12-15-2017, 12:48 PM
Eight 100-meter-long metal warehouses in northern China are a case in point. Bitmain Technologies Ltd. runs a server farm in Erdors, Inner Mongolia, with about 25,000 computers dedicated to solving the encrypted calculations that generate each bitcoin. The entire operation runs on electricity produced with coal, as do a growing number of cryptocurrency “mines” popping up in China.
Turning Coal Into Bitcoin? The Dirty Secret of 2017's Hottest Market - Bloomberg
Japanese men in their 30s and 40s are driving the cryptocurrency market. They overtook their Chinese counterparts after regulators started to shut down exchanges. Many Japanese retail traders are engaged in leveraged trading, using borrowed funds, and a survey showed that they are generally less financially literate than their US counterparts.
One group of traders has risen to dominate bitcoin trading
We’ve said it many times before. As an actual payments mechanism, bitcoin sucks. It’s expensive to use and getting ever more so. It can be slow and unpredictable. It’s complicated and very user unfriendly (computer nerds will dispute this, but in doing so show how detached they are from the everyday needs of the average population). It depends on untested third parties for usability even more so than conventional electronic money. It’s prone to hacking. It demands users read Reddit all day every day to keep up with the latest exchange, transaction and wallet updates. It passes way too much responsibility to the average user (even the well-educated lose passwords). It sucks on the energy efficiency front. Its volatility makes it a crappy medium exchange. And finally, if not foremost, the more of a speculative asset it becomes the less useful it becomes as a currency.
Busting the myth that bitcoin is actually an efficient payment mechanism | FT Alphaville
At its lowest point, one bitcoin was equal to about $230. Given the currency's covert nature, the average person still may not understand how buying and selling actually works. Using the app Coinbase, which lets anyone trade bitcoins for a small fee, we decided to find out. A brief warning: If you're going to do this, tell your bank you're about to buy bitcoin. More on that later.
How to buy bitcoin: A step-by-step guide - Business Insider
Thiam won’t be paying with bitcoin. ‘From what we can identify, the only reason today to buy or sell bitcoin is to make money, which is the very definition of speculation and the very definition of a bubble.’ Tidjane Thiam Credit Suisse Group AG CS, +4.93% Chief Executive Tidjane Thiam made clear where he stands on bitcoin, joining a growing rank of high-profile bankers and financiers to scorn the soaring cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin is the ‘very definition of a bubble’: Credit Suisse CEO - MarketWatch