<devyn>
well yeah, for a while it was trading WAY ahead of the other markets
<devyn>
which was insane
<devyn>
now it's about par
<devyn>
but it got well over $1000, even $1100 IIRC (USD)
<whitequark>
huh
<devyn>
though I do feel like litecoin's inherent technological differences may make it more attractive eventually
<devyn>
the memory-hardness of scrypt
<whitequark>
I'm thinking that litecoin is going to be more attractive simply because it's an alternative
<whitequark>
probably the only viable today
<devyn>
not only that but it will have the side effect of putting more pressure on memory R&D
<devyn>
if it gets bitcoin level big
<whitequark>
I mean, there's some payment processors which actually accept ltc
<whitequark>
which is not true for other altcoins
<devyn>
right
<devyn>
well there's bitcoin which is huge, and then litecoin is second
<whitequark>
yeah
<whitequark>
(memory R&D) what?
<devyn>
litecoin is trading > 0.02 BTC to the LTC now, which is significant
<devyn>
memory research and development
<whitequark>
yeah, wat?
<whitequark>
you need about... 8k RAM per hardware scrypt core, iirc
<devyn>
scrypt is memory-hard, and you've seen what bitcoin mining has done (i.e., creating ASICs that SHA really, really fast)
<whitequark>
in fact I was going to make an fpgaminer out of an fpga I have, just for the sake of it
<whitequark>
you say it like it's some outstanding achievement which is better for all humanity
<whitequark>
in fact it's just bitcoin asics, not different at all from any other typical asic
<devyn>
well the creation of ASICs that SHA really really fast isn't
<whitequark>
you could have scrypt asics just as well
<whitequark>
you don't need any particular breakthroughs in memory tech, and in fact you aren't going to stimulate it any more
<whitequark>
for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that semiconductor r&d cycle is five years *at best*
<whitequark>
and it's ten or more for any really new technology
<whitequark>
even if someone in their right mind invests in that, by the end of it most profit will come from transaction fees anyway, as it was planned
<devyn>
of course
<devyn>
but transaction fees would eventually be a huge source of profit
<devyn>
a 7950 can get ~500 kH/s (I know, because I have one)
<devyn>
you know, actually, the ratio estimated of kH/s/W_GPU to kH/s/W_ASIC here
<devyn>
seems similar to initial bitcoin ASICs promises too
<devyn>
one advantage to developing mining technology is if it's significantly ahead, you can premine a bit to recover some of the investment before selling it, I guess
<devyn>
people were accusing BFL of doing this
<devyn>
they probably were
<whitequark>
in a gold rush, only those who make the tools win
<devyn>
especially if you can make the tools on someone else's dime and profit off of them twice
<whitequark>
hence I don't even look at mining equipment :3
<whitequark>
yup
<whitequark>
it's really an ingenious scheme
<devyn>
hell, you just keep doing it until the network starts to catch up
<devyn>
and *then* you ship
<devyn>
and then the investment isn't so good
<devyn>
:p
<devyn>
or you ship a little bit to keep people happy
* whitequark
pats devyn
<whitequark>
you'd make a good (bad?) evil lord, I guess
<devyn>
maybe that's my issue with capitalism... I think it's too easy for anyone with a bit of a brain and an understanding of how people work to exploit the masses
<devyn>
not that other systems really solve that either
<whitequark>
I think the most beautiful part is how economies of scale turn this scheme against miners either way
<whitequark>
one, the more people get onto the asic train, the less each of them receives
<whitequark>
two, the more asics they buy, the less those asics cost to the vendor
<devyn>
and you get some really goddamn rich people buying them, which must feel good
<whitequark>
since you're thinking as a goddamn rich person... idk
<devyn>
lol
<purr>
lol
<devyn>
rich people love to crush other rich people
<whitequark>
btc-e trollbox is hilarious
<whitequark>
really, just read it for a few minutes
<devyn>
rich people are rich because they're either really competitive, or they inherited it
<devyn>
whitequark: I have. for hours on end.
