Comment by dabockster | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dabockster | Hacker News Reader

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It is never too late to throw in some money and play around with Bitcoin. Just be aware of a few things:

1) Assume whatever you invest is lost instantly. Don't assume you'll get profits at all.

2) Start with small amounts ($100-150) and ramp up once you feel more comfortable.

3) Most alts are either "pump and dump" operations or scams. Do your research before transferring out of Bitcoin into an altcoin.

4) Take any hype about Bitcoin with a grain of salt. Just like any other trendy topic, there is a lot of misinformation out there.

5) Do your research.

6) Do your research.

7) Did I emphasize research enough? JUST DO IT.

8) Don't bother mining. The mining has been controlled by China for years.

And finally, research the underlying tech (blockchain). That's the real reason why Bitcoin is becoming so popular.

>> The mining has been controlled by China for years.

Can you elaborate on that? Afaik the very advantage of Bitcoin is that no single entity can control it.

China has around 70% [1] of the Bitcoin mining power, and the top three miners hold around 50%, which is so massive, it makes everyone else seem negligible, like an experimental error.

[1]: https://www.buybitcoinworldwide.com/mining/china/

China has the advantage of cheap power, so where you pay $0.14kW/h they pay a fraction of that amount. You can mine crypto, but don't expect it to become profitable unless you have access to cheap power and are ready to break through some of the hardware costs......

Or if you have free student trials for things like AWS/AZURE and can just spin up an instance and run till the trail dies.

Or if you have nationalized power like Venezuela does.

Cheap electricity + ASIC Miners means chinese companies outcompete just about everyone else. Mining becomes unprofitable. Some alt coins manage to sidestep this by ensuring an ASIC for them would be an ASIC for general computing, therefore a CPU.

I think he is referring to the mining operations themselves mainly being in China. Not that the majority of bitcoin is owned by chinese individuals. At least, not yet.

You missed step 5.5) Do your research.

Research what?

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