Buying bitcoins

There will always be premium if you buy p2p also risk of scam,think i paid 20% via pp,but given amount and that i wanted to try 25e isnt smth id cry about,given 200$ drop in last few days.

why not just use what others suggested the site where it requires only phone verification or https://www.belgacoin.com/buy.jsp seems pretty straight forward and noob friendly,to get some coins for first time.since doubt youd care much when transaction is done overnight,since p2p is usually used more in a way where you might need coin asap,and echanges are safe bet for a day or not sure how long wire transfer takes nowadays,but little impact if your buying to keep.

makeorbrake wrote: »

How long do we have until the fork is likely to happen? Do we get notice - or do we just wake up one morning and it's already happened?

There will be advance notice by way of an announcement from Bitcoin Unlimited. There has to be -- in order that the network nodes will have time to upgrade to the new protocol. Otherwise the network (using the "old" protocols could not verify and confirm to the blockchain any new blocks mined.
It will likely play out that when a consensus of miners (say 80% of the hashrate) signal for Bitcoin Unlimited an announcement of a date to start mining the new blocks will be made. This date will likely be around a month after the announcement ( two periods of difficulty adjustment) to allow the network to update software to the Bitcoin Unlimited fork.

pro_gnostic_8 wrote: »

Although I notice that Bitfinex has jumped the gun somewhat and introduced Bitcoin Unlimited (BCU), Bitcoin Core (BCC) to its market (see attachment below). That makes it THREE versions of Bitcoin it is now listing. :

(Okay, the BCU and the BCC are a kind of Futures Trading Derivative, but still, it goes to show how toxic this whole scene has become.

from what i read they can activate it at 51% ,but its their money thousands that will go into mining it,and if it wont pickup whoever does that will waste ton of cash.given that btc is hard to figure as is and another cryptos floating around its just bad timing,whoever does it first will do it in hopes of massive profits,but unknown future for rest,toxic is right word.

Supermensch wrote: »

jobless wrote: »

anyone open a coinbase account using a webcam to upload your id?... wont seem to accept my id so wondering how others have opened one?

I can't believe no one would just answer your feckin question.

Download the Coinbase app and sign in to your account. There's a facility in the app to take a picture of your ID using your phone camera, which should work better than using a webcam.

hey will try this thanks

Been trying to get up to speed on this whole forking thing ('forking' should possibly be spelt differently in this instance..).


The whole idea with BTC from the get go was decentralisation. Who are the dev's that have the power to effect change? i.e. implementation of a soft fork OR bringing about a hard fork?

I've been reading through an argument that suggests that it was always envisaged that BTC would hard fork every so often - and that the market would decide the outcome - that the market is great at correcting itself. That all sounds rosy but is it as simple as that?

The market - which I take to be those that have skin the game - could simply get it wrong. Are there not bugs in B.U.? Will the market be mindful of what this could mean if it is otherwise successfully implemented? i.e. too much power placed in the hands of too few - allowing big commercial miners to dictate things?

Otherwise, some seem to think that blocksize can be increased incrementally as we go forward whilst others think that will only kick the can down the road to the next forking crisis.


Anyone have the knowledge re. the above?

BrokenArrows wrote: »

The developers are everyone. Bitcoin is an open source project hosted on github and anyone can submit changes. If your changes are approved then it becomes part of the code. https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin
There are some "core" developers who approve the changes but all changes are visible to everyone.

Ok, but how do you become a 'core' developer? If one of us suggests SegWit and the other suggests B.U., is there a group that can decide which route forwards gets approved? Is there a group that decides that a hard fork is taken instead?

I get that it's origins are in open source. I just wonder if it still maintains that integrity in practice and even if it does, is this a major hindrance for the currency?

makeorbrake wrote: »

The whole idea with BTC from the get go was decentralisation. Who are the dev's that have the power to effect change? i.e. implementation of a soft fork OR bringing about a hard fork?

As said earlier by another poster, it is the network that decides. The consensus rule.
If a rule change is to be effected it requires near-unanimity -- requires a consensus of 95% of the hash power across the network. If the change is successful in gaining 95% of miners and full nodes support, then the particular change is incorporated into the protocol. A Soft Fork. A soft fork is reasonably gentle.
However if a change is made to the rules WITHOUT near-complete consensus across the network then Bitcoin splits into two separate blockchains each one of which is incompatible with the other. A Hard Fork. A hard fork is traumatic. This is what we will see if Bitcoin Unlimited proceeds to implementation. The B.U. mined coins cannot be validated by the full nodes still running the Core client. You will have two different Bitcoins ................. similar to the Ethereum hardfork split a year ago into ETH and ETC.