<devyn>
once in a while, they say the darndest things
<devyn>
I was just chatting with a friend about it
<devyn>
hold on
<whitequark>
devyn: "steal it, marry it or inherit it"
<devyn>
haha this one
<devyn>
JamesR: Namecoin can free entire countries from the hand of dictators and their followers if the people of that country have only a little access to internet. Namecoin boycotts censorship so people can unite and mobilise to free their countries and install democracies Buy Namecoin for a freeer world
<devyn>
TrevorNIan: how can that ltc wall be real when ltc is not real
<devyn>
HermanForever: Iran now selling oil in BTC
<devyn>
Sheik Slarshmaha abdul abubuubu bout to buy BTC worth over 9000! 4 realz
<devyn>
buminatrain: I had orange chicken for lunch, and my gut is saying hold!
<devyn>
↑ that was when China was controlling the market and everyone was like "I know a Chinese person, they said hold!"
<devyn>
and it just got more ridiculous
<devyn>
and of course, contradicting it, Catanonia: been told by chinese friends, will drop to sub 150
<devyn>
WayneNolting: disable trollbox => ALT-F4
<devyn>
JacobRiggs: LTC FACTORY JUST CAUGHT FIRE
<devyn>
tokyoghetto: UN has BANNED BTC,,,everyone panic dump
<whitequark>
LOL
<purr>
LOL
<devyn>
UN HAS BANNED BTC whitequark
<whitequark>
(caught fire)
<devyn>
haha
<whitequark>
like I'm literally LOL now
<whitequark>
well
<whitequark>
that's pretty obtuse, there's more to it
<whitequark>
for example people saying btc/ltc will drop before black friday, at 23-25th
<whitequark>
have these fuckers ever tried to actually withdraw money from there?
<whitequark>
it takes more than three days
<whitequark>
(drop because everyone's cashing out... which is also, well, hardly believable)
<whitequark>
(but still)
<devyn>
that and BTC-e's reserves are low... I don't know what they end up doing, surely they must trade bitcoins and fiat with other exchanges?
<whitequark>
(they) who?
<devyn>
whoever runs the reserves
<whitequark>
ah
<whitequark>
no clue I would guess they cash out whatever incoming transactions they got
<whitequark>
from a thousand little shitty processors
<whitequark>
since money flows *in* bitcoin they should have plenty of it for reserves
<devyn>
yes, they have plenty of bitcoin I'm sure
<whitequark>
no, they have plenty of cash with which people buy bitcoin like crazy lately
<devyn>
honestly if I do cash out, it's not going to be to fiat. and I never really bought in in the first place; I mined with my GPU in April
<whitequark>
LTC?
<devyn>
no, I was mining BTC back then. really should have mined LTC lol
<purr>
lol
<whitequark>
in last April?
<devyn>
LTC was even easier to mine
<devyn>
no this April
<whitequark>
wow
<devyn>
difficulty has gone up A LOT
<whitequark>
how did you get anything that way really?
<devyn>
it was only 6-7 million or billion back then
<devyn>
can't remember which
<devyn>
I managed to mine 1 BTC
<whitequark>
does it even cover your electricity cost?
<whitequark>
oh
<devyn>
this was before ASICs were really much of a thing
<whitequark>
I see
<devyn>
and my electricity cost is pretty low
<devyn>
hydro
<devyn>
I didn't end up keeping that 1 BTC though. spent it on stupid shit like humble bundle
<devyn>
and was left with about 0.2 BTC
<devyn>
aaand I lost a lot of that to trading
<devyn>
so
<devyn>
I think I'm just going to hold and see what happens now
<devyn>
lol
<whitequark>
I wonder what happens when btc hits $1k
<whitequark>
for real this time
<whitequark>
it's probably going to end up all over the news, so the price'll get even higher
<whitequark>
maybe a mini-bubble?
