We're Approaching Hashrates That Shouldn't Even Be Possible
On this episode of the unhashed podcast: Who will hodl your custodial coins better? Coinbase or Bakkt? Andreas Antonapoulous is writing a book on the lightning network, but will Bitcoiners ever forgive him for the sin of his Ethereum book? And...the hashrate on the Bitcoin blockchain has reached an all time high, but does this number really matter at this point?
Weekly News Wrap Up:
As the gradual demise of altcoins continue, Mounia Rabhi declares that we shouldn’t make fun of people who went all-in on altcoins because “literally no one...saw this alt slaughter coming”. Regardless of what you think of making fun of people over financial losses, it is strange to claim that no one saw it coming. Was she being hyperbolic to make others feel better? Or is the world of broader cryptocurrency speculation really so insulated from bitcoiners that many believed this to be actually true?
Lightning Developers are warning about a bug that could cause loss of users funds. Osuntokun warned a developer mailing list saying “We’ve confirmed instances of the CVE being exploited in the wild.” More details will be released later this week, but in releasing the details, more attackers will be able to exploit the bug, so if you have a lightning node update it asap.
Bitcoin’s hashrate approaching 100 000 000 000 000 000 000 hashes/second. That’s 1, with 20 zeros after it. So, you can pronounce it ‘100 quintillion hashes/second’. Other ways to state this comically high number are ‘100 exahashes/second’ or ‘100 million terahashes/second’. Yet another number go up, so we should probably be stoked. But at these absurdly high levels, is there really a meaningful difference to bitcoin’s security, or are we just way over-secured at this point?
Rhyme Combinator releases a rap battle between Alexander Hamilton and Satoshi Nakamoto, complete with cameo appearances from many prominent figures in the cryptocurrency community. Produced by Reid Hoffman (previously of Paypal, co-founder of LinkedIn, and early Blockstream investor), the light-hearted video aimed to bring awareness of cryptocurrency to a broader audience. Is this meaningless fun, or and integral part of spreading bitcoin to the masses? Adam Back "was my ultimate goal" gif here!
Bitcoin Obituaries reaches new heights, with bitcoin now having died a whopping 375 times. For those that don’t know, bitcoin obituaries started keeping a record of every time a public article or figure declared bitcoin’s death. With a single proclamation of its demise in 2010, to a height of 124 declarations of death in 2017, the naysayers still regularly come out with obituaries, albeit at a slower pace. Is the slowdown just because there is less media attention in general, or is the world finally starting to accept that bitcoin is here to stay?
Andreas Antonopoulos announces plans to publish “Mastering the Lightning Network” in 2019 with Olaulowa Osuntokun (roasbeef) of Lightning Labs, and Rene Pickhardt, an independent contributor/researcher. The book is to be open with an open license and, and they are building a community of contributors. Andreas faced a decent amount of criticism from certain outspoken elements of the bitcoin community for his work on Mastering Ethereum. Will this help to regain favor among bitcoiners as he moves back into territory we’d find more relevant, or will this be dismissed as opportunistic while altcoins and ethereum seem to be losing ground? Were his critics being too harsh in the first place?
PwC Luxembourg, a European branch of the major institutional auditing firm, will start accepting payments in bitcoin from its clients on October 1, 2019. PricewaterhouseCoopers (doing business as PwC) is the second-largest professional services firm in the world and one of the world’s Big Four auditors, along with Deloitte, EY and KPMG. The decision to embrace bitcoin payments was made to respond to a “growing demand from the market” and reflects the firm’s “willingness … to support the growing national crypto ecosystem,” according to an announcement from the firm on September 2, 2019. (source)
Bakkt has announced that the Bakkt Warehouse, its qualified custodian arm, is now open for business. The company has previously announced that the warehouse is protected by $125 million in insurance and leverages the same protections that are used by the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). The Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) serves as a parent company for both Bakkt and the NYSE. (source)
The two new mining models, the Antminer S17e and T17e, are purported to offer the best value in the space. The S17e model delivers a hash rate of 64 TH/s and operates with a power efficiency of 45J/TH, while the more budget-friendly T17e offers a hash rate of 53TH/s and power efficiency of 55J/TH. The new T17e model offers the same hash rate as the S17 (which has a power efficiency of 45J/TH) already on sale but at a lower price offering (with the T17e listed at $1,665 and the S17 at $2,727). Compared to the previously most efficient S9 models launched in 2017, the current S17 series is about three times more efficient. The company also introduced a compensation strategy for delivery delays. It explains that “if mining machines are not shipped after a certain period of the specified delivery date, Bitmain will compensate customers by coupons for each day of delay, based on PPS rewards of the mining pool (electricity cost deducted).” (source)
Price Analysis:
Number go sideways
One Final Note:
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