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

[John Kelsey]

On Jun 11, 2014, at 8:53 AM, "John Levine" <johnl at iecc.com> wrote:
> 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.

Is this just a matter of fixed vs marginal cost?  (Once you have bought the rig, your marginal cost for continuing to mine coins is more or less the cost of power.)

--John