As Crypto Mining Grows, Data Centers Begin Accepting Bitcoin 94
miller60 (554835) writes "Citing strong demand from cryptocurrency miners, data center and colocation providers are beginning to accept Bitcoin as payment for large chunks of data center space. It's a sign that the data center industry sees an emerging opportunity in catering to the hosting needs of crypto miners, who typically seek high-density space with cheap power. While many web hosting companies accept Bitcoin, larger data center players have been slower to embrace cryptocurrency. Utah-based C7 Data Centers says it's accepting Bitcoin because of surging demand. The Utah-based company says it now hosts about 4.5 megawatts of mining gear, just down the road from the NSA data center." On-topic: Dish Networks has recently become the biggest company to accept Bitcoins.
Re:Lots of places "accept" bitcoin now (Score:2, Informative)
The point behind getting a currency started is making it available, easy to tender in, and widely accepted.
When someone that has NO interest in bitcoin, finds out that EVERY supplier you have (think you local grocers, coffee shops, clothing stores, etc) accepts it, (even if they only accept it through payment processors) you're likely to be willing to accept it when it's offered to you.
Now, when suppliers of goods and services start getting more and more % of their customers paying in BTC, they're more and more likely to start really looking into how it all REALLY works (accepting it through a payment processor is one thing, but few of them are interested in holding BTC!) they start finding out THEIR suppliers accept bitcoin. (again, even if it's through a payment processor) If it becomes cheaper to accept say, 5% of the bitcoin transactions directly and USE that directly to purchase from others, things really start rolling.
I've said it a million times before: Every currency ever started began exactly the same; some "governing authority" walked in and said: "don't trade like that anymore, use these!" and it takes YEARS for people to even stop laughing at how silly the entire system is. One day, years have passed and people start warming up to the idea of using the "currency", international trade begins
which always starts wonderfully:
1. "oh hey there! I want some of your [wheat], will you take my [insert currency of choice here] for that?"
2. "Uh, no. why would I want that?"
1. "Well, a group of people say that you can use them to get other things!"
2. "well, I sure can't get anything of use for them.."
1. "huh, maybe only some people get it.."
YEARS later, 2 hears about the "wonderful things" that 1 and his friends have done, and runs into 1 again, suddenly willing to accept some of their "currency" now knowing what they can do with it.
EVERY currency ever started has gone through these pains. The difference here, is that EVERYONE get's a say in how it's created, maintained, and governed. The more people involved, the more votes there are.
Side fact: to the people that STRONGLY believe that bitcoin "can't be a currency because you can't issue more": There's NOTHING preventing more from being issued. It's not some "hard baked, the algorithm can't be positive again after date X": it was simply agreed upon by the majority of people running the software. (the codebase simplys halfs the block reward 210000 blocks)
If anyone wanted to fork the current code base and allow for inflation over time (vs the current deflation) it's less than 20 lines of code. The trick isn't implementing it in code, it's getting the network to hard fork; the vast majority of NODES would need to agree on the protocol change, nothing more.