Gyroscopic Investing

Xan wrote: ↑Thu Jan 23, 2025 4:50 pm I believe I've mentioned here before that Trump's supporters take him seriously but not literally, and Trump's detractors take him seriously but not literally. This is a good example.

Is the 2nd one supposed to be inverted or are they both ‘seriously but not literally’?

Whoops yes!

dualstow wrote: ↑Fri Jan 24, 2025 4:33 pm

Xan wrote: ↑Thu Jan 23, 2025 4:50 pm I believe I've mentioned here before that Trump's supporters take him seriously but not literally, and Trump's detractors take him seriously but not literally. This is a good example.

Is the 2nd one supposed to be inverted or are they both ‘seriously but not literally’?

I had also noticed that but did not point it out because I knew what Xan meant.

Did that mean I took him seriously but not literally??!!

Yep

dualstow wrote: ↑Fri Dec 30, 2022 7:07 am

yankees60 wrote: ↑Thu Dec 29, 2022 7:06 pm

dualstow wrote: ↑Thu Dec 29, 2022 6:47 pm Very interesting.
I trust the new coins I’ve bought from Apmex but I should probably have my random years and local purchases tested.

What is your recourse if any tests reveal anything?

Tears

Depends. There are fake Sovereign (British Pound) coins that use the exact same amount of gold etc. - as good as exact replicas. From times when Pounds were worth more than the gold commodity value. Some were created with dates for years when Sovereigns weren't produced - as that way if caught they couldn't be done for faking a original (coins of that year didn't exist). In those cases you still have the bullion value. Not that a tester might actually pick up on the coin being a fake.

How big is the world's limited supply of Bitcoin?

ochotona wrote: ↑Wed Jan 29, 2025 8:50 am How big is the world's limited supply of Bitcoin?

The question would be what size hard drive is necessary to hold it? I know that there is a lot of computing power and electricity used in creating them. But I'm so ignorant of them that I don't know if there is actually some type of file storage for each one of them.

yankees60 wrote: ↑Wed Jan 29, 2025 11:27 am

ochotona wrote: ↑Wed Jan 29, 2025 8:50 am How big is the world's limited supply of Bitcoin?

The question would be what size hard drive is necessary to hold it? I know that there is a lot of computing power and electricity used in creating them. But I'm so ignorant of them that I don't know if there is actually some type of file storage for each one of them.

All the Bitcoin in the world could fit on a thumb drive.

Xan wrote: ↑Wed Jan 29, 2025 12:06 pm All the Bitcoin in the world could fit on a thumb drive.

Sort of. A thumb drive is sufficient to store the private keys to a BTC wallet address.

However, BTC isn't actually a real digital object. The BTC blockchain records ownership of BTC (like your County Clerk records real property ownership/deeds).

For BTC to exist, the network that maintains the ownership record must exist. The network consists of a high powered network of computers capable of mining new blocks. There is a lot of hardware, physical real estate and electrical power tied up in that.

pmbug wrote: ↑Wed Jan 29, 2025 1:10 pm

Xan wrote: ↑Wed Jan 29, 2025 12:06 pm All the Bitcoin in the world could fit on a thumb drive.

Sort of. A thumb drive is sufficient to store the private keys to a BTC wallet address.

However, BTC isn't actually a real digital object. The BTC blockchain records ownership of BTC (like your County Clerk records real property ownership/deeds).

For BTC to exist, the network that maintains the ownership record must exist. The network consists of a high powered network of computers capable of mining new blocks. There is a lot of hardware, physical real estate and electrical power tied up in that.

I appreciate you pointing that out! Vinny's question and your response raise the interesting question of what a Bitcoin actually is.

pmbug wrote: ↑Wed Jan 29, 2025 1:10 pm For BTC to exist, the network that maintains the ownership record must exist. The network consists of a high powered network of computers capable of mining new blocks. There is a lot of hardware, physical real estate and electrical power tied up in that.

There’s a fair bit of hardware required to get at that gold dust, too, not to mention the storage facilities.

dualstow wrote: ↑Wed Jan 29, 2025 2:18 pm

pmbug wrote: ↑Wed Jan 29, 2025 1:10 pm For BTC to exist, the network that maintains the ownership record must exist. The network consists of a high powered network of computers capable of mining new blocks. There is a lot of hardware, physical real estate and electrical power tied up in that.

There’s a fair bit of hardware required to get at that gold dust, too, not to mention the storage facilities.

True, but a gold coin exists independently of all that. A Bitcoin doesn't exist without the network, as pmbug points out. Interesting to think about.

True. After a bitcoin is created, there's not much you can do with it if the network comes apart.
But, the network is here to stay, isn't it.

