What other tech stock to consider?

[CyberDutchie]

(That was to Mulder. Can't edit!)

My point was: doing mining cost-effectively. As it gets harder and harder, more specialized processors (I.e. ASICs) need to be deployed in larger numbers closer to the cheapest energy. That will leave cost-effective mining only in the hands of a few very large pool operators (ironically bitcoin was designed to take advantage of decentralized compute resources).

 

[elasalle]

Can you elaborate on the AI-as-electricity?

Some quick links:

Artificial Intelligence is the New Electricity — Andrew Ng

For NVIDIA, the automated car provides a whole new dimension. Some Crypto might go down, but gaming still strong.

Taking profits and having a cash cushion in this env is a smart, risk averse move though.
~ cheers!!

 

[AudubonB]

My point was: doing mining cost-effectively. As it gets harder and harder, more specialized processors (I.e. ASICs) need to be deployed in larger numbers closer to the cheapest energy. That will leave cost-effective mining only in the hands of a few very large pool operators (ironically bitcoin was designed to take advantage of decentralized compute resources).

I certainly understand that cost-effective mining is key to successful mining. As I understand it, however, at any point in the extraction cycle of a particular crypto, it takes more and more computing power (= electricity consumed) for each successful coin creation...sure, that's easy to understand....but you absolutely must add to that energy consumed all the consumption of all the rival attempts to snag that same coin...thus the exponential consumption of juice, irrespective of the consumption profile of only the one miner who succeeds.

Am I missing something important?

And on edit: to the extent this diverges from a discussion of NVDA as a stock, it belongs not here but in the "Crypto" thread. I can move such posts there; we'll see how this plays out for the rest of the day or two.

 

[anticitizen13.7]

Crypto-mining is no longer cost effective on GPU’s if you consider the electricity cost. ASICs are the only way to go, and only for mining pool operators, because of their scale and physical proximity to low cost energy.

From what I have read, it depends on what cryptocurrency a person is mining. Bitcoin is largely ASIC, while others like Ethereum are more amenable to GPUs. It depends on algorithm requirements in terms of execution and memory resources.

GPUs are still in high demand for mining, much to the dismay of gamers who have trouble building gaming PCs due to inflated Graphics card costs and low availability.

 

[abasile]

Overall, I admire Nvidia greatly (everybody loves a winner, after all) and would like to have maintained our position. Were the crypto problem either not to exist or somehow to be separated from the rest of the company's business, then I could tackle the trade war risk with time and further clarification from Washington.

Thank you for sharing. I've grown a bit less comfortable with NVDA because the price has become wrapped up, to some extent, with the expected, continued rise of cryptocurrencies, which I consider to be over-hyped. At the same time, Nvidia has great products and is playing a key role in the growth of AI. I see it as a mixed bag.

I didn't get in as early as you did, but I've basically doubled my money on NVDA since early-ish last year. Your post nudged me toward liquidating roughly 30% of my shares for now.

[Steps out of the White House] mean that I needed to raise my cash position from about 0.5% to some comfortable amount.

In my opinion, this is exactly the sort of market and political conditions in which it makes sense to hold a decent cash position - some would advise holding 15-20% of one's portfolio in cash equivalents. I've felt this way for some months, which means my portfolio has missed out on some gains. However, if the market drops substantially, I'll be in a nice position to buy good companies for less. Either way, I feel comfortable, and that's key.

 

[sweter]

Dropbox (DBX) IPO is today.

Spotify targeted at early April.

 

[EinSV]

Spotify IPO is scheduled for tomorrow. Anyone thinking of getting in at IPO or after the dust settles?

 

[ggr]

@AudubonB, you recently said elsewhere that you cashed all your NVDA. May I ask your reasoning?

 

[MP3Mike]

@AudubonB, you recently said elsewhere that you cashed all your NVDA. May I ask your reasoning?

@ggr take a look at his post here: What other tech stock to consider?

 

[ggr]

@ggr take a look at his post here: What other tech stock to consider?

