlement and finality without having to interact with that [base layer]. Lightning Network is one proposal of that block.
Blockstream has something called the Liquid Network where you basically just transfer bitcoin off of the Bitcoin base layer you're not actually doing that, but that helps you visualize it. Lightning is similar, but different because Lightning has this sort of node gossip network system. It's just about taking the same concept that worked for the internet and applying it to this new money because bitcoin is the money of the internet, but it's also the internet of money in that respect.
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How The Early Days Of The Internet Is Similar To Building On Bitcoin - Bitcoin Magazine