Member Info for fleccy

"The higher the level of difficulty the larger the transactional fee"

Bitcoin Mining reward and transactional fees are two different things. A transactional fee is variable and relates to the inclusion of individual transactions within a Block. The Bitcoin Mining reward is the Bitcoins awarded to the miner who manages to process a block first. Higher transaction fee's are used to increase the chance of your individual transaction being included in the Block. The transactions with higher fees allocated, stand a far greater chance of being included in a Block.

"If that was the case, would it not be better for QBT to keep their software to themselves and mine coin themselves?"

WillIwontI, Ive been out and about this morning and just saw your question.

It would depend on how much they invested in mining rigs, a small $1,000,000 mining farm, even with a 30% software advantage, wouldn't come lose to the Billion dollar setups of the big Miners. Even if QBT's software works, there's no guarantee Miners would use it, and if they all used it they'd be worse off than if none of them used it, since they'd have to pay QBT for use of the software. The Bitcoin difficulty is designed to set specific time limits on the entire Bitcoin Mining process, it's set in stone.

"In March, the average network difficulty was 11% higher than in February."

The Mining difficulty changes, dependent on the average hashpower, every 2,016 Blocks. Any efficiency improvement will increase Mining difficulty going forward. If all the big miners used software that improved efficiency by 30%, going forward, mining difficulty would increase to maintain a rate of 10minutes per block processing rate; So any software efficiency improvement would soon be nullified by the Bitcoin Mining difficulty algorithm.

"that is about as good as one of fleccy's posts, it's plausible but its just made up to suit the need."

Eddie, I try and stick to the facts in my posts and will happily be corrected if I get something wrong, but instead of valid arguments against my view I just get abuse. What have I made up?

"Do you think bt are the better investment?"

I can only give an opinion. I currently see a risk to the Vodafone Dividend, if a new CEO decides to focus on cutting debt rather than appeasing shareholders. BT is easier to understand and I can see a path for them to grow the bottom line significantly through cost savings, once the FTTP and 5G rollouts are completed. I see both companies as safe long term investments, but I'm not willing to top up Vodafone until there's more certainty around the dividend, whereas I see BT as a safer dividend bet.

Jambone, Addison spoke Yoda he did, so I just threw in a Star Wars Jedi reference as a play on words. You shouldn't take things too seriously, or so literally.

I can paste in my Rhymes if you want to see them?

Clearly my superior literary skills won the Battle of the Poets.

"just checked - the cash element for vw was 104p per share. This multiplied by the amount of vodafone shares I had, was the amount I took off of my vodafone costs in my spreadsheet, so the vc shares were in addition."

I can't remember all the detail around the deal and I've long since lost track of any documentation. I don't even have access to the SIP accounts anymore, as the Vodafone shares were transferred out soon after I retired and the accounts closed. There's probably some details within online articles somewhere, if you wanted to search something out.

"there must have been an instant sale option available to me if vc shares were involved as well."

Yeah, if I remember correctly there was an option to sell the VC shares. I had a lot of shares in SIP's so didn't have a choice but to accept the VC shares. I also had a load of privately held shares too, but I sold them just before the deal went through. I'd bought the privately held shares at around 160p and sold in the 220's.

"I wonder what the intrinsic value of gold is , it has very little industrial use"

Gold has loads of industrial and medical applications, you need to do some reading:

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/BF03214833.pdf

"Gold has a wide variety of uses in electronics because of its
unique physical and chemical properties:
•It has excellent resistance to corrosion and oxidation,
whereas silver tarnishes in atmospheres containing minute
traces of sulphide. Palladium oxidises especially at higher
temperatures and can catalyse the polymerisation of
hydrocarbons and form insulating films. Most other metals
including copper, nickel, iron and cobalt will oxidise in air
and corrode in the presence of moisture and ions,
particularly halides.
•The inertness of gold makes it invaluable as a solderable
coating to maintain the solder wetting properties of PCBs
and component leads. It also allows gold to be used within
the human body as it is not affected by body fluids and is
completely non-toxic.
•The electrical resistivity of gold is the lowest of all metals
except for silver and copper but both of these readily
tarnish causing the contact resistance to increase. For low
current, low voltage conditions and low contact force,
gold is frequently the best choice technically and in some
applications such as automotive and RF connectors and
MEMS switch contacts, it is the only choice.
•Pure gold is a relatively soft metal and so is not ideal for
contacts where wear occurs. Hard gold has been
developed for wear applications but better results are
obtained if this is electroplated onto Pd/Ni layers.
•Gold’s ductile properties combined with the lack of an air
formed oxide allows fine gold wires to be used for wire
bonding within semiconductor ICs. No other metal has the
same reliability at the highest production rates.
•Gold is also used for its light reflecting properties in optical
devices such as optical switches and Read/Write CDs and
DVDs"

Gold for medical applications

https://www.chem.tamu.edu/rgroup/marcetta/chem489/Presentations/Gold

"Gold Fillings were first tried in the 1800’s by scientists in France. Today, highly purified gold is a common material in crowns and fillings."

Next time you go to the Dentist, ask if he can do a Bitcoin filling.

Bitcoin can be confiscated as easily as Gold, if not easier. If you were banged up and the authorities demanded your private keys, or else, I bet you'd hand them over.

"btw I have been a Vodafone shareholder for well over a decade"

You must have received a load of Verizon Communication shares when the deal went through then, I've long since unloaded my VC shares and reinvested the cash in UK stocks.

"I would be calling that a takeover - Verizon market cap about 163 Billion dollars"

Have you seen the amount of debt Verizon Communications has? In the region of $154 Billion, so everything would have to be taken into account in a tie up.
I'm not saying it'll happen, just that I had a feeling that something was going on, it probably wont but it's a bit suspicious the way everything unfolded since November last year, in my opinion.

