Today on Animal Planet, the GPUgobbler in its native environment. Does this stuff even get used for anything useful (like F@H) or is it all pointless speculation?

It is not speculation at all. He is not using other peoples money on betting. Computational power is used to generate coins, as well as provide security and maintainance to entire ecosystem. These goods are commodity which is in demand, they are not pushed upon innocent victims.

It is not speculation at all. He is not using other peoples money on betting. Computational power is used to generate coins, as well as provide security and maintainance to entire ecosystem. These goods are commodity which is in demand, they are not pushed upon innocent victims.

And what purpose does that computational power serve?

Not to take into account the whole idea of "mining" utterly idiotic and counter to all world's efforts of curbing useless electricity power consumption... ...if these guys are mining Bitcoins, they are the most stupid miners out there. GPU is no longer suitable for Bitcoin mining.

And what purpose does that computational power serve?

controlled coin generation, transparency, transaction system, security. i'll say it again: the kinds of reaction i am seeing here, is exactly how i reacted the 1st time I have been introduced to cryptocurencies. So I think I know where you're coming from. These reactions are normall. But this is not like some bank picking up mortages and debts and credits, mashing them together, calling it the most innovative product ever and reselling it to each other. The people actually want to own the sh1t that the computational power generates.

ok dumb question, but what exactly is crypto currency mining???

You just burn hell lot of electricity power and "earn" money for that. It is as stupid as it sounds. It is a wonder no genius still though of giving money for anyone to buy gas at local gas station and burn it in their back yard without any real purpose. Of course many will tell you how cryptocurrency is super-duper awesome and actually a cure for cancer, but this is just a lie (or attempt to hide behind pink glasses). True, the idea of cryptocurrency was great, but the actual implementation in real world - absolutely idiotic, unsustainable for nature, and ultimately is means just to provide criminals with a "secure" method of conducting their criminal activities.

@Noisiv except you only have a small group of ppl using it (vs cas/cards etc as payment) and large amount of illegal stuff is being payed for with BC. besides that, lots of energy wasted to produce virtual money i already had before mining it, just in a different state (cash/bank) minus the power wasted (and payed for). similar to inefficiently producing hydrogen (non solar/water/wind power plants), even when you run it in a highly efficient hydrogen car, it still has higher impact in total emissions, than gas/diesel engines.

If is for BTC, it's ridicolous. A miner have 1000 time more power than a video card with power of a single. This can be for Ethereum

You just burn hell lot of electricity power and "earn" money for that. It is as stupid as it sounds. It is a wonder no genius still though of giving money for anyone to buy gas at local gas station and burn it in their back yard without any real purpose. Of course many will tell you how cryptocurrency is super-duper awesome and actually a cure for cancer, but this is just a lie (or attempt to hide behind pink glasses). True, the idea of cryptocurrency was great, but the actual implementation in real world - absolutely idiotic, unsustainable for nature, and ultimately is means just to provide criminals with a "secure" method of conducting their criminal activities.

I suppose it's ok if you know your electricity is coming from renewable sources such as wind turbines, hydro-pumps etc but given that the mining is going on big time in China, well, China at the moment is the number one country that is producing the most greenhouse gases (2nd being America) because of their use of coal. The truth of bitcoin however is that it is traceable, each transaction has a hash of it's location, each transaction creates a blockchain (detailing the addresses the transaction is between), and that blockchain is shared through the P2P network. So even if a machine drops out, those details are still stored. So a pattern of transactions from an address can be discovered. A few years ago in the last mining rush during the Tahiti phase, many transactions had been traced to Russian cyber-criminals as well as of all people, Julian Assange, the founder of wikileaks who to this day is still residing in the embassy of Ecuador. It is true that there is a method in which to obfuscate the locations of transactions such as use of VPN's and proxies but there will be a stage where bitcoin is turned into cash and as mentioned above, this event is stored amongst the p2p network so you can see where the money is going otherwise, it's useless outside of it's own ecosystem however this would lead me onto a discussion of laundering and frau.d (why is frau.d blocked by the profanity filter?) and then it gets even worse as you'd start having to face conspiracies and.... tinfoil. Now I can't say what will occur in the future, where or how bitcoin will be used to what degree but we know that bitcoin is notoriously being used in cybercrime and personally, I'm of the belief that bitcoin is being used to fund the people behind ransomware attacks, botnets and perhaps in the future, cybewarfare. Perhaps I'm being cynical or jaded but my opinion is I don't like bitcoin, it's nature is not trustworthy, the means to mine bitcoins by processing transactions, which in the real world is a bankers fee is, in our current ecosystem of power generation which is still using predominantly non-renewable sources (particularly in the major locations where mining is taking place) is rather controversial. I wish this bubble would pop already.

