BitCoin falling like a Dotcom

[Fergasun]

Congratulations.  God called you to jail.  Lots of Christians were jailed in the BIble.  God has called you to a new ministry thing -- maybe you thought it was unlimited money and houses..  You will be reaching out to a whole lot of different people. So if this miracle in the financial sector doesn't come, you can trust for his provision in jail. 

 

I think there is also a commandment about stealing in the Bible as well.  Did Bernie Madoff offer a financial security with "no clear exit"? 

[Corcaigh]

Dude is snitching on god saying it was all the big guy’s idea and he was just following the bosses orders.
 

Prepare to be smited.

[Cooked Crack]

 

[China]

A Texas Town’s Misery Underscores the Impact of Bitcoin Mines Across the U.S.

 

very night, the nurse anesthetist Cheryl Shadden lies awake in her home in Granbury, Texas, listening to a nonstop roar. “It’s like sitting on the runway of an airport where jets are taking off, one after another,” she says. “You can't even walk out on your back patio and speak to somebody five feet away and have them hear you at all.” 

 

The noise comes from a nearby bitcoin mining operation, which set up shop at a power plant in Granbury last year. Since then, residents in the surrounding area have complained to public officials about an incessant din that they say keeps them awake, gives them migraines, and seemingly has caused wildlife to flee the region. “My citizens are suffering,” says Hood County Constable John Shirley. 

 

Granbury is one of many towns across the U.S. feeling the negative impacts of bitcoin mining, an energy-intensive process that powers and protects the cryptocurrency. Those impacts include carbon and noise pollution, and increased costs on consumers’ utility bills. According to the New York Times, there are 34 large scale bitcoin mines across the U.S. In 2022, the crypto market tumbled, in part due to high-profile collapses of crypto companies like Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX. But in 2023, prices rebounded once again, and mining companies decided to expand their operations in order to cash in, causing global energy consumption for mining to double, according to one study. Critics say that mining is causing both long-term environmental damage, due to its energy use, as well as local harm. “We’re at a loss here,” Granbury resident Shadden says. “We want our lives back.”

 

Bitcoin is so energy-intensive because it relies on a process known as proof-of-work. Rather than being overseen by a single watchdog, bitcoin is designed to disperse the responsibility of the network’s integrity to voluntary “miners” around the globe, who prevent tampering through a complex cryptographic process that consumes a vast amount of energy. Over the last few years, Texas has become a global leader in crypto mining because miners can access cheap energy and land there, as well as benefit from friendly tax laws and regulation. Bitcoin miners consume about 2,100 megawatts of the state's power supplies, and companies like Riot Platforms and Marathon Digital Holdings have recently expanded in the state. (Other states, conversely, have pushed back on the industry: In 2022, New York imposed a moratorium on bitcoin mining over concerns that miners were overusing renewable energy resources.)

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Corcaigh]

[TradeTheBeal!]

[Cooked Crack]

Some spicy language in tweet

Spoiler

 

 

 

Edited March 16 by Cooked Crack

[abdcskins]

Guess I should have held onto whatever I had. I had a little bit of everything. Oh well.

 

[Corcaigh]

I never sold my modest stake bought back in 2017/2018 which is currently up about 6x.
 

I am in two minds at this point whether to just let it ride to the moon (or zero), or with the goal of simplifying my life a little just sell it all and stick the proceeds in an existing stock index fund account, delete my crypto wallet and never think about it again.

[Ball Security]

6 minutes ago, Corcaigh said:

I never sold my modest stake bought back in 2017/2018 which is currently up about 6x.
 

I am in two minds at this point whether to just let it ride to the moon (or zero), or with the goal of simplifying my life a little just sell it all and stick the proceeds in an existing stock index fund account, delete my crypto wallet and never think about it again.

I’d suggest selling 2x your investment and re-invest and then let the remaining ride.

[Corcaigh]

15 minutes ago, Ball Security said:

I’d suggest selling 2x your investment and re-invest and then let the remaining ride.

It’s not likely ever going to be a significant part of our overall net worth and so it doesn’t provide any diversification benefit. It’s analogous to investing a few $10s of k in iBonds versus just putting more in a total bond fund.

 

There's a lot to be said for simplification and having a smaller number of broad diversified index funds. 

 

 

[China]

Why Sam Bankman-Fried Received a 25-Year Prison Sentence

 

Sam Bankman-Fried, the former billionaire who was found guilty of defrauding customers and investors of his cryptocurrency exchange FTX, was sentenced to 25 years in prison on Thursday by a federal judge, who ruled that Bankman-Fried committed perjury and attempted witness tampering. The sentencing closes the door on an astonishing rise-and-fall saga in which Bankman-Fried, 32, was lauded as one of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs before losing more than $8 billion worth of FTX customer deposits.

 

Bankman-Fried’s sentence is less what federal prosecutors had hoped for: they recommended that he should receive 40-50 years due to the “extraordinary dimensions of his crimes” and the risk that he might carry out a future fraudulent scheme. Bankman-Fried and his lawyers conversely argued that he should receive five to seven years.

 

In comparison, Bernie Madoff received a 150-year sentence; Enron CEO Jeff Skilling received a 24-year sentence; and Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes received 11 years.

 

On Thursday, Judge Lewis Kaplan used strong language to criticize Bankman-Fried and justify his sentence. He said that Bankman-Fried perjured himself three times while under oath, including falsely testifying that he had no knowledge that his trading firm Alameda had spent FTX customer funds until the fall of 2022. He said that Bankman-Fried seemed to lack remorse and had an "exceptional flexibility" with the truth—and that he had never seen as "evasive" a "performance" as Bankman-Fried's in his 30 years as a judge.

 

Judge Lewis Kaplan, who berated Bankman-Fried during the trial for his evasive way of answering questions, handed out the sentence on Thursday.

 

Bankman-Fried faced a maximum of 120 years prison, but many of the charges were similar in nature, and so were not considered separately in sentencing. Over the last few months, both sides submitted letters to the judge lobbying for either a shorter or longer sentence. Bankman-Fried’s mother, Barbara Fried, wrote that her son has mannerisms associated with people on the autism spectrum—and that “his inability to read or respond appropriately to many social cues…put him in extreme danger” in prison, she wrote. 

 

The prosecution team, in contrast, submitted documents which they argued showed evidence of Bankman-Fried’s continued scheming and lack of remorse for his actions. After FTX collapsed in November 2022, Bankman-Fried wrote documents in which he brainstormed ways to garner public support. One of his ideas was “Go on Tucker Carlsen [sic], come out as a republican”—despite the fact that he had been one of the biggest Democratic donors of the 2022 election cycle.

 

Bankman-Fried’s lawyers also argued that Kaplan should take FTX’s asset recovery into consideration. While FTX had debts of over $8 billion when it collapsed, much of that money and perhaps more will now be able to be returned to FTX customers, due to a surge in crypto prices and AI assets, and the recovery efforts from the bankruptcy team. Bankman-Fried invested $500 million in the AI company Anthropic, and this week, FTX struck a deal to sell two-thirds of those shares for $884 million. (Notably, a forensic account had testified during the trial that the original investment had come out of customer funds.)

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Cooked Crack]

 

Genius analysis

[Cooked Crack]