Tag Archives: bitcoin mining

Open Letter To Iowa Representatives about Bitcoin

Posted on by
2

I have written the below open letter to my Iowa representatives about Bitcoin. I have also emailed it to them with a link to this post so they are able to get to the links below. I encourage you to go to your own representatives websites and email them this also.

I am writing this letter to you directly, you can also find the text below with links to specific articles I recommend you read. https://mywheellife.com/2023/12/18/open-letter-to-iowa-representatives-about-bitcoin/

Senator Grassley, Senator Ernst and Congresswoman Hinson

I am writing to you concerning Bitcoin in general and Senator Elizabeth Warren’s “Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act” in particular. 

I would like to first refer you to the video “Elizabeth Warren’s Anti-Bitcoin Agenda with Perianne Boring” on the “What Bitcoin Did” podcast. 

“Warren’s bill, the Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act, aims to solve a problem that no one has. It that would classify nearly all crypto industry participants — from wallet providers to miners to validators — as financial institutions, subjecting them to the onerous compliance regime of the Bank Secrecy Act. Under this bill, a teenager running a bitcoin mining rig in his basement could be subject to the same compliance burdens as JP Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs.

But wallet providers, miners, and validators are not banks. They do not hold custody of assets. They certainly should not be collecting or storing the sensitive personal financial information of individual users of an asset. They merely provide infrastructure — the open-source software and computing power to help secure the network. Much like Microsoft, which also supplies a lot of software and cybersecurity products to financial institutions, they are not financial institutions. 

It would be impossible for the industry to comply with Warren’s requirements, and she knows this. The point of her bill is not to improve national security or stop money laundering, but to kill digital asset innovation.” – The Hill

Please also investigate Elizabeth Warren and her collusion with the banks and SEC. I am concerned she is not regulation in good faith. 

Lawyer Says Senator Elizabeth Warren Conspires With SEC Chair Gary Gensler, Violating Her Oath

I want to encourage, you, my representatives, to learn about Bitcoin and it’s many benefits.


I also want you to learn about the benefits of bitcoin mining and it’s ability to mitigate emissions. Specifically, please learn from Daniel Batten and his work into bitcoin mining reducing methane emissions. 

Flared Methane as a Sustainable Power Source for Cryptocurrency Mining

I would also like you to learn from Alex Gladstein about the human rights benefits that Bitcoin provides. He has already tried to speak to congress on this.
Human rights advocates tell Congress bitcoin is essential in countries with ‘collapsing’ currencies

As my representatives, I encourage you to learn about Bitcoin and be a champion and advocate for it. 

Sincerely

Axel Hoogland

Tesla Should Accept Bitcoin NOW!

Posted on by
Reply

As both a Tesla shareholder and a Bitcoin holder, I think it’s time Tesla starts accepting bitcoin for payments again.

Tesla currently holds hundreds of millions of dollars in Bitcoin on their balance sheet. 

Tesla accepted bitcoin for Tesla purchases for a very short time in 2021 but then quit accepting it due to concerns about the emissions from bitcoin mining.
His “rules” laid out above in a tweet June 13th, 2021 was that Tesla would resume accepting Bitcoin when bitcoin mining was using greater than 50% green energy. It has been clearly shown by the Bitcoin Mining Council that bitcoin mining is 59.9% green! 

“Based on this data, the global bitcoin mining industry’s sustainable electricity mix has improved marginally to 59.9% and remains one of the most sustainable industries globally,” the report stated. – Bitcoin Mining Council

Direct link to Bitcoin Mining Council Q2 2023 report. 

This is well above the goal set by Elon for Tesla of 50%. Because of this, I think Tesla should immediately start accepting Bitcoin for payments again.


Of course Elon could be waiting for “reasons”.

One might be that he expects whenever Tesla starts accepting Bitcoin to have a small flood of buyers. He might be waiting for this until a time that he perceives that he needs a small demand boost? This is my only speculation on why he hasn’t started accepting bitcoin yet.I hope Elon will have a chat with Michael Saylor (Chairman of Microstrategy, the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin and also an instrumental figure in the Bitcoin Mining Council) soon!

So Elon, what are you waiting for?

Bitcoin Blocks and Fees

Posted on by
Reply

Bitcoin at it’s simplest is a ledger keeping track of transactions. On average every 10 minutes a new “block” of transactions is validated. Using this link you can watch as transactions are added to the next block. I think it’s truly mesmerizing. I think it needs to be made into an easy to watch app or screen saver (hint to someone). It is essentially watching each bitcoin block be organized. Transactions are added to the block and finally confirmed.

There is a lot of interesting data in each bitcoin block. 

Bitcoin miners validate a new block on average ever 10 minutes. Each block confirms the transactions that have happened in that time. Money sent from person X to person Y. 

You can also learn how much is paid in block rewards (currently 6.25 BTC every block) and in block fees. 

It does cost money to send your bitcoin from your wallet to someone else. You might think that’s bad since you can send money via your bank account to people now and “not pay a fee”.

But that is where you are wrong. Banks have tons of fees, from monthly fees to the “fee” of paying you 0% interest. 

Every time you swipe a credit card you are paying approximately a 3% fee. The price is just baked into the price of whatever you are buying as sellers assume you will be using a credit card at this point. 

Here’s all the data from a specific completed block. 

Block 767418

A total of 12,419.79 BTC ($222,022,574) were sent in the block with the average transaction being 4.4515 BTC ($79,577.28). ViaBTC (the miner who solved the block) earned a total reward of 6.25 BTC $111,728. The reward consisted of a base reward of 6.25 BTC $111,728 with an additional 0.1489 BTC ($2,661.81) reward paid as fees of the 2,790 transactions which were included in the block.

6.3989/12,419.79 = 0.000515 *100 = 0.05% of the value of the money sent was used to pay fees. 

As you can see the total of 12419.79 BTC were sent during that 10 minutes worth $222 million dollars. Users were charged 0.1489 BTC which comes out to a 0.0012%! That is insanely low.

If you were paying that percentage to send $100 it would be $0.001 dollars. 1/10 of 1 penny!

If you compare this to a credit card transaction at 3% that would cost you $3 vs $0.001 for a transaction. Imagine if everything we did got 3% cheaper overnight? Why haven’t more sellers adopted BTC?