5 ms·

How do you buy the bitcoins without the state tracking you? FYI the US is doing that also, you cannot buy on coinbase without providing ID... they want to be a

How do you buy the bitcoins without the state tracking you? FYI the US is doing that also, you cannot buy on coinbase without providing ID... they want to be able to track big buyers.

rblatz 9y ago
You could mine, even if it was unprofitable. Spending 10 million in mining costs to produce $5million in bitcoin is still a win for a lot of people trying to move money out of China.
- lifeisstillgood 9y ago
  Does that work - I think the mining reward is 25 BTC, about 75,000 USD. So for 7.5million thats being the winning miner 100 times. I honestly don't know what setup it takes to be reasonably certain to be the winning miner these days - does anyone have stats on how many miners and how often one might be expected to "win"?
  - lmm 9y ago
    The stats don't really matter, because the market is designed to equilibrate the price: it costs 7.5 million to mine 7.5 million's worth (in expectation, net present value and all that), and always will. If you're worried about reducing your variance you can join a pool rather than mining directly.
    - Nursie 9y ago
      But over what time period?
      - corysama 9y ago
        There was an article posted a few weeks ago about a large Chinese mine that was doing $200K/day.
        Nursie 9y ago
        Sure, and that's a lot, I'm just wondering if there's anything approaching a investment->return timescale. Not that it really matters! It's not like I have a few mil hanging around looking for something to do...
      - lmm 9y ago
        At a guess we'd be talking 6 months - 2 years - my vague memory/impression is that's roughly the timescale on which mining hardware goes from new to worthless. If you're more vertically integrated in terms of buying datacenters/chip fabs/what-have-you then I'd imagine longer.
  - aianus 9y ago
    You can mine in a pool that distributes the pool's winnings proportionally to hashpower to its members. You don't need to actually mine any blocks on your own.
- bonzini 9y ago
  The largest mining pools were based on China.

How do you buy the bitcoins without the state tracking you? FYI the US is doing that also, you cannot buy on coinbase without providing ID... they want to be able to track big buyers.

rblatz 9y ago

You could mine, even if it was unprofitable. Spending 10 million in mining costs to produce $5million in bitcoin is still a win for a lot of people trying to move money out of China.

lifeisstillgood 9y ago
Does that work - I think the mining reward is 25 BTC, about 75,000 USD. So for 7.5million thats being the winning miner 100 times. I honestly don't know what setup it takes to be reasonably certain to be the winning miner these days - does anyone have stats on how many miners and how often one might be expected to "win"?
- lmm 9y ago
  The stats don't really matter, because the market is designed to equilibrate the price: it costs 7.5 million to mine 7.5 million's worth (in expectation, net present value and all that), and always will. If you're worried about reducing your variance you can join a pool rather than mining directly.
  - Nursie 9y ago
    But over what time period?
    - corysama 9y ago
      There was an article posted a few weeks ago about a large Chinese mine that was doing $200K/day.
      - Nursie 9y ago
        Sure, and that's a lot, I'm just wondering if there's anything approaching a investment->return timescale. Not that it really matters! It's not like I have a few mil hanging around looking for something to do...
    - lmm 9y ago
      At a guess we'd be talking 6 months - 2 years - my vague memory/impression is that's roughly the timescale on which mining hardware goes from new to worthless. If you're more vertically integrated in terms of buying datacenters/chip fabs/what-have-you then I'd imagine longer.
- aianus 9y ago
  You can mine in a pool that distributes the pool's winnings proportionally to hashpower to its members. You don't need to actually mine any blocks on your own.
bonzini 9y ago
The largest mining pools were based on China.