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The kingdom of Bhutan has been quietly mining Bitcoin for years
- goldforever 3y ago[dead]
- triyambakam 3y agoThe spin on the story is weird. Why not just title it "Bhutan's Bitcoin mining operations"?
- anonporridge 3y agoBecause it's a huge revelation that bitcoin mining has been an official, government operation for many years?
- WharfWhoretress 3y agoBecause that titling doesn't result in as many clicks.
- biggoodwolf 3y agoI'd say it is even revealing of a particular worldview. Even within the article, the impression seems to be that the people of Bhutan (and the author) NEED or deserve to know about it. Which is preposterous considering it is a Kingdom
- rippercushions 3y agoBhutan is a constitutional monarchy that regularly holds elections. The people absolutely should have a say in how their tax money is invested.
- biggoodwolf 3y agoAnd that is the difference between theory and practice...
- Zetice 3y agoI think it's kind of wild that you can just take a latent or otherwise inaccessible source of power and now convert it into money. And it doesn't really matter what the price of BTC is for something like this, as the resource is more or less entirely unused. It's just sitting there, doing nothing, so any value you can make out of it is better than the nothing they're already getting.
- anonporridge 3y agoIt's leading to some interesting developments in Africa, where stranded hydropower is generating income for remote villages and helping them expand their local economy. https://twitter.com/GridlessCompute/status/1650470292630716416 https://twitter.com/GridlessCompute/status/16504702926307164...
- giantrobot 3y agoAn Antminer rig is nearly $20k. A Starlink setup is $600 then $50 a month. Plus any other capital costs. If the electricity is "free" just the rig and Starlink satellite cost will take over five years to pay off assuming the mining revenue is $10 a day. Who is giving free money to remote African villages to buy Bitcoin mining rigs? For reference a milk cow costs about $1500 and can produce 2,500 gallons of milk in a year. For the cost of the Bitcoin rig maybe getting $10 a day a village could buy about 13 milk cows. Even selling milk at $1 a gallon that's about $88 a day. The "free" power can be used to Pasteurize the milk (UHT) for extra longevity. That same $20k could buy a room full of laptops plus networking equipment and Starlink. They could take online courses to learn a variety of technical jobs and then do contract work for way fucking more than the $10 a day they'd get from a Bitcoin rig. Edit: fixed Antminer from autocowrong
- eru 3y ago> Who is giving free money to remote African villages to buy Bitcoin mining rigs? Why would it need to be free? It could be an ordinary investment that's paid off over time. (Though I assume that the payback period is probably quicker than 5 years, that seems a bit too long to be useful.) Be careful about cows: there's quite a few charities who want to give out cows to help people (using the same logic as you do). But for many recipients the cow is a net drain on their resources. That same logic applies when buying a cow with your own money.
- anonporridge 3y agoIf you follow Major Jason Lowery at all, https://twitter.com/JasonPLowery https://twitter.com/JasonPLowery, this seems to align with his thesis of bitcoin proof of work mining becoming a form of power competition and warfare between sovereigns.
- anonymouskimmer 3y ago> warfare between sovereigns. Would performing a blockchain transaction that gets taxed by a validator of a country that is enemies with your country be a criminal act?
- anonporridge 3y agoYou can make anything you want a crime if you can enforce it.
- anonymouskimmer 3y agoI mean is this already a crime in various countries? Countries can make things crimes whether or not they can enforce said law.
- kibwen 3y agoGiven that human prosperity is directly correlated to the amount of power available for productive uses, the fact that proof-of-work incentivizes wasting power means that any state that competes in this way is directly lowering the prosperity of its citizens.
- anonporridge 3y agoAll warfare is a waste of resources, but those who decide to become pacifists are eventually out competed and subsumed by those who maintain the art of war. I'd love to know if you've found a solution to this dilemma.
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- DoesntMatter22 3y agoI love when people say 'quietly' as if it's a conspiracy
- SamBam 3y agoI mean, from the article...: > It’s unclear why Bhutan never disclosed the project to its citizens or international partners. > Rumors of government-backed bitcoin farms spread across the country in recent years. So it was secret. They had also been buying hundreds of millions of dollars worth of chips, and not explaining why. So... yes. "Quietly" is apt here.
