
Forget $9,000… Bitcoin falls below $7,000 - maltalex
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/02/forget-9000-bitcoin-falls-below-7500/
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hbosch
At what point (BTC-USD price) does the mining mini-industry start becoming
unprofitable? With the large scale investments in massive climate-controlled
datacenters crammed with ASICs anchoring the world's biggest mining pools,
there must at some point be a negative ROI. If the price passes that
threshold, would we potentially see many of these mining operations scaling
way down or packing it in and retiring? Selling off equipment? I'd love to
know.

~~~
21
The only thing that matters is if mining brings in more money than it costs to
operate.

Sunken costs (buildings, hardware) are just that - sunken. Just like the shale
oil industry where people were predicting that drilling would stop after ROI
became negative, but that didn't happen, it's still better to lose 60% than to
lose 80% of your investment.

~~~
EgoIncarnate
I want reasonably priced GPUs for machine learning, so I'm hoping GPU miners
will flood the market to liquidate their assets (most can probably get back
their much of their sunken costs if they sell now) rather than risk mining it
when the price looks like it could go even lower.

~~~
ansible
Then you likely want to see a crash in the price of Etherium. GPU mining for
Bitcoin hasn't been profitable in quite a while.

~~~
EgoIncarnate
Yep, Etherium is down 50% from peak as well :-)

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linsomniac
My opinion is that this drop is going to strengthen cryptocurrencies/tokens as
a whole. There are a number of things that have happened leading to this drop
since the high the first week in Jan. Some of the most recent:

\- Tether auditor quits/is fired.

\- It is revealed that Tether may have manufactured $1B worth of Tether, which
it sold for Bitcoin on Bitfinex, leading to much of the gain in Bitcoin.

\- SEC investigating several recent ICOs, they were nothing but scams.

\- China is restricting access to non-Chinese exchanges.

\- Similar restrictions in Korea.

\- Stripe drops support for Bitcoin. [edit]

\- Bitcoin settlement times and transaction fees are skyrocketing.

\- Credit card companies no longer letting you buy cryptocurrencies.

And those are just off the top of my head.

Businesses and governments are still trying to figure this all out. Once they
do, cryptocurrencies will come out stronger because they've negotiated this
and have answers for these questions, or the weak ones have died off because
of it.

Much like the SCO lawsuit being good for Linux. For a white it was a lot of
drama and fear, but in the end Linux came out stronger because it had been
through it.

IMHO.

~~~
therein
> \- Square drops support for Bitcoin.

You're thinking of Stripe. Square is announcing their plans to use Bitcoin in
their cash app.

~~~
linsomniac
Indeed, thanks!

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sasoon
Maybe GPU prices will finally start to go down, especially after used 1080TIs
flood the market

~~~
sushid
You really don't want a used mining rig GPU, but yes, the prices will go down
overall as the market gets flooded with used GPUs.

~~~
outworlder
An open-air case running a GPU (sometimes undervolted) at a constant load
versus a "gamer" GPU going through heat cycles (and sometimes overclocked)?

I'd take a mining rig GPU for a discount.

~~~
t0mbstone
The biggest problem that mining GPUs tend to _all_ suffer from is fan failure.
I'm speaking from experience.

Replacing a video card's fan is certainly doable, but it isn't nearly as easy
as replacing a CPU or case fan (due to the fact that so many GPUs have custom
fan setups).

~~~
outworlder
Excellent point, I had forgotten about this.

Some of the GPUs (like Sapphire's) have fans which are easier to replace.
These are not the norm. Also, being easy to replace doesn't mean they are easy
to acquire.

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IntronExon
I can’t help, but think about the megawatts of electricity turned to heat over
something for which the floor is literally $0.00 USD. I truly hope that Btc
ends up being the catalyst for something worth what currently appears to be an
incredible waste of a dwindling resource.

“So how did you make your fortune Alice?”

“Well Bob, I polluted the world a bit at the cost of enough power to light up
a city for a week.”

~~~
infinitone
There are many things produced that bring no value but pollute the world...
take cigarettes for example.

~~~
nmyk
Cigarettes produce value! They take the edge off.

~~~
avip
There must be a more cost-effective way to dilute the population. Space seems
ripe for disruption.

~~~
stcredzero
$500k for a one way ticket to Mars?

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vinchuco
Some previous discussion
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16310690](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16310690)

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spiraldancing
So, the latest drop seems to be triggered by credit card companies blocking
purchase of cryptocoins "'cuz volatile".

Am I missing something? Since when do CC companies get to decide where you use
your card? I thought it worked the other way around — businesses decide
whether or not they accept CCs.

Are there other examples of CC companies blocking (legal) purchases made by
people with good credit history?

~~~
psyc
The greater fool basis for valuation runs out eventually. I believe this is
simply a bubble popping.

~~~
stcredzero
So long as they are able, so long as it's profitable, people speculating in
cryptocurrency will encourage yet more bubbles.