@Noisiv except you only have a small group of ppl using it (vs cas/cards etc as payment) and large amount of illegal stuff is being payed for with BC.

yes, and if that wasnt the case 1 btc would go for $100,000 the number of ppl using btc can only go up. the amount of transactions went 10x up, in the last year alone. again... reading your comment, is like reading my own 7 years ago. Little later down the road, I remeber me still crapping all over particular crypto coin at the theoretical level, while in practice making money on it. Please dont confuse me for a crypto prophet or even believer. I have zero desire of converting anyone. Hell entire thing still might burst into flames. I wouldnt bet on it though 🤓

besides that, lots of energy wasted to produce virtual money i already had before mining it, just in a different state (cash/bank) minus the power wasted (and payed for). similar to inefficiently producing hydrogen (non solar/water/wind power plants), even when you run it in a highly efficient hydrogen car, it still has higher impact in total emissions, than gas/diesel engines.

yup, its just another currency

This is just sad... so much wasted resources... for nothing, literally NOTHING. If guns didn't kill us all, tanks didn't kill us all, nukes didn't kill us all, well, "money" will definitely do it. http://i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/126/314/3cd8a33a.png

I wish this bubble would pop already.

It's the future, just accept it. Even governments are starting to see it. EU are recording migrants on a block chain with bio metric data of that person. Everything will move to block chain eventually including land registry/medical files.

And that brings us to next-gen-tweaked/die-shrink/completerebrand cards prizes Next-Gen TitanX (because we dont have enough cards with same name) 1600+, top cards 1000-1200, high-range 700-800, mid range 400-500, low range 200-300 and office cards if we are lucky will cost ~100...

Not to take into account the whole idea of "mining" utterly idiotic and counter to all world's efforts of curbing useless electricity power consumption... ...if these guys are mining Bitcoins, they are the most stupid miners out there. GPU is no longer suitable for Bitcoin mining.

Why are you so angry? Everyone is stupid and idiotic and your posts are all tinged with animosity. Sounds like you need a vacation.

True, the idea of cryptocurrency was great, but the actual implementation in real world - absolutely idiotic, unsustainable for nature, and ultimately is means just to provide criminals with a "secure" method of conducting their criminal activities.

Yeah, you have zero idea what's up I'm afraid. Unsustainable for nature? I can list at least 10 things that have so much larger of a footprint it makes mining not even a blip on the map.. what a silly argument. Also to state that its "criminals" who are using it from criminal activities, I have a couple "legitimate" offshore accounts Id like to show you over here.. Anyway, with the topic at hand, mining is very popular at the moment so nobody should be surprised to see everyone jumping on even though as far as Ethereum is concerned its fairly late in the game as the large jumps in value I think have already occurred. That said, for gamers who are choked about high GPU prices, give it a couple months. I am willing to bet that once the craze dies down, in the course of a couple weeks you will see the second-hand market balloon with 1080tis and RX480 and 580 at pretty significantly lower pricing.

Why are you so angry? Everyone is stupid and idiotic and your posts are all tinged with animosity. Sounds like you need a vacation. Yeah, you have zero idea what's up I'm afraid. Unsustainable for nature? I can list at least 10 things that have so much larger of a footprint it makes mining not even a blip on the map.. what a silly argument. Also to state that its "criminals" who are using it from criminal activities, I have a couple "legitimate" offshore accounts Id like to show you over here.. Anyway, with the topic at hand, mining is very popular at the moment so nobody should be surprised to see everyone jumping on even though as far as Ethereum is concerned its fairly late in the game as the large jumps in value I think have already occurred. That said, for gamers who are choked about high GPU prices, give it a couple months. I am willing to bet that once the craze dies down, in the course of a couple weeks you will see the second-hand market balloon with 1080tis and RX480 and 580 at pretty significantly lower pricing.

Will happen once Ethereum switches from PoW to PoS.

Have said it before will say it again: Who knows what exactly it is one is doing when "mining"? Who is that is benefiting from all this mining? Do not say it is the miner...something has to be backing the "currency". Who are these new Robber Barons? Cryptocurrency reminds me of JOHN WICK. Those coins only had value within that special society. As long as one had the coin, their life within that society was hidden from the rest of the outside world. EDIT: Wait for the craze to die down...How long did the Gold Rush last? Think again And everyone thought consoles were pc gaming's worst enemy

Have said it before will say it again: Who knows what exactly it is one is doing when "mining"? Who is that is benefiting from all this mining? Do not say it is the miner...something has to be backing the "currency". Who are these new Robber Barons? Cryptocurrency reminds me of JOHN WICK. Those coins only had value within that special society. As long as one had the coin, their life within that society was hidden from the rest of the outside world.

It's not even the currency what's most valuable, it's the block chain (ledger). The coin what miner receives is just a reward for lending the network computational power to solve the complex mathematical equation. These blocks form a chain, which verify each other using special private keys. All GPU's are basically brute force attacking to solve the block, in return coins are rewarded so miner keeps his GPU's pointed at the block chain. Block chain verifies these transactions using vast wealth of GPU's pointed at it. In real world banks, governments, hospitals all hold information about you. They have some form of ledger which they share with each other about clients and other agencies. Problem is their ledger can be tampered with and altered or even hacked/stolen. A block chain can hold same information, but hold it globally across as many locations that have internet access, differences are it can't be tampered with hacked/stolen, because its all encrypted with private keys any tampering and block chain knows and destroys that entry and replaces it. That's why block chain is valuable and why so much computational power is required to run it. Expect government to start storing every ones ID on a block chain eventually, because how secure it is compared to all other methods available to them.

