7 ms·

They haven't been making money for a year or two now -- they can't sell their coins without crashing the market, so they're getting loans with their coins and m

• tromp 4y ago
  > they can't sell their coins without crashing the market They should be able to, with the yearly supply of mined coins at just over 1% of the circulating supply.
  • larma 4y ago
    Most of so called circulating supply is not circulating. 25% are in addresses that have been dormant for more than 5 years. Several percent are locked in "DeFi" or long term contracts. When Bitcoiners say "circulating supply" they really just means "all coins ever mined" and you shouldn't actually use that number for any practical purpose (doesn't stop people from using it for calculating the "market cap")
  • lottin 4y ago
    Non sequitur. The ability to sell without crashing the price depends on whether there is sufficient demand.
    • Jasper_ 4y ago
      Indeed. Remember the first rule of finance: in order for someone to sell an asset at a price, someone else must want to buy that asset at that same price. If you're selling 15,000 BTC, maybe only 200 people want to buy them for $22,000, and 10,000 people want to buy them for $20,000. And the remaining only want to spend $19,000. The market depth (the number of people willing to buy/sell for a given price) on crypto tends to be surprisingly shallow. Selling off large amounts will push the price down, simply because you're going to run out of people buying for the high price. Then people realize you're dumping coins, and then realize since you need to get rid of them, they can buy for cheaper since you need to unload them, so why spend more? And also the psychological aspects of dumping coins (why are miners dumping unless they thought they would go down).
• aasasd 4y ago
  > mining equipment as collateral So the same hardware that becomes useless when the btc price falls?
  • hef19898 4y ago
    Good for the miners, the equipment and the coins are worthless, worst case, and thr money is gone. The bank will hold the bag so.
    • bottled_poe 4y ago
      If you think the bank is losing out here, I have a bridge to sell you.
      • hef19898 4y ago
        Depending on the bank in question that bag will be passed on rather quickly. Doesn't mean a bank cannot be bitten, in 2008 most banks held CDOs only for a short period of time, it was tue volume they held thatvwas the problem for those banks.
  • jedberg 4y ago
    I guess it depends if they are custom ASICS or just GPUs. GPUs can be useful elsewhere, custom ASICS not so much.
    • icelancer 4y ago
      They're ASICs. GPUs haven't been used for BTC mining in a long time.
      • droidist2 4y ago
        But people are always blaming crypto miners for the shortage of GPUs.
        • 4y ago
• mise_en_place 4y ago
  I had always wondered if mining had been profitable at all, ever, except for the very beginning. I feel like being a late entrant into this required huge fixed costs, and this was back in 2014 or so. Only through joining a huge mining pool or staking pool would the numbers make some sense.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • midasuni 4y ago
    I would guess the profitability would be linked to the cost of electricity. Many counties have subsidised power (1c/kWh), some are naturally cheap (iceland), and some people steal electricity (some weed farms) Sure you won’t make money if you are lying 35c/kWh, but bitcoin could be seen as a way of exporting abundant renewable electricity from isolated areas.
    • DonHopkins 4y ago
      Bitcoin should be seen as a way of exporting cheap low quality dirty sulfuric coal and massive amounts of CO2 and carcinogens from remote unregulated regions through the atmosphere to the rest of the world.
      • kzrdude 4y ago
        Heavy industry does the same kind of thing, so it's not just bitcoin. For example: heavy industry that's located in Mexico instead of U.S for environmental regulation reasons.
        • formerkrogemp 4y ago
          At least the heavy industry is fxkcing doing something.
        • DonHopkins 4y ago
          As you already know quite well, heavy industry produces useful products and jobs, and is not a get-rich-quick pyramid scheme. Take a step back and look at what you're doing: lamely attempting to justify and carry the water for Bitcoin's horrible energy waste and pollution, when you already know quite well what the counterarguments to your ridiculous shilling and apologetic whataboutism arguments are. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism Your arguments have been thoroughly and widely debunked already, in glorious detail, and claiming you don't have enough time in your busy online shilling and gambling schedule to educate yourself by watching a factually accurate video about reality is a cop-out that shows you're afraid to look at the facts because you know you're wrong. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ_xWvX1n9g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ_xWvX1n9g Surely you don't actually believe what you're saying, that factories are as useless as bitcoin, and already know why that is an invalid argument, so I should not have to remind you. Or do you really not give a flying fuck about the environment or public health? Then say so. I'm bending over backwards trying to give you the benefit of the doubt that you're not that dumb to believe your own argument that heavy industry justifies bitcoin, so if you've simply lost a lot of money gambling on cryptocurrencies and you're just trying to trick other suckers into covering for your unforced mistakes, then just admit it and stop pretending.
• renonce 4y ago
  Why not sell the coins? The market is big enough. I can't see why someone would mine coins without selling them as they are mined, otherwise you don't realize your profits. When there is enough cheap dollar in the market, there would be someone else who believes the coin price would rise at a later point and buy BTC for profit.
  • Jasper_ 4y ago
    Miners have started to sell. One just sold 1,500 BTC, which was part of what broke the $20k buy wall. [0] [0] https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/06/17/bitfarms-looks-to-boost-liquidity-with-sale-of-1500-bitcoin-new-loan/ https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/06/17/bitfarms-looks-...
    • ATsch 4y ago
      "boost liquidity" what a wonderful euphemism
  • lottin 4y ago
    If miners sell, it means more money has to enter the system in order to keep the price from falling. And conversely, in the absence of more money entering the system, miners can't sell their bitcoins without crashing the price.
    • renonce 4y ago
      The thing is you have to sell it sooner or later or you won't make a profit. If you sell it to such a price that it's significantly lower than people expect it to be, someone will buy it so they can be sold at a higher price later. It's extremely easy to open both short and long positions on BTC market, so the current price should remain close to its expected price.
• andreareina 4y ago
  Is the collateral denominated as N bitcoin or $N worth of bitcoin?