Member Info for fleccy

After I read through my last post and in view of the power of the current Bitcoin mining rigs, I started to question there only being 4 Billion Nonces available in the 32 bit field, and wondered whether that'd be sufficient as the difficulty level increased, making me think that can't be all there is to it, so I took another look.
Apparently there's something called the Extra Nonce solution:

"The Extra Nonce Solution
Since 2012, bitcoin mining has evolved to resolve a fundamental limitation in the structure of the block header. In the early days of bitcoin, a miner could find a block by iterating through the nonce until the resulting hash was equal to or below the target. As difficulty increased, miners often cycled through all 4 billion values of the nonce without finding a block. However, this was easily resolved by updating the block timestamp to account for the elapsed time. Because the timestamp is part of the header, the change would allow miners to iterate through the values of the nonce again with different results. Once mining hardware exceeded 4 GH/sec, however, this approach became increasingly difficult because the nonce values were exhausted in less than a second. As ASIC mining equipment started pushing and then exceeding the TH/sec hash rate, the mining software needed more space for nonce values in order to find valid blocks. The timestamp could be stretched a bit, but moving it too far into the future would cause the block to become invalid. A new source of "change" was needed in the block header. The solution was to use the coinbase transaction as a source of extra nonce values. Because the coinbase script can store between 2 and 100 bytes of data, miners started using that space as extra nonce space, allowing them to explore a much larger range of block header values to find valid blocks. The coinbase transaction is included in the merkle tree, which means that any change in the coinbase script causes the merkle root to change. Eight bytes of extra nonce, plus the 4 bytes of "standard" nonce allow miners to explore a total 296 (8 followed by 28 zeros) possibilities per second without having to modify the timestamp. If, in the future, miners could run through all these possibilities, they could then modify the timestamp. There is also more space in the coinbase script for future expansion of the extra nonce space."

https://learn.saylor.org/mod/book/view.php?id=36380&chapterid=19030

I was thinking about QBT's 30% algorithm, to speed up bitcoin mining and wondering what it might do.

If I'm understanding things correctly, Bitcoin mining rigs calculate a valid hash, with a value below the Target, by inserting different values into the Nonce Field until they find a Nonce producing a valid hash. I'm guessing Mining Farms use software to simultaneously and continually allocate different Nonces to each rig in the farm, basically spreading the load.
The Nonce Field is 32 bits long, meaning there are 4,294,967,296 possible Nonces including all 0's, with a large percentage of Nonces suitable for producing a valid Hash.
If what I've just said is correct, to increase the speed of Mining Bitcoin by 30% QBT's software may work, in simple terms, by reducing the Nonce number pool from 4,294,967,296 down to around 3,006,500,000 possible Nonces, approximately 30% lower. From what I've read in other peoples posts, QBT's algorithm doesn't have a mathematical proof, so they're relying on testing the algorithm at various levels of Bitcoin difficulty, but the problem they're having is that testing is complicated because "testing this approach for the current level of difficulty, the leading zeros of the hash target, is computationally extremely demanding: each time we test at an higher level of difficulty from our current internal difficulty target, the amount of time/computing power needed, increases by 16 times."
I could be wrong in thinking QBT aren't mining on the Bitcoin network, and are in fact using test data with different Hash target's, but he uses the term "internal difficulty target" making me wonder. Possibly the only way to prove the algorithm works, at all difficulty levels, would be to find a large miner who'll incorporate the algorithm into their Farm setup, and prove it works as it should at the current Bitcoin difficulty level, thereby confirming the software does what it's supposed to do in the real world. Maybe it's an academic mentality to test something to death before it's put out there, but all software has bugs when it's first rolled out, then updated later to fix the bugs as they appear.

Vodafone aren't alone in developing 5G in a Box.

https://www.svgeurope.org/blog/headlines/future-transformation-bt-media-broadcast-on-5g-realising-its-potential/

"Dim Bella- agreed the interview was very positive. FG is the one to listen to, not Fleecy and Eddie. Both are not invested and obsessed with Qbt,"

Ok, I'm not obsessed with QBT but I am interested in Bitcoin and by extension I'm curious about QBT.
If you can find anything I've incorrectly stated, in my last two posts, by all means correct me and I'll check your corrections and acknowledge my mistakes. I don't think I've misunderstood things, but it's a learning game.
Last but not least, it's Dom-Bella, not "Dim Bella".