Some good answers there by BrokenArrows and pro_gnostic_8, but I want to elaborate a bit more and highlight some subtle aspects to how an open source project like this works. If you are speculating on bitcoin or any other crytpocurrency you should make sure understand everything I'm saying in this post.

Firstly bitcoin core is the current reference implementation, it is accepted that what the bitcoin core does defines how bitcoin works, so anyone who wants to write software like a wallet to interact with bitcoin must conform with exactly how bitcoin core works. There is no specification document with such a level of detail.

Secondly, and this is really important, core only has this level of importance or 'power' because the stakeholders in bitcoin have since bitcoin launched almost unanimously agreed to it. By stakeholders I mean miners, people running nodes, exchanges, bitcoin companies, wallets and USERS. They all DECIDE to run the software core releases, at any point they can decide not to.

As BrokenArrows said, the code for bitcoin core is at https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin
This is open source which means the following crucial points apply:
1) The code is public, core cannot 'sneak' code into bitcoin without it being visible.
2) Core just writes code and makes it available for execution, they cannot force any actor in the bitcoin network to run their code, or to accept new changes they make.
3) Core do not own the code. Anyone can trivially create a clone of bitcoin core on github and make their own code changes to create a modified release of the software. Here is Bitcoin Unlimited for example https://github.com/BitcoinUnlimited/BitcoinUnlimited which began as a clone of Bitcoin Core.

What we are currently seeing with unlimited is the first time that any significant portion of the bitcoin actors disagreed with Core enough to work on a clone of Core that is incompatible with Core. This has always been possible, there was just never sufficient conflict for it to be a possibility. It is also a possibility with all of the other open source alt-coins,(in fact, as mentioned Ethereum already had two competing implementations which resulted in a fork)

The bottom line is that in the end the stakeholders as a collective control bitcoin. And it's not one vote per person, the more important the stakeholder the more influence they have. In effect the more skin you have in the game the greater your influence. Many of us see this as a very good thing.

pro_gnostic_8 wrote: »

As said earlier by another poster, it is the network that decides. The consensus rule.
If a rule change is to be effected it requires near-unanimity -- requires a consensus of 95% of the hash power across the network. If the change is successful in gaining 95% of miners and full nodes support, then the particular change is incorporated into the protocol. A Soft Fork. A soft fork is reasonably gentle.
However if a change is made to the rules WITHOUT near-complete consensus across the network then Bitcoin splits into two separate blockchains each one of which is incompatible with the other. A Hard Fork. A hard fork is traumatic. This is what we will see if Bitcoin Unlimited proceeds to implementation. The B.U. mined coins cannot be validated by the full nodes still running the Core client. You will have two different Bitcoins ................. similar to the Ethereum hardfork split a year ago into ETH and ETC.

I just want to add the the 95% of hash power threshold is an arbitrary number that Core decide to use when implementing the features, as they want to ensure that a super-majority of the network agrees with it and is running software that accepts the change before it activates. There is nothing inherent in Bitcoin forcing such a threshold though, they could equally change that to 75%, or indeed have no threshold and cause features to activate as soon as the software runs.

makeorbrake wrote: »

Isn't it a case that this is just human nature at play and each stakeholder group is prejudiced and will always seek to maximise their own advantage? With that, either another group is going to suffer OR all will suffer as a result of damage to the overall currency generally?

Yes it's just human nature, but Bitcoin was designed with careful consideration to game theory. the system is designed to work assuming that stakeholders are greedy, rational but without necessarily trusting each other. In general each type of stakeholder can act in their own self interest and that is still in the self interest of the system as a whole. All stakeholders win if bitcoin succeeds.

makeorbrake wrote: »

At the moment, this seems to be a struggle of Dev's Vs. Miners.

That's too much of a generalisation. There are miners that support Core, and there are devs who oppose Core and Segwit and work on Unlimited instead. Users (including holders, traders) fall into both camps too, with many (me included) not caring too much who 'wins' as long as bitcoin emerges better than before and capable of more transactions per block, one way or another.
Most businesses such as exchanges seem to be strongly in support of core, but not all.

makeorbrake wrote: »

There's also talk of Core Dev's re-writing the code to make current mining hardware incompatible as a counter measure.

This would be a very extreme measure, as it would mean all current miners can no longer mine bitcoin, leaving them likely ruined. There is not strong support for this, even among those who support core in general.

There is a lot of all politics and drama, but ultimately those with money at stake put their money where there mouth is when they choose which bitcoin software to run. My faith is that the majority of them will eventually settle on the best path forward one way or another, but the road leading to that may be messy. I'm willing to hold through it.