Thanks. Don't know how I missed that one. I have to agree regarding cryptocurrencies. As a professional cryptographer, I understand pretty much exactly how blockchains and mining work, but don't for a second understand the economics driving the price up.

 

[AudubonB]

Thanks. Don't know how I missed that one. I have to agree regarding cryptocurrencies. As a professional cryptographer, I understand pretty much exactly how blockchains and mining work, but don't for a second understand the economics driving the price up.

Given your self-description, are you comfortable critiquing my statement here: What other tech stock to consider? ?

 

[ZeApelido]

Is Cloudera undervalued currently?

 

[ggr]

I certainly understand that cost-effective mining is key to successful mining. As I understand it, however, at any point in the extraction cycle of a particular crypto, it takes more and more computing power (= electricity consumed) for each successful coin creation...sure, that's easy to understand....but you absolutely must add to that energy consumed all the consumption of all the rival attempts to snag that same coin...thus the exponential consumption of juice, irrespective of the consumption profile of only the one miner who succeeds.

Am I missing something important?

And on edit: to the extent this diverges from a discussion of NVDA as a stock, it belongs not here but in the "Crypto" thread. I can move such posts there; we'll see how this plays out for the rest of the day or two.

A week or two ago, I read an interesting article: This Is What Happens When Bitcoin Miners Take Over Your Town

Funnily enough, I attended a conference called Real World Crypto back in early 2013, before the word "Crypto" had been co-opted by the blockchain crowd. There were only a few digital currencies back then, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and a few others. Bitcoin had just had its first big runup, from around $250 at the end of 2012, to around $1000. The very first invited talk at the conference was about the cost of mining coins.

Aside: my boss at the time drew my attention to Satoshi's bitcoin paper when it first came out. I was too busy to do anything more than validate that in principle it worked... then I got back to my day job. What I should have done, of course, was start mining. But anyway.

The benefit of mining a particular currency is statistical in nature. So generally your statement above is correct. You could calculate how much energy a computer/GPU/FPGA/ASIC would use to do the hash calculations, but the reality is that that money was averaged over a bunch of people. As more miners got into the game, it became more and more like a lottery, so people started to get into mining pools to smooth out the lottery winnings, then consolidated more and more into the big mining outfits. As the article above alludes to, when there's a goldrush, it's the shovel providers, saloons and brothels who make all the money.

Now Bitcoin started to appreciate and (by design) the difficulty of mining went up, to the point where it became easier to mine different currencies. That's exactly where Litecoin came from. No-one day trades BRK.A... that's what BRK.B is for . Now there are approaching 100,000 blockchain value tokens; can't call all of them coins because many are not focused on monetary value.*

Even using ASIC farms in places with ridiculously cheap electricity, it currently costs around US$8k to mine a bitcoin. As I type, the price is back down to $6745. So it's (currently) uneconomical. Funnily enough, this was exactly the conclusion of the talk I mentioned, at the $250 level when the talk was written. I don't know the breakdowns for the competitors. But like stocks, some are overvalued and some are undervalued, relative to the cost of mining them.

Now here's the part that I really don't understand. The costs of all these currencies has been broadly tracking the cost of mining them. Just like the price of a stock broadly tracks the value of the company (both tangible and intangible). But a company is worth something when it's liquidated... what is the liquidation value of a Bitcoin? Even tulips, at least you could plant the damn thing. The energy that went into mining a coin is gone! It's contributed to the heat death of the universe. If it hadn't been nailed to the perch, it would be pushing up the daisies! (ObPython.)

So, personally, I consider digital currencies interesting but out of control. I'm staying right out of that market. I'm now a Bitcoin permabear, sorry Satoshi. Other currencies might or might not have a future. Blockchain technology has a future, I think... in fact my startup has a novel and socially beneficial use of blockchain, at least I think so. (*Enquiries welcome; that's as close as I come to advertising it.)

Audie: you might choose to move this, and/or edit out my penultimate sentence; I have a meeting.

Moderator Response:
No, but this kind of marketing cannot occur with any regularity. Fair warning to all. And NO further posts requesting info on same will be allowed to remain.