"Fleecy- stick your understanding up your a£se . Now go and pester another board."

Sooty, since you're so enthused by my last post, here's a bit more just for you.

The current Bitcoin difficulty is 39,156,400,059,293 and is forecast to increase to 42,267,210,304,458 in 6 days. Bitcoin difficulty increases as the "Hash Target" decreases, so they have an inverse relationship; The current hash target is set as 0x17073039 in Hex.
If you enter 0x17073039 into the "Bitcoin Target Calculator", at the bottom of the page in the following link, you can see the inverse relationship between Difficulty and Target.

https://blockchain-academy.hs-mittweida.de/courses/blockchain-introduction-technical-beginner-to-intermediate/lessons/lesson-14-bitcoin-mining-difficulty/topic/in-depth-explanation-of-bitcoin-mining-difficulty/#:~:text=The%20Bitcoin%20difficulty%20target%20is,the%20lower%20is%20the%20difficulty.

The current Difficulty/Target can be found here:

https://btc.com/stats/diff

https://www.coinwarz.com/mining/bitcoin/difficulty-chart

This is my understanding of how it works, I'll happily be corrected if I've misunderstood something.

The Bitcoin mining network relies on Proof of Work in calculating a hash function for a new block. In simple terms:

Mining
A Hash Function is calculated based on fields including Block Number, Nonce, Transaction Data and the previous block Hash Function. The new Hash function is calculated by trying different Nonce's until a new Hash function is calculated below a certain "hash target" Mining Difficulty level. Basically the miners need to find a Nonce that can produce a hash that's below the "hash target".

Mining Difficulty
The Bitcoin difficulty algorithm automatically adjusts the Bitcoin Network difficulty level every 2016 Blocks, to limit the speed of solving new Hash Function's to around 10 minutes per block, so changes to the "hash target" occur approximately every 2 weeks. The more efficient and faster Bitcoin Mining becomes the higher the hash rate, leading to a corresponding increase in the difficulty level and more leading zero's in the "hash target".

From the previous post:
"testing this approach for the current level of difficulty, the leading zeros of the hash target, is computationally extremely demanding: each time we test at an higher level of difficulty from our current internal difficulty target, the amount of time/computing power needed, increases by 16 times."

What I think he's saying is that difficulty increases, the lower the calculated "hash target", meaning more leading zeros. In simple terms, it's easy to calculate a Nonce to generate a Hash Function with 1 leading Zero, but it gets exponentially more difficult as you add more leading zero's to the "hash target".

https://blog.bitmex.com/bitcoins-lowest-block-hash-values/

"Brix, let's hope that the talk of HMG taxing either div's or growth on ISA's comes to nothing."

Chid you're making stuff up, there's been no talk of HMG taxing dividends or growth in ISA's. The Resolution Foundation, a left leaning think tank having nothing to do with Government, has released a report suggesting ISA's should be capped at a tax free limit of £100,000.

https://ifamagazine.com/article/uks-saving-incentives-not-fit-for-purpose-with-the-rich-pocketing-lions-share-of-7-billion-cost/

Stocks and shares ISA's are a good alternative to pension schemes, or as a supplement to company pension schemes. It may suit some self employed workers to flexibly save into ISA's over their working life, as well as reinvesting any dividends, to build potentially good tax free earnings in retirement. ISA's are one of the few good savings products out there, they should be left alone imo. Hopefully the Resolution Foundations ISA suggestion will be filed where it belongs, in the bin.

"you cant rely on us old uns to stay loyal for ever we finally crack"

Speak for yourself. We've been topping up with divi's, as they come in, and now own over 400,000 Lloyds shares. The Divi's make a significant difference and reinvesting them is a form of growth, since you're growing the size of your holding and subsequent dividends.

I can see the naysayers are stepping up their rhetoric, probably in for some big rises next week then.

"The Collapse of the UK Housing Market May Be Coming"

I've believed housing crashes were imminent several times throughout my adult life, but it never seemed to happen countrywide and across all properties. Places like London seem to see a drop in a crash and newbuild apartments, aimed at the buy to let market in "desirable" locations, but even those recover over a relatively short period of time. What seems to happen, at the slightest hint of house prices dropping, is FOMO renters looking at buying their first property jump in and support the market from the bottom up. UK house price crashes tend to be shallow and short lived, there are too many waiting in the wings for an opportunity to dive in.

