This is not exactly Bitcoin For Dummies (although you can buy that on Amazon), this my friends is more like Bitcoin By A Dummy.

I'm not sure I've ever been more confused about something since I tried to figure out the concept of a mill levy.  But before I went any farther, I watched this YouTube tutorial.

Well that helped me get a loose grasp of the Bitcoin concept, now what in the world is Bitcoin mining?  Time to cue up another YouTube video!

I didn't expect you to sit through two videos, but if you did, than I reckon that like me, you may be a bit more educated on the topic.  It only hurt my brain near the end of the second video.

I'll try to explain how all this is being powered by natural gas in the Bakken.  The key word is "try".

Bitcoin is basically taking the centralized aspect of moving money away from banks.  So it's kinda like your bank account, but it's more or less based on transactions. There are so many transactions taking place, they need to be organized into blockchains.  So Bitcoin has independent Bitcoin miners to do the job. These miners are all in a RACE to to solve very complex math problems and in doing so will unlock what you could call a digital vault that would then upgrade the block chain. As I understand from the video, there is then a "block reward" to whomever solves the problem.  There's where the profit is...and anyone can do it!  But like most anything, you have to keep your costs down to achieve that profit. Of course, like most anything, once the big miners take over, their costs are lower and their chances of harvesting the rewards are far greater than yours.

Here's where the Bakken comes in, these Supercomputers suck a lot of power and generate a lot of heat.  So how to keep profit ahead of cost?  You turn to the oil field and an excess of flaring gas that could be converted into electricity to run and cool these supercomputers that can run as hot as 160 degrees!  I'd suggest reading this entire Reuters article titled Oil drillers and Bitcoin miners bond over natural gas.

There are trailers dispatched to capture the natural gas and convert it on location to electricity.  Power that is then used to to mine cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.

If you read the Reuters story and watch the two videos you'll be just smart enough to be dangerous.  If you want to learn about it's rival Dogecoin you can do so here.  Me, I'm blissful in my ignorance.


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