 

[mongo]

A week or two ago, I read an interesting article: This Is What Happens When Bitcoin Miners Take Over Your Town

Funnily enough, I attended a conference called Real World Crypto back in early 2013, before the word "Crypto" had been co-opted by the blockchain crowd. There were only a few digital currencies back then, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and a few others. Bitcoin had just had its first big runup, from around $250 at the end of 2012, to around $1000. The very first invited talk at the conference was about the cost of mining coins.

Aside: my boss at the time drew my attention to Satoshi's bitcoin paper when it first came out. I was too busy to do anything more than validate that in principle it worked... then I got back to my day job. What I should have done, of course, was start mining. But anyway.

The benefit of mining a particular currency is statistical in nature. So generally your statement above is correct. You could calculate how much energy a computer/GPU/FPGA/ASIC would use to do the hash calculations, but the reality is that that money was averaged over a bunch of people. As more miners got into the game, it became more and more like a lottery, so people started to get into mining pools to smooth out the lottery winnings, then consolidated more and more into the big mining outfits. As the article above alludes to, when there's a goldrush, it's the shovel providers, saloons and brothels who make all the money.

Now Bitcoin started to appreciate and (by design) the difficulty of mining went up, to the point where it became easier to mine different currencies. That's exactly where Litecoin came from. No-one day trades BRK.A... that's what BRK.B is for . Now there are approaching 100,000 blockchain value tokens; can't call all of them coins because many are not focused on monetary value.*

Even using ASIC farms in places with ridiculously cheap electricity, it currently costs around US$8k to mine a bitcoin. As I type, the price is back down to $6745. So it's (currently) uneconomical. Funnily enough, this was exactly the conclusion of the talk I mentioned, at the $250 level when the talk was written. I don't know the breakdowns for the competitors. But like stocks, some are overvalued and some are undervalued, relative to the cost of mining them.

Now here's the part that I really don't understand. The costs of all these currencies has been broadly tracking the cost of mining them. Just like the price of a stock broadly tracks the value of the company (both tangible and intangible). But a company is worth something when it's liquidated... what is the liquidation value of a Bitcoin? Even tulips, at least you could plant the damn thing. The energy that went into mining a coin is gone! It's contributed to the heat death of the universe. If it hadn't been nailed to the perch, it would be pushing up the daisies! (ObPython.)

So, personally, I consider digital currencies interesting but out of control. I'm staying right out of that market. I'm now a Bitcoin permabear, sorry Satoshi. Other currencies might or might not have a future. Blockchain technology has a future, I think... in fact my startup has a novel and socially beneficial use of blockchain, at least I think so. (Enquiries welcome; that's as close as I come to advertising it.)

Audie: you might choose to move this, and/or edit out my penultimate sentence; I have a meeting.

So much this.
My interpretation: Bitcoin has a cost (due to energy needed to mine the current difficulty, which is increasing on average), but no worth (unless your computer is infected with ransomware, and they only accept Bitcoin).

Looking back, even if I knew Bitcoin would be worth so much, I don,t think I would have mined it. It just rubs me the wrong way.

Mod, I look forward to my post joining this one.

 

[goinfraftw]

Ok, I'll bite in this thread. I'm long on TWLO. Think it has the market cap potential between $20B - $50B in a 5 year outlook.

Thoughts?

 

[aubreymcfato]

@ggr, I'm interested in your startup ;-)

 

[durkie]

@ggr, I'm interested in your startup ;-)

Me too!

 

[ggr]

I don't want to get in trouble with the moderator . Please, anyone else, PM me. Replied PM to the above.

 

[abasile]

Ok, I'll bite in this thread. I'm long on TWLO. Think it has the market cap potential between $20B - $50B in a 5 year outlook.

Hard to say about the market cap potential, but the Motley Fool happens to like TWLO and I've found their Rule Breakers service to be useful.

 

[STARR X]

I can’t quite grasp digital currencies much the same as with calls & puts. What I don’t understand, I stay away from. But my company does use blockchain through a company called Veem. It allows my company to receive wire transfers from international customers for free. Although they might charge new customers a fee now.