Xan wrote: ↑Wed Jan 29, 2025 12:06 pm

yankees60 wrote: ↑Wed Jan 29, 2025 11:27 am

ochotona wrote: ↑Wed Jan 29, 2025 8:50 am How big is the world's limited supply of Bitcoin?

The question would be what size hard drive is necessary to hold it? I know that there is a lot of computing power and electricity used in creating them. But I'm so ignorant of them that I don't know if there is actually some type of file storage for each one of them.

All the Bitcoin in the world could fit on a thumb drive.

What size are they now up to? Have they made it to TB's?

Xan wrote: ↑Wed Jan 29, 2025 1:55 pm

pmbug wrote: ↑Wed Jan 29, 2025 1:10 pm

Xan wrote: ↑Wed Jan 29, 2025 12:06 pm All the Bitcoin in the world could fit on a thumb drive.

Sort of. A thumb drive is sufficient to store the private keys to a BTC wallet address.

However, BTC isn't actually a real digital object. The BTC blockchain records ownership of BTC (like your County Clerk records real property ownership/deeds).

For BTC to exist, the network that maintains the ownership record must exist. The network consists of a high powered network of computers capable of mining new blocks. There is a lot of hardware, physical real estate and electrical power tied up in that.

I appreciate you pointing that out! Vinny's question and your response raise the interesting question of what a Bitcoin actually is.

Which is why I was so tentative in the way I was asking the question.

dualstow wrote: ↑Wed Jan 29, 2025 3:46 pm True. After a bitcoin is created, there's not much you can do with it if the network comes apart.
But, the network is here to stay, isn't it.

Is it? What composes the network? How much of it can fail before there would be complete failure or inaccessibility to your bitcoin?

Isn’t it, like, decentralized and stuff?
That’s why when a teacher raped a student in Beijing, they put it on the blockchain so it could never be erased.
I don’t know.

dualstow wrote: ↑Wed Jan 29, 2025 8:19 pm Isn’t it, like, decentralized and stuff?
That’s why when a teacher raped a student in Beijing, they put it on the blockchain so it could never be erased.
I don’t know.

What happens when some government (correctly?) deems mining Bitcoin to be defamatory because it involves disseminating information like that?

That government gets overthrown But there was no mining involved. It’s just that the blockchain exists, including outside of China, and the info was put there.
Here: search for the words, “archiving the story” — https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/25/asia/chi ... index.html

Although I don’t think it’s in that particular article, the info was embedded into ethereum transactions. What a government could do is attempt to block access to the blockchain.

2790 an oz, per AJPM

Anyone heard from buddtholomew lately?

flyingpylon wrote: ↑Thu Jan 30, 2025 10:23 am Anyone heard from buddtholomew lately?

Nah. I was hoping that he would come around and embrace gold but he hated it.
I hope he’s doing well.

dualstow wrote: ↑Wed Jan 29, 2025 3:46 pm...
But, the network is here to stay, isn't it.

Maybe. The economics of BTC mining provide diminishing returns with every halving period (every 4 years). I wrote this article a few weeks ago that explains the problem with the security model (it's not too technical):

https://www.pmbug.com/threads/know-what ... unds.7919/

Blockchain is a public constantly growing public ledger of transactions histories. A set of account numbers and transaction histories of each deposit/withdrawal into/from each account. Individual public keys enables anyone with a individual public key to credit the associated account, is like knowing the account number of a bank account so anyone with that could send/deposit money into the account. A individual private (that sources the generation of a public key) is needed to spend from the associated account, is like a very long version of your bank account PIN that enables withdrawals/spending from the account.

There are no actual coins, just records of all accounts and transactions that are recorded in the blockchain (ledger), by adding/appending blocks for each new transaction. Fundamentally you control a private key that provides control access to a account that has all historic transactions to/from that account. Lose that key and you lose control of the account (your bitcoins/whatever). Some keep their keys offline, you can even create/keep just a paper version/copy of the key - which you could for instance give to someone else and then they control the account (own the bitcoins).

The ledger (blockchain) is duplicated/public so is 'out-there' and can't really be lost. If the network was down control would be lost during that period, but return once the network (internet) was back up again.

Hacks have been increasing with the rising popularity of crypto, as of the end of 2022 and $3.8Bn value had been hacked/stolen since 2016. In October 2022 32 separate attacks collectively managed to steal $775.7 million value. North Korea-linked hackers such as those in cybercriminal syndicate Lazarus Group have been by far the most prolific cryptocurrency hackers. In 2022 they shattered their own records for theft, stealing an estimated $1.7 billion worth of cryptocurrency across several hacks. For context, North Korea’s total exports in 2020 totaled $142 million worth of goods, so it isn’t a stretch to say that cryptocurrency hacking is a sizable chunk of the nation’s economy. Most experts agree the North Korean government is using the stolen value to help fund its nuclear weapons programs.