"What the Verizon that Vodafone once owned 45% of and sold nearly 10 years for 130 Billion dollars."

Actually no, you're confusing Verizon Wireless with Verizon Communications. Verizon Wireless was a joint venture between Vodafone and Verizon Communications. Vodafone sold their share in the joint venture to Verizon Communications, incidentally I did very well out of that.
Vodafone is what Vodafone is, I know the company a lot better than you do since I used to work for them. I was working in Network and Submarine Cable Operations at the time of the Verizon deal and still know people within the company, in the UK and internationally.

"Come out of your basement and enjoy the good weather ."

I get plenty of sunshine and walking in thanks. WiFi allows me to sit in my garden on nice days, and living on the edge of a country park means plenty of nice walks should I feel the need to stretch my legs, but thanks for your concern anyway.

"Vodafone are tens of Billions in debt"

Vodafone has always been tens of Billions in debt, it's they way they've operated right back to their startup days. Some of their investments have gone south for various reasons, like Vodafone India/Idea which was decimated due to Indian Government and regulatory policies, all to give Jio a leg up. Arguably the purchase of the Liberty Global assets in Germany was also a mistake, but the Jury's still out on that one.
I don't dispute that there's a considerable amount of pressure on Vodafone to cut the dividend, in fact I almost expect it, but the current debt levels isn't a threat to Vodafone's finances. We'll have to wait until the new CEO arrives before we know the dividend story, but as I said in a previous post I suspect something much bigger may be unfolding in the background.
I have mentioned previously that I have a slight inkling that a merger may happen, but my reasoning is extremely tentative. Last November, Verizon elected Vittorio Colao onto its Board of Directors, after he'd previously left them to dabble in Italian Politics; Then on the 5th December Nick Read announced that he was stepping down as CEO of Vodafone at the end of December, but remain in a consultative role until the end of March this year; Vodafone still haven't announced a permanent replacement for Nick Read and if a merger did happen maybe the CEO of the other company would become the CEO of the combined entity. All this is pure speculation, but who knows what might happen?

"the market clearly does not like the look of vodafones current financial situation"

You could say the same about Lloyds, with the share price at current levels. The markets aren't driven by fundamentals these days, Tesla's historic valuations are a good example of how some stocks are valued more on sentiment rather than fundamentals. It's also clear that the various Central Bank QE stimulus, has injected so much liquidity into markets that valuations are detached from reality, in both directions. Central Bank monetary tightening terrifies many Fund managers, explaining why they are vocal in trying to persuade Central Banks to keep the money taps open. The risk-on Growth over value cycle needs to be firmly killed off, before the markets base valuations on fundamentals rather than a gamble on what might happen.

"Fleccy it's all pretend money, when America want more they just print it..... When currency moved from silver and gold coins it lost all true value in my opinion"

The Gold standard was also made up and was part of the evolution of fractional reserve banking, eventually leading to Fiat currency. A Gold standard values a currency on the amount of Gold held by a Central Bank, not the strength of the economy of a country where the Gold is held. Theoretically a country with vast reserves of unmined Gold, under a Gold standard, could control the world without producing anything benefitting society, they could leach off the rest of the World and offer nothing for the greater good. The idea of Fiat, is that the value of the currency is based on the strength of the issuing economy, print too much and you trash your own currency. Under Fiat, countries are rewarded for producing goods and the productivity of the population, not the amount of Gold stored in a vault or under the ground. In a world where different economies trade and barter with each other, Fiat is the only fair system, which explains why it was invented.

"Just because you are some freak that doesn’t like Crypto"

You're very touchy, I must have jarred your Jamfunnybone.
I dislike Crypto currency for a couple of reasons, for one I can't see a real world use for it, why try to reinvent the wheel? Secondly I don't see any pathway for it to achieve the believers goals for the sector; You either have elected Governments controlling everything, or you have the rich and powerful corporations in control.
As Rothschild said, "I care not what puppet is placed upon the throne of England to rule the Empire on which the sun never sets. The man who controls the British money supply controls the British Empire, and I control the British money supply".
Lets imagine Bitcoin succeeds, who do you think will control it? You, me, or the super rich who'll buy up the majority of the tokens and therefore control the currency? It'd be like passing control of the whole world over to mega rich controlled enterprise and cutting Government control out of everything; It'll never happen since Bitcoin isn't some savior, it's just a vehicle to fool the dreamers and naïve to invest in something that makes no real world sense, in my opinion.

"If one Bed & ISA another stock of £20k value then sell & transfer into Lloyds for the divi , then £20k purchase of Lloyds at todays price and Divi at 1.6p is it worth doing ? and how much extra divi ?"

If you're saying Bed an ISA, say Barclays shares, then immediately sell them to buy Lloyds shares in the ISA to get the dividend, it doesn't make sense. Using that method, you'd pay stamp duty on the Barclays Bed and ISA and then pay stamp duty again on the Lloyds purchase. It'd make more sense to sell the Barclays shares in the share dealing account, then use the 20k to purchase the Lloyds shares in the ISA, that way you only pay stamp duty once.

".do you feel the dividend will be cut &or what are the chances of a takeove/breakup re vodafone"

As far as the Dividend, I do worry that it might be cut so I'm currently just holding VOD and directing any top ups elsewhere. I'm also suspicious that Vodafone are heading toward a mega merger, with a US Telecom giant like Verizon, but its just a feeling and there's nothing substantive backing up the feeling.

"Foresight into the future you have"

Yoda wont bail out QBT, may the Farce be with you.