 QUOTE OF THE DAY  |
| "Searching for companies is like looking for grubs under rocks: if you turn over 10 rocks you'll likely find one grub; if you turn over 20 rocks you'll find two." - Peter Lynch |
Happy Sunday! Well, if Bitcoin ends the weekly chart in the green today it will successfully avoid 4 red weeks in a row which hasn't happened since 2016. We aren't really sure why this fact matters, just thought you should know. Have a relaxing rest of the weekend!
Cheers,
Blockchain Brew Team
| COIN | PRICE | 24H |
|
| BTC | $7,739.15 | +1.21% |
|
| ETH | $623.365 | +5.28% |
|
| XRP | $0.670056 | +4.07% |
|
| BCH | $1,172.68 | +13.26% |
|
| EOS | $15.12 | +8.08% |
|
*Information as of 9:30 AM EST
Bitcoin Mining Electricity Bill: Is it Worth it?
ENERGY CONSUMPTION
- To mine a Bitcoin, computers use mass amounts of energy to solve a math equation that verifies the recent Bitcoin block and subsequently rewards miners with Bitcoin
- As Bitcoin attracts more miners, the difficulty gets harder and thus more energy is expended by miners
- According to the analysis done by CoinTelegraph, Bitcoin's network currently uses 2.55 gigawatts (GW) per year which is not too far from reaching the country of Ireland's total energy consumption of 3.1 gigawatts (GW)
MINER COSTS
- As block difficulty increases, or rather the math equation gets harder to solve and thus the reward of mining Bitcoins less likely, miners need stronger equipment with a higher hashrate
- What use to be done with a standard CPU is now outpaced by ASIC miners that are made specifically to mine Bitcoin
- Besides costs for new mining equipment which can easily run you $2,000 and has a quickly depreciating price, energy costs are the most worrisome for most miners
As miners plug and play, some places don't make sense to mine Bitcoin because of the large electricity cost. Below is a breakdown, provided by CoinTelegraph, that shows the average electricity cost to mine Bitcoin globally:
IS IT WORTH IT?
- Though Bitcoin mining proves to have high energy costs which can have a negative impact on our environment, it is still only 0.2-0.5% of total energy consumption worldwide
Marc Bevand, a Google security energy, shined light on the uncertainty of the situation:
"Answering 'is Bitcoin's energy consumption worth it?' is very subjective, because we don't have any hard data measuring how much Bitcoin is helping society. How many Venezuelan are using it to escape inflation? How many families are using it for international remittance and therefore avoiding the average fee of 7.13 percent of remittance providers? How many Bitcoin millionaires given back their newfound wealth to charities? We don't have much data for any of these questions."
MOVING FORWARD
- To move forward in an efficient manner, we may see new tech solutions arise to control energy consumption among Bitcoin miners
- In some places, Bitcoin mining has already been regulated for fear of raising energy costs among residents and this practice could continue as mining difficulty increases and more energy is needed to mine
Huobi Launches $93 Million Blockchain Fund
HUOBI
- Huobi is a cryptocurrency exchange that was founded in 2013 and is headquartered in Singapore
- It is ranked as the third largest exchange by daily volume, trading around $1.3 billion each day
- In addition to its headquarters in Singapore, Huobi also has offices in Hong Kong, Korea, Japan and the United States
BLOCKCHAIN FUND
- According to a report coming out of China, Huobi has created a $93 million fund for investment in blockchain technologies in China and South Korea
- Huobi is partnering with Chinese investment firm NewMargin Capital and South Korean securities firm Kiwoom Securities for the fund
- The Korea Development Bank and Industrial Bank Of Korea are some of the biggest investors in the fund
- This announcement comes shortly after one of Huobi's biggest competitors, Binance, launched its own blockchain investment fund
Kik CEO Calls Blockchain 'Unconvincing' After Raising $100 Million Through ICO
KIN
- Kik is a mobile messaging service that was founded in 2009 and now has more than 300 million users
- In september of last year, Kik held an initial coin offering in to raise money by selling a Kin token
- The Kin token will be used in the messaging services for payments for features like VIP groups, premium content, tipping, bot monetization and more
CEO'S IRONIC CRITICISM
- Ted Livingston, the CEO of Kik spoke at the True North conference recently, where he spoke about Kik and blockchain
- Ironically, Livingston said "almost nobody should be looking at it" in regards to blockchain
- He criticizes blockchain for not having any practical use cases, however, he did mention payments as a legitimate use case for blockchain
Livingston stated at the conference:
"Unless you’re trying to build one of the most-used cryptocurrencies in the world, it’s very low odds that blockchain is going to create value for you. What does blockchain do at the end of the day? It allows you to have a database that’s trustless. That can be applied in a bunch of ways, but most of those ways, you still need trust."
IOTA (MIOTA)
IOTA team plans to reveal more info about their new project "Qubic".
Bytecoin (BCN)
"We are almost ready to present our new ETAs so we will have the new roadmap posted by the end of this week."
Ethereum (ETH)
The first Ethereum Bangkok Community Meetup is on Sunday, 3 June 2018 @ 1PM - 4PM. Tickets are free.
Today in Crypto is powered by coinmarketcal.com
- Economist: If Bitcoin is a Bubble, Final Stage of ‘Panic’ on the Horizon
- Bitcoin’s Chance at the $20 Trillion Offshore Tax Haven Market
- EOS Price Jumps on News of EOSIO 1.0 Release, $50 mln Fund to Support ‘Ecosystem’
| Nuls (NULS) |
| NULS is a global blockchain open-source project which is a highly customizable modular blockchain infrastructure; it consists of a microkernel and functional modules. NULS provides smart contract, multi-chain mechanism and cross-chain consensus. It aims to break the technical barriers of blockchain, to reduce the cost of development, and to promote the usage of blockchain technology in the commercial field. |
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