- joshxyz 3y agois it true that bhutan is not fazed by china and taiwan i just saw a meme of it but im looking for confirmations lol sometimes its the countries yoy dont hear in mainstream news that surprises you
- themodelplumber 3y agoThat doesn't seem very likely. Even just looking into the topic of the Doklam plateau makes it clear that Bhutan is vulnerable to all kinds of changes in attention. If they truly are not fazed in some general way, it seems more likely that they would not be fazed simply because they live within a geopolitical program which has been defined by external entities. In other words, perhaps they must live out an existential perspective, because other paths of political expression are essentially locked up. Related, I wonder about the locus of control with regard to crypto. Who is managing their interface to their crypto, which intelligence agencies from other nations may be effectively overseeing it, etc. Not to dispute their sovereignty, but I'd imagine the latent vulnerability level would be extremely high if the crypto position is anything near significant enough to threaten key political negotiation parameters.
- George83728 3y agoIf they're outwardly unfazed, then it's not their problem. But if they spoke out about it, it would probably become a problem for them.
- wdutch 3y agoI'm not sure why they'd be fazed by Taiwan in particular? I've met several Taiwanese people who have been to Bhutan for tourism and have a favorable view of the country.
- stainablesteel 3y agobhutans 'policy' doesn't strive for economic success as much as they strive for happiness its rather unique, but they totally extort anyone who tries to visit, its expensive!
- justrealist 3y ago
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- DevKoala 3y ago> “It’s concerning that Bhutan's resources have been invested in a secretive manner in a highly volatile and risky investment which has a big environmental burden,” says one former international advisor, who asked not to be identified. Hahahah. Why? First world nations do this on the regular.
- eru 3y agoThat would also be concerning for them.
- x-complexity 3y ago> “It’s concerning that Bhutan's resources have been invested in a secretive manner in a highly volatile and risky investment which has a big environmental burden,” says one former international advisor, who asked not to be identified. Ugh.... that comment just reeks of Western privilege. What Bhutan does with their resources & energy is of no concern to any outsiders, unless they're involved in said operations themselves. Reductively, the advisor's comments just say: "They shouldn't be able to do X with their own resources. WE know what's best for them, not Bhutan."
- bigiain 3y ago> it had begun mining “a few years ago as one of the early entrants when the price of Bitcoin was around USD 5,000.” The most important bit of evidence that nobody there knows what they're doing and that the crypto grifters have swindles an entire country's government. "Early entrants" were mining in 2009/2010. Maybe even as late as 2012 or 2014 might count as an "early entrant" - around the first halving and when the difficulty jumped past 1.0E+6
- can16358p 3y agoGood. We need more countries in power against the big ones like US or China. While what they have is probably nothing compared to big countries, it's a step in the right direction to get rid of US dominance on economy.
- rippercushions 3y agoI'm deeply skeptical of crypto, but if you have to build mines somewhere, Bhutan is one of the less bad places to do it: cold climate and plenty of hydropower. And it's still more environmentally friendly than other options for soaking up excess power, like giant aluminum smelters.
- zamnos 3y agoExcept that giant aluminum smelting is going to happen regardless to make drink cans, MacBooks, and Teslas, among other things. Wouldn't you rather it be powered by renewables than coal?
- defrost 3y agoWhat's the energy cost of transporting millions of tonnes of pre smelt raw ores (Bauxite) to Bhutan (from, say, Australia)? I prefer to keep total energy costs down (wrt to multiple factors including C02 production) and this isn't as straightforward as your comment implies.
- blackoil 3y ago> make drink cans, MacBooks, and Teslas, among other things. Ask people of Bhutan, they'll count 1 and 3rd as equally wasteful.
- rippercushions 3y agoSure, but how do you ship the aluminum ore to Bhutan?
- la64710 3y agoGreed is ever present and even the most meditative have to continuously check himself.
- nobrains 3y agoBitcoin mining can be thought of as a way to convert energy to $$$ without any transmission costs (long distance wiring, transformers, batteries, etc.) So, if you have a power source, and it is too far from where energy is needed, just use that power source to mine, and make bitcoins.
- pallas_athena 3y agoCryptonomicon?