It's not even the currency what's most valuable, it's the block chain (ledger). The coin what miner receives is just a reward for lending the network computational power to solve the complex mathematical equation. These blocks form a chain, which verify each other using special private keys. All GPU's are basically brute force attacking to solve the block, in return coins are rewarded so miner keeps his GPU's pointed at the block chain. Block chain verifies these transactions using vast wealth of GPU's pointed at it. In real world banks, governments, hospitals all hold information about you. They have some form of ledger which they share with each other about clients and other agencies. Problem is their ledger can be tampered with and altered or even hacked/stolen. A block chain can hold same information, but hold it globally across as many locations that have internet access, differences are it can't be tampered with hacked/stolen, because its all encrypted with private keys any tampering and block chain knows and destroys that entry and replaces it. That's why block chain is valuable and why so much computational power is required to run it. Expect government to start storing every ones ID on a block chain eventually, because how secure it is compared to all other methods available to them.

See what I am getting at. All the above stated is that one is solving an equation...for what? What is the purpose of that equation? One is being rewarded for doing what exactly? No one is being rewarded, cryptocurrency style for folding. So what is it exactly that is being valued? Do not fool yourself to think that this "block chain" cannot be tampered with. Who wrote the code to start with? All it amounts to is how complex it is and how much it is worth to the individual who wants it tampered with. Nothing is fool proof. The only two things in life that are guaranteed is death and taxes.

See what I am getting at. All the above stated is that one is solving an equation...for what? What is the purpose of that equation? One is being rewarded for doing what exactly? No one is being rewarded, cryptocurrency style for folding. So what is it exactly that is being valued?

You can ask the same about paper money (its color printed paper), about money in banks (only a few bytes of info in digit form?), even about real gold. Why do you need gold nowadays anyway (except maybe little amounts in electronics here and there)? And still it has big value. Because it has marked demand (for whatever reason) and it's people who give it value. Same for Bitcoin, Ethereum and other crypto currencies. Bitcoin is even considered a new gold by some - its almost decade old now an value only rises, it has finite supply (thats why every miner and his cat is now mining ETH and not BTC - because BTC mining complexity is too big now), you cannot buy much with it (legal everuyday stuff anyway), but you can exchange it. Same holds true for gold.. Yes wasted resources is a big problem now. Thats why Ethereum was planned to move from pow to pos from the beginning. Once (if) it happens, resource usage will be drastically reduced. As for bitcoin almost nobody mines it now anymore due to complexity. Yes there are other crypto coins but the whole idea is new money and even new possibilities for say government transactions, decentralised apps etc. Its like Internet was twenty or so years ago... not yet understood and hard to predict. Simmilar thing now even creators of Ethereum ar waiting for killer app for crypto. Probably its not a bubble but something that will have big effect in the future.

You can ask the same about paper money (its color printed paper), about money in banks (only a few bytes of info in digit form?), even about real gold. Why do you need gold nowadays anyway (except maybe little amounts in electronics here and there)? And still it has big value. Because it has marked demand (for whatever reason) and it's people who give it value. Same for Bitcoin, Ethereum and other crypto currencies. Bitcoin is even considered a new gold by some - its almost decade old now an value only rises, it has finite supply (thats why every miner and his cat is now mining ETH and not BTC - because BTC mining complexity is too big now), you cannot buy much with it (legal everuyday stuff anyway), but you can exchange it. Same holds true for gold..

Paper currency used to be backed by an equal value of the precious metal it was based on. Current times...worthless, not backed by anything other than faith. Metals and minerals, there is an actual physical finite supply. Virtual is virtual...artificially limited...by what or whom? This discusses value. I mainly want to know what is being accomplished by the actual mining. Minerals and metals need to be dug out of the earth and the scars on the planet surface is a testament to that. What is this kind of mining actually doing? The end result is not the coin or the fraction thereof. That is the reward for contributing to the achievement of the goal.

OK now I remember.. The bulk of my early day complaints about btc and other coins basically stemmed from being jelly. Something like.. who are all these ppl earning tons of money by producing heat and doing basically nothing. I tried sugarcoating it and pretending that Im worried about security, and about block finding being a useless computational effort. But it was pure jealosy fueled by the idea that at the timd seemed reasonable (and still does) : you cant create new value by doing nothing. And same with some PoS coins, like.. FU, why should I join now that all the good spots have been taken, and the sh1t is already rising sky high That's a PHASE ZERO of getting familiar with crypto currencies. Edit: in case ur totally new to crypto, PoS means something else :wanker: