The First US City Government to Mine Bitcoin? Fort Worth, Texas (cnbc.com) 63
"Fort Worth, Texas, is now the first city government in the United States to mine bitcoin," reports CNBC.
"[A]nd in an almost poetic devotion to the initiative, Mayor Mattie Parker oversaw the construction of a small mining farm in City Hall." Three Bitmain Antminer S9 mining rigs will run 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in the climate-controlled information technology wing of Fort Worth City Hall. The city says the miners will be hosted on a private network to minimize the security risk....
Each of the program's three machines will consume the same amount of energy as a household vacuum cleaner, according to city estimates. While the mayor doesn't expect the three miners to be major money makers, the cost of electricity needed for the program is expected to be offset by the value of bitcoin mined.... To make it happen, the city has teamed up with a few key partners, including the Texas Blockchain Council, which donated the three mining rigs (each valued at roughly $600 apiece), and Luxor Technologies, a mining pool, which lets a single miner combine its hashing power with thousands of other miners all over the world to increase their chances of earning bitcoin....
After six months, Fort Worth will re-assess and decide whether to sink real cash into building out a mine .
Luxor's VP of business development argues that Fort Worth's move "is setting an example and effectively de-risking both bitcoin mining and bitcoin treasury strategies for every other mayor in the country."
"[A]nd in an almost poetic devotion to the initiative, Mayor Mattie Parker oversaw the construction of a small mining farm in City Hall." Three Bitmain Antminer S9 mining rigs will run 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in the climate-controlled information technology wing of Fort Worth City Hall. The city says the miners will be hosted on a private network to minimize the security risk....
Each of the program's three machines will consume the same amount of energy as a household vacuum cleaner, according to city estimates. While the mayor doesn't expect the three miners to be major money makers, the cost of electricity needed for the program is expected to be offset by the value of bitcoin mined.... To make it happen, the city has teamed up with a few key partners, including the Texas Blockchain Council, which donated the three mining rigs (each valued at roughly $600 apiece), and Luxor Technologies, a mining pool, which lets a single miner combine its hashing power with thousands of other miners all over the world to increase their chances of earning bitcoin....
After six months, Fort Worth will re-assess and decide whether to sink real cash into building out a mine .
Luxor's VP of business development argues that Fort Worth's move "is setting an example and effectively de-risking both bitcoin mining and bitcoin treasury strategies for every other mayor in the country."
i just don't understand (Score:5, Informative)
what is the point of this ?
doesn't the mayor have more important things to do ?
couldn't whatever effort being used for this completely, totally worthless endeavor be used for something productive ?
wtf is wrong with people ?
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FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out)
Ah, yes. That one is strong with the stupid. You can sell almost anything to some people using it.
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Yeah, from the same party who passed a law allowing the rapist to sue the victim if she gets an abortion.
Crypto bros have a ton of money (Score:5, Interesting)
In Arizona there's a small town (Page?) that is on the brink of having it's water cut off in favor of local Agribusinesses. The amount of water involved is a pittance, but the agribusinesses still want it because every drop is profit in their eyes. Like that old verse in the bible about leaving some grapes for the peasants but in reverse.
Texas is going to face the same but for power. The bitcoin miners aren't gonna wanna stop making money just because there's rolling blackouts. The reason they're attracted to Texas is the extreme corruption coupled with a voting public that seems A-OK with it means they can set up shop, make a mess of the already strained power grid, and then when the shit hits the fan they'll get their power while everyone else gets screwed. They know that if they tried that B.S. in any other state they'd get kicked out (or in the case of the South they don't have the infrastructure for it)
Basically, crypto miners are parasites, only able to exist because of lax financial regulation and heavy gov't subsidies on power combined with politicians willing to take risks with the grid (and people's lives during extreme weather events). But America is rapidly becoming a non-functional kleptocracy, so we're gonna attract these kind of parasites. The whole country needs to political equivalent of a flea dip.
Re:Crypto bros have a ton of money (Score:5, Insightful)
Basically, crypto miners are parasites, only able to exist because of lax financial regulation and heavy gov't subsidies on power combined with politicians willing to take risks with the grid (and people's lives during extreme weather events). But America is rapidly becoming a non-functional kleptocracy, so we're gonna attract these kind of parasites. The whole country needs to political equivalent of a flea dip.
And that is the core of the matter. If crypto miners had to pay realistic prices, including paying for their environmental impact, none would exist. Well, in a sense proof-of-work crypto-"currencies" are one of the last "Climate change? What climate change?" parties to be celebrated before things start to get really, really dark.
Re:Crypto bros have a ton of money (Score:4, Interesting)
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Well, how many things actually work is pretty insane, agreed.
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If crypto miners had to pay realistic prices
They pay what the market bares. Sounds like capitalism to me
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Re:i just don't understand (Score:5, Interesting)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://www.coindesk.com/marke... [coindesk.com]
“If I get you $250k in Bitcoin would that help or is this not a financial matter,” Greenberg wrote to Stone [thedailybeast.com], one message shows. https://www.clickorlando.com/n... [clickorlando.com]
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That whole thing is fractally stupid. Like, every time you zoom in, you get more stupid in different shapes.
Seminole County, Florida was the first in The United States to mine bitcoin, under Joel Greenberg's direction.
Does that count? From TFA:
The goal? To mine cryptocurrency for Greenberg, not county tax payers.
Also:
He started a fire doing it, (a power surge from the machines caused a fire, which resulted in $98,000 in damages). It's a hilarious story.
I'll now skip over the outer levels and just jump right
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That whole thing is fractally stupid. Like, every time you zoom in, you get more stupid in different shapes.
Hmm. Interesting idea. It definitely fits here, but by far not only here.
I'll now skip over the outer levels and just jump right in at: how the fuck does a power surge cause a fire. Surely if everything's wired up to code (lol lol lol) there are breakers such that the breakers pop before the cables get overloaded and anyway why aren't they fire retardant?
I have seen some electrical "wiring" done by the stupid. If you work according to code, a lot of things have to go wrong in addition for a fire to start. If you ignore that code so save some money, that is not true anymore. There is a reason for that code and it is not generate business for electricians.
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That whole thing is fractally stupid. Like, every time you zoom in, you get more stupid in different shapes.
Well, there is a reason that Florida Man is a meme. And, along those lines, Texas ... 'nuff said.
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Yeah but Florida's retardation is somewhat contained and limited. The problem is everything is bigger in Texas.
Re:i just don't understand (Score:5, Interesting)
what is the point of this ?
Simple. People in a position of power can:
a) Buy some Bitcoin
b) Do something to say "Bitcoin will make you rich!"
c) Sell Bitcoin from (a) after price rises due to (b)
If Bitcoin doesn't rise then no biggie, the taxpayer is footing the bill. Move along to the next scam.
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Why aren't cities doing more of this. They could sell lemonade, pump your gas, and produce movies. Anything is possible when you can spend from the city coffers and justify it that it might make a net profit.
The main reason I pay taxes (other than the obvious one is that I'm forced to) is that I expect certain services from a government that can't practically be performed any other way. Zoning, building permits, and other high level decisions are the traditional scope of a local government. Running a bitcoi
Political talking points to help the governer (Score:3)
All this is a political talking point to help push the governors power agenda.
Hell, the miners they are using are Antminer S9s. Tech from 2015. Depending on the price of bitcoin they are most likely losing money most of the time.
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All this is a political talking point to help push the governors power agenda.
Hell, the miners they are using are Antminer S9s. Tech from 2015. Depending on the price of bitcoin they are most likely losing money most of the time.
Based on the blurb, they should be squeaking by on "making" money:
Each of the program's three machines will consume the same amount of energy as a household vacuum cleaner, according to city estimates. While the mayor doesn't expect the three miners to be major money makers, the cost of electricity needed for the program is expected to be offset by the value of bitcoin mined
Of course what would really be nice is to know what timeframe for energy usage. When they say a vaccum cleaner, is that per hour, day, week, month, year?
But the real irony in all of this is they were given the equipment for free, like in socialism:
To make it happen, the city has teamed up with a few key partners, including the Texas Blockchain Council, which donated the three mining rigs (each valued at roughly $600 apiece), and Luxor Technologies, a mining pool, which lets a single miner combine its hashing power with thousands of other miners all over the world to increase their chances of earning bitcoin....
In conclusion, getting your own money back from the government is evil socialism while getting something for free from someone else is, um, er, socialism?
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But the real irony in all of this is they were given the equipment for free, like in socialism:
The free software movement takes pains to point out that the English word "free" doesn't do a great job distinguishing between software which is provided at zero cost and software you can use and modify as you wish. Likewise, there is a big difference between what happened here, a private enterprise giving the equipment to the public by their own choice, and a socialist system which would take the equipment at the discretion of government officials.
That said, the government is using money taken by taxation
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the English word "free" doesn't do a great job distinguishing between software which is provided at zero cost and software you can use and modify as you wish.
Such a distinction wasn't necessary until IP laws became a thing. Before that you could buy a thing and modify it, re-sell it, or even duplicate it as you wish. Once people started fighting over copies of books [wikipedia.org], our course was set and here we are some 14 centuries later still spending millions fighting over ownership of copies of things.
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The free software movement takes pains to point out that the English word "free" doesn't do a great job distinguishing between software which is provided at zero cost and software you can use and modify as you wish. Likewise, there is a big difference between what happened here,
The only difference between the two is that once comes with a legal contract. A product of big government and regulation, something else the cons claim to not like (except they actually love it for their own agendas).
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Of course what would really be nice is to know what timeframe for energy usage. When they say a vaccum cleaner, is that per hour, day, week, month, year?
Per second. As in the same number of coulomb per second. Of course if you ran a vacuum cleaner continuously for days it would probably overheat and fail. So nobody with a vacuum actually uses the equivalent amount of energy as one of these mining boxes.
It's like saying something is no more powerful than a toaster. Well that's 1000 Watts.
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At current rates, the S9 can generate about $2.50 worth of BTC per day at current rates.
At an electricity price of 10 cents per KWh, it costs about $3 per day to run.
The S9 is a 7-year-old money loser. The city is better off simply buying $3 worth of BTC every day than they are running the S9.
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Pretty sure the people that ignored the flawed argument made money, yeah? Possibly even selling for over $50000, not the $100 the claim was based on?
You cant make arguments because, for fuck sakes, the "real value" is $0. It just doesnt fucking matter.
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Nobody except California pays 10c for electricity in the US, especially not large buildings like a municipal datacenter, they probably aren’t even metered, but it should come to about 1-2c/kWh for that sort of connection, maybe double that for cooling (although you could recover that heat for water and other heating purposes).
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Its normal for municipalities (whether in-house or by dictating the terms on which it's farmed out to contractors) to do things like handle local natural monopolies (roads, water and sewer, etc.) and money-losing public goods (s
Texas... (Score:3)
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Gotta beat Florida to the bottom...
Currently those cost more to run than they make (Score:2)
Translation (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Translation (Score:5, Funny)
Of all the days to not have mod points.
Someone references Buckaroo Banzai and I have no mod points to give.
I'm not sure I'll ever recover from this.
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But hey you can waddle to Chipotle with your AK47 because ‘MUERICA! Those same idiots would last 5 minutes in Ukraine.
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Bitcoin farms and other cloud datacenters that sell excess computation can also be used as reverse batteries for stable base load like nuclear. Moreover, the next investment is guaranteed to make money as brand new miners, even graphics cards are still very profitable to mine crypto.
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While likely false, believing that you are in fact having a conversation with a bird known to be fairly intelligent and quite vocally sophisticated is arguably less delusional than this scheme; and it's an honest hobby without myriad opportunities for redirecting taxpayer money in ways that tack between 'abject stupidity', 'personal aggrandizement', and various flavors of corruption and self-dealing.
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We really need to just get rid of most cryptocurrencies. They don't really seem to have any value outside of crime
That's like saying the internet has no value outside of porn, just because most of the bits floating around are... well.... porn. I'd say the internet is damn useful, with or without porn running on it.
Doesn't speak well for their leaders (Score:2)
"derisking" (Score:1)
How dose a city playing with these gambling tokens that will continue to be volatile make them less of a risk for any other city to try?
It doesn't. Fort Worth is run by morons riding hype trains. Speaking of trains, they need to be wary of monorail salesmen.
Most stupid mayor possible? (Score:3)
Certainly not. But for sure up there.
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Certainly not. But for sure up there.
Yep. At least she's hot. Google Mattie Parker.
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And there we have the root cause (or part of it): Stupid woman gets voted into power because she is "hot"... Similar mechanisms exist for men though.
Of course (Score:5, Informative)
If we were at a pub quiz and the question came up: "Which US State enacted a government policy that makes absolutely zero sense, provides no benefit to anyone, generates zero value, wastes a fuckton of electricity, and is incredibly detrimental to the environment?" I think everyone would answer Texas. You don't even need to guess it was bitcoin.
It's like a free point in a pubquiz so that no one ends up getting 0/10
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It might be tough in Florida though, as the old folks and Disney wouldn't let the crypto bros crash their grid, and if you go south to the poor parts again, you probably don't have the infrastructure for reliable enough power. Texas' grid is just functional enough to be useful without there being anyone who can/will stop them from sucking down the power during blackouts and/or dr
How about this... (Score:2)
new state motto (Score:3)
Wow, they didn't do their home work! (Score:1)
These idiots need those crypto coins... (Score:3)
...to pay the ransom when they inevitably get hacked.
Power issue anyone ? (Score:2)
They can't keep the grid up , people go without heating and lights all the time and now they want to use the few resources they have to mine bitcoins ? They totally lost the few braincells they had left.
Negative externalities (Score:3)
> the cost of electricity needed for the program is expected to be offset by the value of bitcoin mined
And who gives a fuck about the fact that irrespective of possibly eking out a profit, it also contributes to emissions, either by running on fossil energy, or by running on renewables which instead could be used to displace fossil sources.
They are also increasing thier cooling bill (Score:2)
If they are running them inside, at the end of the day it's a colassal waste of energy and CO2. Forget about taking cards of the road, shut down the Bitcoin miners
From Fort Worth... (Score:2)
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