Talking stocks, trading, and investing in general

[stimulacra]

Sounds like the Cambrian explosion.

My question regarding cloud-based mining services… the fact that they find it more lucrative to rent out their hardware and computing powers to others rather than mining these altcoins themselves seems like they're finding more opportunity on the frenzy of cryptocurrencies.

Still learning more about the space before I wade in, but am leaning more on possibly investing more on the hardware and service provider end of the ecosystem… that old adage about the only people making money during the California Gold Rush were pickaxe and shovel makers and merchants rather than gold miners themselves…

https://bloom.bg/2r6rt9Q

 

[otc]

I was looking into mining etherium myself the other day.

I have a decent GPU and cheap electricity. Would easily be profitable without requiring speculation (and that was at "old" prices) although I'm not sure $100 a month is worth it. The computer is in my bedroom, and I don't really want to hear fan noise at night.

 

[idfnl]

Sounds like the Cambrian explosion.

My question regarding cloud-based mining services… the fact that they find it more lucrative to rent out their hardware and computing powers to others rather than mining these altcoins themselves seems like they're finding more opportunity on the frenzy of cryptocurrencies.

Still learning more about the space before I wade in, but am leaning more on possibly investing more on the hardware and service provider end of the ecosystem… that old adage about the only people making money during the California Gold Rush were pickaxe and shovel makers and merchants rather than gold miners themselves…

https://bloom.bg/2r6rt9Q

I asked myself that too. I think their building a business that isn't exposed to price crashes or the death of a coin.

Etherum hit $420 this morning, at that peak I was up 3600%. It's since dropped, but that was an incredible move from the 260s all the way to that peak. It happened in like 16 hours.

I was looking into mining etherium myself the other day.

I have a decent GPU and cheap electricity. Would easily be profitable without requiring speculation (and that was at "old" prices) although I'm not sure $100 a month is worth it. The computer is in my bedroom, and I don't really want to hear fan noise at night.

I went with cloud mining. I have no time for the setup, and the break even point wasn't too long. With the price jump over the weekend, it's breakeven is even sooner.

 

[otc]

Am I understanding this right?

You pay an upfront fee, and then depending on the provider, they deduct a maintenance charge from any currency your miner creates.

For the "lifetime" miners, when the value of the currency is no longer sufficient to pay for the maintenance charge (either through increased mining difficulty or reduced price) for a set period of time, you lose your slot?

So presumably, they cover some of the fixed costs off the setup fee and then make money on the maintenance fee during your contract as well as any money they can still wring out of the hardware after your contract ends (the space in between the maintenance fee and variable costs + any resale value on equipment).

The non-maintenance-fee kind seem to just charge an upfront fee for a fixed period and then presumably scrape out whatever they still can after your contract ends.

Doesn't seem altogether bad...although my back of the envelope calculations suggest that it would cost almost $500 to get as much ethereum mining capacity as my GPU that I paid $150 for in December. Of course my GPU requires other components to run, but I already have those...given the low electricity rates where I live (and the fact that my GPU is not optimal for mining per dollar), that's a pretty hefty markup.

 

[idfnl]

Am I understanding this right?

You pay an upfront fee, and then depending on the provider, they deduct a maintenance charge from any currency your miner creates.

For the "lifetime" miners, when the value of the currency is no longer sufficient to pay for the maintenance charge (either through increased mining difficulty or reduced price) for a set period of time, you lose your slot?

So presumably, they cover some of the fixed costs off the setup fee and then make money on the maintenance fee during your contract as well as any money they can still wring out of the hardware after your contract ends (the space in between the maintenance fee and variable costs + any resale value on equipment).

The non-maintenance-fee kind seem to just charge an upfront fee for a fixed period and then presumably scrape out whatever they still can after your contract ends.

Doesn't seem altogether bad...although my back of the envelope calculations suggest that it would cost almost $500 to get as much ethereum mining capacity as my GPU that I paid $150 for in December. Of course my GPU requires other components to run, but I already have those...given the low electricity rates where I live (and the fact that my GPU is not optimal for mining per dollar), that's a pretty hefty markup.

More or less. But my contract is for 2 years, not lifetime.

My calculations are that I pay $850 up front, then mine about $5000 to $5800 in 2 years, if the price stays relatively stable.

They do take a small rake, but otherwise it's pretty straightforward.

I agree its cheaper to mine on your own rig, but you're not calculating in the cost of electricity, which for 2 years would probably be another $80 or $100. And the rest of the PC.

 

[Master-Classter]

Bought some AAPLE at 150 on Friday and yesterday at 145 and will trim these ones off at 155-156.
Trimmed off some GILD at 66.5 and will rebuy it at 63-64 if it drops a few % again.
Seems like there was a big sector rotation out of tech and into healthcare if I'm reading this correctly?

