Amid deep cold sweeping the heart of the US, General Motors and others have suspended manufacturing in Michigan amid a natural gas shortage (archived). Residential users are being begged to lower their thermostats amid sub zero temperatures and wind chills well below the -40 fahrenheit/celsius intersection point. Last winter Airstrip One faced a severe lack of natural gas as an importer, but the US prides itself on a bountiful natural gas extraction industry. It turns out living in a "developed" country doesn't offer the same protection from winter's chill as it once did. Blame is being laid on a single fire at a single gas compression station.
Category Archives: Mining
Mikrotik Routers Leveraged For Brasilero Botnet Mining Recruitment
A number of Mikrotik routers of the sort previously hijacked by the USG for terrorism in Brazil have been pressed into service recruiting botnet miners (archived). Mikrotik routers deployed in carrier and end user application are injecting "Coinhive Javascript Monero Mining (TM)(R)" into http traffic passing through their routes. So far most of the affected routers and traffic have been centered in Brazil with some spread into other geographic regions.
Chinese Auto Giant BYD Building Massive Battery Plant
Chinese automotive and technology giant BYD annouced plans to operate the largest rechargable battery factory in the world by the end of the year. English language publications are drawing comparisons to Tesla and their "gigafactory" painting BYD as a fellow alternate, Chinese Universe startup competing with Tesla (archived). This popular English language posturing ignores BYD's established position selling conventionally fueled vehicles and industial equipment inside and outside of China .
Aussies Bringing Shuttered Power Plant Back Online For Electricity Sales To Miners
Latest Bitcoin Network Difficulty Adjustment: Up ~19.58 Percent To New All Time High As Chicoms Push Out Local fiat/Bitcoin Trading Interfaces
Mining difficulty on the Bitcoin network skyrocketed nearly twenty percentage points to 1103400932964.29248047 from 922724699725.96276855 to a new all time high.
While mining difficulty sits at an all time high, the price of Bitcoin reported by fiat/Bitcoin interfaces is sitting roughly twenty percent below the most recent all time high established near the beginning of this month. The United States dollar recovered a small bit of ground against Bitcoin when the racist government of the People's Republic of China decided to ban trading on their local fiat/Bitcoin interfaces. This move by the Chicoms was followed by the a constant stream of "Bitcoin is valueless" editorials in the legacy USian "financial" fake news press.
Bitcoin Network Mining Difficulty Up ~3.9% To New All Time High
The mining difficulty on the Bitcoin network has risen ~3.9 percent to 922724699725.96276855 from 888171856257.32055664 for a new all time high. This is ever so slightly above the previous all time high of 923233068448.90527344 set in the first difficulty adjustment following the schism of a Roger Ver-ified altcoin away from the Blockchain. The continued efforts propping up the Roger Ver-ified chain is proving to be a very expensive proposition for the involved fiat interests.
Bitcoin Network Mining Difficulty Drops ~3.8 Percent To Second Place Versus All Time High
At the latest Bitcoin network mining difficulty adjustment, difficulty fell approximately 3.8 percent from the all time high of 923233068448.90527344 to a new second highest all time value of 888171856257.32055664 today. Aside from typical variance, the possibility of some hashpower inflicting woe upon a certain altcoin and heroically repatriating BTC value may have contributed to this small drop in difficulty.
Bitcoin Network Mining Diffficulty Up ~7.32% To Another All Time High In First Adjustment After Roger Ver-ified Fork
Mining difficulty on the Bitcoin network has increased from 860221984436.22229004 to 923233068448.90527344 for an increase of approximately 7.32 percent to a new all time high. In this adjustment period a hard forked altcoin separated from the Bitcoin network to zero meaningfully apparent impact on Bitcoin mining, a 7-ish percent increase of mining difficulty to a new all time high is a very typical . Meanwhile, the altcoin is wrestling with its own precarious difficulty situation.
Bitcoin Network Mining Difficulty Continues Climb, Up ~6.92 Percent To New All Time High
Today, Bitcoin network mining difficulty climbed from the previous all time high of 804525194568.13183594 to 860221984436.22229004 for a new all time high for an increase of approximately 6.92 percent.
Miners Signal Segwit Via BIP 91 "Lock In" Avoiding "User Activated" Fork
Miners on the Bitcoin network signaled that they would begin enforcing a new set of block acceptance rules concerning the handling of "anyone can spend" transactions, commonly referred to as "Segregated Witness". For users of the actual Bitcoin system and actual Bitcoin software, this news comes with the usual "soft fork" related increase in the risk of chainsplits and orphaned blocks. For users engaging in fringe behavior on the Bitcoin network and seeking to abuse the new "rules" surrounding the "anyone can spend" edge case, there exists incredible potential1 for "your loss".
This move by Bitcoin miners circumvents an effort advanced by assorted social engineers to attempt enforcing this new "anyone can spend" ruleset through a loud tantrum. It remains to be seen how large a pile of coins the brave and the duped are willing to amass under "anyone can spend" conditions in order to tempt miners to abandon this new "soft forked" ruleset.
From Qntra, December 28th, 2015
The chief idiocy in the Blockstream camp is that if miners decide to stop enforcing the "soft" forks that Blockstream needs, the miners are somehow on "invalid" chains. Soft fork enforcement is nothing more than a courtesy extended by miners. Should miners trigger activation of segregated witness, and a super majority of miners later decide to stop enforcing its rule set, Blockstream is out of luck. Luke-Jr's protests about the "valid" blockchain would be as impotent as his protests about the valid Pope. So long as the longest chain that wins verifies on the actual reference Bitcoin client, life goes on.
There are hazards to artificially trying to introduce new levels of trust to a system that doesn't require it. Softforks that explicitly create an incentive for their own revocation create an extraordinary moral hazard