[Cryptography] Bitcoin compute power (was Re: Aggregate signatures)

John Levine johnl at iecc.com
Wed Jun 11 08:53:18 EDT 2014


>Another big concern should be what would happen if the cost of
>mining exceeded the cost of running an appreciable percentage of the
>rigs. At that point the only way to make money would be to shut down
>the rigs, let the difficulty factor ease off and then bring them back
>in bursts to unwind the chain.

It is my impression that mining has been unprofitable for at least a
year.  People keep doing it because they hope the coins they're
hoarding will increase in value enough to be retroactively profitable.

R's,
John


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