Agreed, even 1 GW would be extensive heat but spread over a year then no so much.

I only used the cite for 1-4 GW as it was the low end of the range but this second article I cited is stating that worldwide annual consumption is 32TW. Now we are talking power.

One YouTube presentation I say from a bitcoin miner said his power bill was $80,000 a month and he averaged 30 bitcoins a month. Yes it was paying for itself but what an utter waste of resources.

LA gets water from as far away as Colorado. That has state would best be served if it just fell off into the ocean. They are trying to prove the impossible, you cannot irrigate a desert.

A friend of mine sent me this yesterday, offers a remarkable view of the problem, not just the west coast but worldwide:

https://www.geoengineeringwatch.org/c...

No, looking for a place for a tin foil hat.

Computers are 0% efficient. 1-4 GW in a square mile is an exciting amount of heat.

Water. Have watched a couple of long documentaries on water issue in the world and it is going to get worse in many parts of the world. Parts of Mexico City are sinking due to water table depletion. Consider, Los Angeles has been sucking on water taken from the Owens Valley, 250 miles north since about 1911.

I don't like prints on my pristine rounds so I try not to fondle them.

Well there has been beads, salt, diamonds (worse than gold except as industrial abrasive), chocolate and so much more.

Wonder what's next? I'd say brains but they are hard to measure in short term and many would be destitute.

Perhaps you are trying to read a lot more into this than exists.

The claim was for gigawatt hours and was one of the low estimates maintaining a very conservative estimate. How conservative, try this one"

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2...

"The skyrocketing value of Bitcoin is leading to soaring energy consumption. According to one widely cited website that tracks the subject, the Bitcoin network is consuming power at an annual rate of 32TWh—about as much as Denmark. By the site's calculations, each Bitcoin transaction consumes 250kWh, enough to power homes for nine days.

Naturally, this is leading to concerns about sustainability. Eric Holthaus, a writer for Grist, projects that, at current growth rates, the Bitcoin network will "use as much electricity as the entire world does today" by early 2020. "This is an unsustainable trajectory," he writes."

This is not based on a single facility, it is based on the technology as it stands currently.

Agree on the gold is a "barbaric relic" noted by J.M. Keynes, though he was referring to his advocacy of central banking, not gold, per se. Nevertheless, fondling my silver is a joy and makes me smile.....

So, it was between 8,760-35,040 GW-hrs. At $0.12/kW-hr, this is $1E12 - $4E12 cost for electricity. Didn’t see that in the budget.

Perhaps you mean it was between 1 and 4 GW-hrs, which is still between $120M and $480M. Even at the cost line, this is big bucks.

How big is this facility in acres?

Excellent post. But in my opinion your vision on the technology side is short sighted. It is a technology that on the good side has limited possibilities but on the side of evil could be unlimited.

It is not a joke, it's a fatality waiting to happen even in it's present form which you have amply stated.

Gold has always been accepted as a store of value but that is no longer really true. Today gold is just another tool of manipulation evident by it's seemingly lackluster performance by manipulation. For gold to be what it once was would require a renewal of it's value and ownership.

We do seem to be on the same page, different paragraphs but the same page.

Silver will outstrip gold because silver is necessary in many processes whereas gold holds mostly an intrinsic value based on utility not need.

We are on the same page, Alfred. Hell, maybe silver will become worth more than gold!!!

And you would be sadly mistaken. Blockchain is a matter of public record there for all that wants to take a look.

The IRS was looking and had every transaction, boy did some people get some rude awakenings for their 2017 tax returns.

Bitcoin is a test of a technology to see if the sheeple would accept it and to would seem they did. Here comes the cashless society where if you do something not liked your wallet mysteriously just stops working.

Due to the way the blockchain technology works, bitcoins cannot be manipulated but the wallet is open for control. The fact that your wallet may contain a certain amount of bitcoins will always be true. The fact you are the owner of that wallet or can even gain access to the wallet is easily manipulated.

Rotten in all respects. Looking at the bitcoin chart where you to buy a bitcoin on 12/07/17 for $13727.80 to support a transaction on 12/08/17 when it shot up to $16371.80, you would have been one happy camper.

However if by that same token your transaction was on 1/6/18 at $17108.70 you would not have been very happy at all on 1/7/18 when you needed more because the value had dropped to $16371.80.

The only real value of bitcoin is high intensity gambling.

2017

Actually I seen some reports from trusted sources that the rate of consumption with all these phones and computers is trending toward the deficit side. Couple that with news like this from 2016: http://www.kitco.com/news/2016-12-23/...

1-4 gigawatts? Over what period of time?

I don’t know precisely how it works, but I’m certain it is more anonymous than credit cards, checks and bank transfers.

If you think bitcoin is anonymous, you don't understand how bitcoin works.

The 1/4 oz rounds will do fine for small transactions. I envision being able to fill my tank (48 gallons) with diesel for 1/2 oz. As to the G/S ratio, in terms of extraction, 10 times more silver (more or less) is mined than gold thus, the ratio should be closer to 1:10, historically, about 1:16.

Here's an interesting resource http://www.numbersleuth.org/worlds-go... Nevertheless, when gold goes up, silver will go up, proportionally, more.

You didn't get any tearaways, how are you going to make change?

I would say that when that brown stuff gets into the fan you will be prepared. Have you seen the projection that silver and gold may change ratios with silver being a multiple of gold?

It may be many things, but one thing it’s NOT is money. I’ve been studying Economics for almost 50 years, specializing in monetary Economics. Bitcoin fulfills almost no criteria of real money, such as gold.

As I am also a techie geek, I think blockchain technology is a beautiful thing, and has many valuable uses. But money is not one of them. Bitcoin is simply not REAL. To say that it “as good as” fiat money is hardly an argument.

True, some people use it as a medium of exchange, but that’s their risk. A risk IMO that’s a losing proposition for all but the luckiest of speculators. Simply look at its volatility and tell me it’s a “store of value”.

I think it offers true liquidity and anonymity in transactions. Good currency. Volatile investment.

Bitcoin, shitcoin.While we are headed in the direction of Venezuela, to date, it is still quite a way off.The world economies have gone nuts. Even the price of gold and silver has become variably unreliable for no apparent reason except that manipulators are trying to squeeze more value out of a thing whose value should not be screwed around with..

I don't pay much attention to it. What I know is, I can't afford to exchange my money for silver. So that's how it is, at this point.

Thank you, I didn't want to spend the time to look up those final details.

While I agree it's a lousy investment, it wasn't designed that way. The design was centered around decentralization of currency control which was a fraud unto itself.

What it has proven is the possibility of a one world currency in a cashless society. And while it is impossible to manipulate the actual bit coins that is not so for either the wallets and more importantly the passwords. This is not a lousy investment, it is a very dangerous technology.

And all the little sheeple have bought it hook, line and sinker, But not to worry, it will be coming soon to a bank near you.