We'll have to agree to disagree Chid, I see Lloyds climbing over the next year. If you really believe what you're saying, then you should sell any Lloyds shares you own and watch from the sidelines. Personally I'll keep holding and topping up with dividends as they become available. Time will tell who's right.

Chid, you remind me of EU based analysts, CEO'S and politicians who are rolled out to generally knock the UK, yet the UK economy continues to surprise. The narrative, you base your view on, assumes big percentages of home owners will default on their mortgages, but that's highly unlikely. Since the 2008 financial crises, banks have been careful on who they lend to and how much they loan out, with mortgage debt secured against the property anyway; Things like unsecured loans and credit cards could potentially become an issue, but that's insignificant in the scheme of things. Something else, employment figures suggest a shortage of job applicants for the available jobs, meaning people are unlikely to default on their debt whilst in work.
Lloyds is undervalued on fundamentals and historic valuations, so barring some sort of cataclysmic macro event, Lloyds bank will be far higher a year from now.

"Clearly because the massive profit is 'already priced in' AND SOME, due to hype and the masses buying in later, after nervously worrying and only buying in when the price has had a sustained rise, BUT by then those in the know, have already bought in weeks before at lower prices, so, those buying late are paying over the odds, come the news, the share price returns to its 'real' market value."

That is total garbage, the only time I'd agree with your view is if Lloyds Bank is overvalued with a higher than average P/E and mediocre earnings, but Lloyds Bank is clearly undervalued with a P/E of around 8.4 and a good earnings outlook.

"NatWest profits came in line with analyst expectations.
However forward looking guidance earnings estimates for 2023 and beyond paint a very different picture."

Didn't look too bad to me:

"Capital and Funding

- We expect to generate and return significant capital to shareholders through 2023.

- We expect to pay ordinary dividends of 40% of attributable profit, and maintain capacity to participate in directed buybacks from the UK Government, recognising that any exercise of this authority would be dependent upon HMT's intentions and limited to 4.99% of issued share capital in any 12-month period.

- We will also consider further on-market buybacks as part of our overall capital distribution approach as well as inorganic opportunities where the strategic case and returns are suitably compelling.

- As part of the Group's capital and funding plans we intend to issue between £3 billion to £5 billion of MREL-compliant senior instruments in 2023, with a continued focus on issuance under our Green, Social and Sustainability Bond Framework, and up to £1 billion of Tier 2 capital instruments. NatWest Markets plc's funding plan targets £3 billion to £5 billion of public benchmark issuance.

Medium term

- We continue to target a sustainable return on tangible equity for the group of 14-16% over the medium term.

- We expect to deliver a Group cost:income ratio (excl. litigation and conduct) of less than 50%, by 2025.

- We expect that RWAs could increase by a further 5-10% by the end of 2025, including the impact of Basel 3.1.

- We expect to continue to generate and return significant capital via ordinary dividends and buybacks to shareholders over the medium term and continue to expect that the CET1 ratio will be in the range of 13-14%.

(1) The guidance, targets, expectations, and trends discussed in this section represent NatWest Group plc management's current expectations and are subject to change, including as a result of the factors described in the Risk Factors section of the 2022 NatWest Group plc Annual Report and Accounts. These statements constitute forward-looking statements. Refer to Forward-looking statements in this document."

"Current short volume 7,000,000 shares
0.04% of the float"

Where does it show that? The short trackers show 0 open positions. The Marshall Wace short was closed in Oct 2020

You could be forgiven for thinking this is a scripted drop, very confusing.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/feb/17/natwest-makes-largest-profit-since-financial-crisis-on-higher-rates

I haven't looked at the results, but the headlines should have pushed the price up, even the impairment was less than anticipated. UK retail sales looks good and unemployment is low, It makes no sense.

Bizarre open, market games.

Indeed, he was correct to to take notice of Google.

BTC has already been pumped through $25,000. The increases aren't steady and incremental, the price moves up in leaps and bounds, it has to be manipulated price movements by institutional players/whales. Time will tell if this is a pump and dump.