Most of the mall REITs I was buying have moved back up quite a lot, including around 3-4% just yesterday. I've trimmed a bit and set rebuys and will hold the rest for higher numbers longer term.

 

[otc]

So I tried to make a coinbase account...

First time through, I got a fatal error from the server before completing the registration process. And not like a friendly "something went wrong, please try again"...just a nasty default webserver "503 Fatal Error" page

Once I got the account made, I tried to add my bank account. On the first attempt it said "You've exceeded the maximum number of attempts to add your bank accounts." and told me to try again in 24 hours. I tried again today (admittedly not a full 24 hours) and still get the error. There seem to be numerous threads on their support forum documenting the same issue.

Not sure I am willing to trust these people with money...

 

[jbarwick]

Seems pretty shady but maybe they have a ton of people wanting to join?

My European outperformance is starting to disappear

 

[venividivicibj]

Coinbase is one of the best known bitcoin/etherum hubs available to the US. They're legit.

If you don't want to use them, there are a multitude of other options as well.

 

[otc]

I know they are legit, as in not a scam, but this is not exactly confidence inspiring.

It isn't entirely a deal breaker, but the support requests in the thread I linked date back to February.

Given there have been problems with theft or shutdown/loss from prior cryptocurrency exchanges/banks, it doesn't look good when the website has unexplained issues, some of which have been complained about for months.

No FDIC insurance here...

 

[venividivicibj]

Oh I know what you mean. I tried to use kraken (and exchange), but stopped because the verification and support steps took too long/went unanswered.

If you want, you can just use them (or someone else) as a purchasing tool, and then use a 'wallet' from a separate entity

 

[otc]

Ugh. It had officially been 24 hours, so I tried adding my bank to Coinbase again. Now my bank wasn't on the list anymore (Charles Schwab), so I figured maybe the problem was specific to the connection to that bank. As an alternative, they wanted me to do it with routing/account numbers.

Ok, no big deal. Enter that info...same error, instantly...not long enough to try and handshake with the bank or initiate an ACH transfer (which takes days).

Try to go through support and get the message that:

Notice: Our support team is currently under heavy load and may take several days to respond. Please check our help docs and forum for solutions to most problems.

...This is a company that engages in many thousands of dollars of financial transactions per day and targets active traders/speculators and the best they can do is "several days". And that is the response to a prospective customer actively trying to give them money?

Is it amateur hour over there?

 

[idfnl]

So I tried to make a coinbase account...

First time through, I got a fatal error from the server before completing the registration process. And not like a friendly "something went wrong, please try again"...just a nasty default webserver "503 Fatal Error" page

Once I got the account made, I tried to add my bank account. On the first attempt it said "You've exceeded the maximum number of attempts to add your bank accounts." and told me to try again in 24 hours. I tried again today (admittedly not a full 24 hours) and still get the error. There seem to be numerous threads on their support forum documenting the same issue.

Not sure I am willing to trust these people with money...

I don't blame you. Their site has problems. They were unavailable for several hours yesterday when Etherum was correcting.

I've had 6 months of relatively stable usage, and it's been ok. I recommend transferring to something other than a virtual wallet after a purchase.

I had a chuckle after that down time yesterday, I thought to myself that this was definitely not the NASDAQ. That said, the NASDAQ and most banks run on some unbelievably old hardware and software.

NASDAQ still runs on Sybase. And many banks run on Fortran with old mainframes. Too expensive and risky to change.

Over time, this stuff will disappear, I hope. Oh, read about an interesting ICO today called Filecoin. They want to use everyone's extra hard drive space for cloud data storage, and pay you for it in crypto. It's stuff like this that makes blockchain transformative. Think about it... paid for something that just sits there unused.

 

[idfnl]

Ugh. It had officially been 24 hours, so I tried adding my bank to Coinbase again. Now my bank wasn't on the list anymore (Charles Schwab), so I figured maybe the problem was specific to the connection to that bank. As an alternative, they wanted me to do it with routing/account numbers.

Ok, no big deal. Enter that info...same error, instantly...not long enough to try and handshake with the bank or initiate an ACH transfer (which takes days).

Try to go through support and get the message that:


...This is a company that engages in many thousands of dollars of financial transactions per day and targets active traders/speculators and the best they can do is "several days". And that is the response to a prospective customer actively trying to give them money?

Is it amateur hour over there?

Compared to more mature financial outlets, it is. But that said, where do you get 4x returns in 6 months? Buying GE?

These are growing pains, albeit pains that are not confidence inspiring. For what it's worth, opening my account was smooth and painless, I now have a 20k max per day.

 

[jbarwick]

We all agree this crypto stuff is gambling right? Some places actually take bitcoin but the rest of those random currencies...is this just improving whatever the hell a blockchain is for the future? I feel like an idiot trying to understand this stuff.

As for leftover hard drive space, I run a program that searches for Mersenne Primes while I am not using my computer. . .