<devyn>
I wouldn't be surprised
<devyn>
but you know
<devyn>
how things are going lately
<whitequark>
even if it happens, it's probbly would be next to impossible to time
<whitequark>
anyway
<devyn>
I feel like people would immediately see it as the time to buy
<devyn>
especially bots
<devyn>
would be all over that shit
<whitequark>
depends on how high it gets
<whitequark>
I mean, yeah, but think of this
<devyn>
so it would probably be turbulent for a while and if you're lucky you could anticipate it
<whitequark>
bitcoin gets inflated to $7k very quickly
<whitequark>
then sharply drops
<devyn>
people would buy, man. maybe not the noobs, but I've seen how quickly people are getting used to new norms
<devyn>
even within a single day
<whitequark>
well, that's why I said mini-
<devyn>
people are like "gasp, it's below $800, buy buy!" when it was at $700 at the beginning of the day
<whitequark>
it's not really a catastrophe, just a lost opportunity
<devyn>
you're almost guaranteed to lose unless you have a bot that absolutely slaughters the API
<devyn>
I'm not really sure how bitcoinwisdom gets such up-to-date information; they don't seem to be polling
<devyn>
they probably have a direct agreement
<devyn>
but that would be damn useful for a bot
<devyn>
so if someone with a bot could make a contract with BTC-e
<devyn>
well
<devyn>
that would be quite the advantage
<whitequark>
ask them if they provide a push-style api
<devyn>
well I feel like they must be, to bitcoinwisdom, yeah
<devyn>
unless bitcoinwisdom polls like every second
<devyn>
but I don't even think the API results are that fast
<devyn>
maybe BTC-e should look into just providing a push-style API
<devyn>
no I know
<devyn>
but that's because it's useless; you can get all that information from the trades. it's just telling you what's displayed on the site, which *is* delayed
<devyn>
and knowing that could be useful
<devyn>
lots of dumb people just go by that ticker
<whitequark>
business idea: write an external service that provides push-style access to btc-e
<whitequark>
maybe just all exchanges
<whitequark>
charge for access to it
<devyn>
I feel like exchanges would then ask for money... and then implement push themselves and undercut you
<devyn>
but it might be good temporarily
<whitequark>
assuming exchanges even want to bother
<devyn>
not only that, but how do you get it to the point that it's even an advantage
<whitequark>
hm?
<devyn>
like, you'd still be polling
<whitequark>
well
<devyn>
so what makes you faster than *bot which polls too
<whitequark>
1-second ratelimit?
<whitequark>
which I can, as a single entity, agree to lift
<whitequark>
but not all the random bots
<devyn>
doesn't seem like there's even a ratelimit
<whitequark>
hit it with ab and it'll cut you off at firewall/nginx
<whitequark>
pretty sure.
<whitequark>
oh
<whitequark>
cloudflare
<devyn>
ah, well yeah, then you get DDoS mitigation strategies
<devyn>
coming into effect
<devyn>
even with cloudflare BTC-e still gets DDoS'd successfully sometimes
<whitequark>
no, I just mean cloudflare enfores that limit
<whitequark>
and they use a sliding window
<devyn>
upliftmaker: FTC is my new car :)
<devyn>
lol
<purr>
lol
<devyn>
feathercoin
<devyn>
pff
<whitequark>
yeah doesn't seem to be any ratelimit
<whitequark>
Requests per second: 4900.06 [#/sec] (mean)
<devyn>
did you manage to read all of those, or is it just a quick open-request-wait-close?
<whitequark>
read all of those
<devyn>
because if you can read 4900/sec, that's fantastic, and makes me want to get on developing a bot
<devyn>
wow
<whitequark>
linode has a nice fat pipe
<whitequark>
well on a bigger n=10000 it seems more like
<whitequark>
Requests per second: 3587.86 [#/sec] (mean)
<whitequark>
with concurrency=1000
<whitequark>
assuming cloudflare doesn't specialcase apachebench but I guess they won't
<whitequark>
devyn: I'm interested in your bot :p
<devyn>
whitequark: yeah. I actually started on it a bit already, after being fed up with a shitty python bot that didn't even really work
<whitequark>
devyn: wanna work together on it?
<devyn>
literally, in the config file
<devyn>
## Not yet used
<devyn>
fee = 0.2
<devyn>
like
<devyn>
how the hell can you do things properly if you don't even take fees into account
<whitequark>
I was going to write something in ocaml
<devyn>
and it was a mess, anyway
<whitequark>
it has really sweet typesafe interfaces for RPCs and such, turns out
<devyn>
took a bizarrely long time to calculate stuff
<devyn>
novice programmer, definitely
<devyn>
OCaml does?
<whitequark>
totally
<whitequark>
look at janestreet's core library
<devyn>
I was originally going to do it in split Haskell/C (C for IO shit because I hate everything to do with Haskell and IO, and it doesn't matter how many layers of abstraction you put on it)
<whitequark>
wanna make a try with ocaml?
<whitequark>
I'd be willing to collaborate, like, right now