On another note, be very careful investing in alt-coins. We're almost certainly in an alt-coin bubble, perhaps even past the peak already. The drama in bitcoin is a great excuse to imagine that one of the alts is the next bitcoin, but we're very far from that.
In 2013 there was an alt coin bubble with the bitcoin bubble. Litecoin went to $50, people were stocking up on Namecoins, Feathercoins and Peercoins. They all crashed hard, much harder than bitcoin, and none have recovered. History may not repeat, but it rhymes, so be aware of the risks.

makeorbrake wrote: »

Is there an integrity issue going forward if B.U. was to succeed on the basis that it puts too much leverage in the hands of too few? IF it was a case that there is no risk in this respect, then would B.U. not be the better option - with much more wriggle room for scale going into the future (whereas it's said that SegWit would most likely only be a temporary solution)?

I don't see how it puts too much leverage in the hands of too few for two reasons 1) it won't happen unless it's supported by the economic majority, and 2) what is the leverage or 'power' anyway. They will have no more than core currently have, all they can do is release software and not force anyone to run it.

makeorbrake wrote: »

The miners feel that they can earn more transaction fees with B.U. in place. To achieve that, they want it to be attractive for small transactions as an actual currency.

I think that's too general a remark. Some miners believe that, some believe that keeping blocks small keeps bitcoin more decentralised and distributed and therefore more secure and they feel that in the long run bitcoin will be more valuable if it's more secure, and that off-chain scaling will happen anyway. I understand both points of view tbh.

makeorbrake wrote: »

I stand open to correction, but my understanding of Bitcoin when I first heard about it was 1. Decentralisation and 2. competitive transaction fees - to gain traction as an actual day-to-day alternative to FIAT. However, it seems in more recent times, it's main use has been to act as a store of value - in a similar type of way that gold is used as a store of value.

This is how I use it right now - as I'm sure is the case for many here. I was always enthusiastic about the possibilities of BTC as an alternative currency for day-to-day spending but the frustration is that never transpired.

I agree, and I followed a similar path, but I'm not frustrated. Bitcoin simply can't be a day-to-day currency with only onchain transactions. Blocks are already full with almost noboy using it and it makes no sense to preserve small transactions for coffee on the ledger forever.

Just because it hasn't happened yet doesn't mean it won't happen though. Off-chain scaling makes loads of sense, it's just a matter of getting it working. It's going to take time, years. In the mean time bitcoin can do fine as digital gold.

makeorbrake wrote: »

The motivation seems to be to buy into them on the basis of what is happening on the btc stage i.e. they are not investing in them on their own merit.

In general I agree with that, and everything else you said about the alts.

makeorbrake wrote: »

i.e. rather than leverage or power being in the wrong hands, that the inherent nature of btc would be undermined in terms of a decentralised currency or a potential/perceived threat to the security of same.

maybe bitcoin takes a wrong turn, maybe it fails to allow enough on-chain transactions soon enough and enough users move to an alt (or a combination of many) that bitcoin gets overtaken in terms of users and value. Maybe it takes a wrong turn in the other direction and bigger blocks create problems in terms of miner distribution or security, or messy forks. It's possible, I just don't think it's the most likely outcome that bitcoin sabotages itself in some way that isn't remedied in time for bitcoin to survive. This is something everyone has to speculate on themselves though, don't take my word for it.

makeorbrake wrote: »

Presumably then, the proposal put forward in the form of the lightning network (for off-chain transactions) is not the finished article just yet?

I'm not an expert on the lightning network, but last I heard there were still technical challenges to overcome at least in terms of routing. I've not seen enough proof yet to even be convinced it will work as currently imagined, but to be honest I haven't spent much time looking into it yet, I'll wait until it's more mature. My expectation is that some off-chain solution(s) will eventually develop, whether it's lightning or something else.

The Cuban wrote: »

Quick question,
Have the Chinese been blocked from selling there Bitcoins?

New regulations announced last week.


LINKY

I have been watching the progress of BTU and, in the last 24hrs, the hash rate actually fell from 41.27% to 40.61%.

jobless wrote: »

what does hash rate mean?...

It's the amount of computing power dedicated to processing blocks. It roughly translates to popularity or credibility.

https://coin.dance/blocks

Blocks are being processed. I suppose sh it becomes real when there's more U than non U.

I'm not sure myself.

off topic but anyone know how long sepa transfer takes to process when dealing with http://www.belgacoin.com,did it yesterday eve.thx

what is the most painfree way to sell bitcoin btw?..

Selling them on Belgiacoin doesn't even involve getting off the couch.

pro_gnostic_8 wrote: »

I'll buy 'em from you via cash at 4% below Spot .............. if you're in County Cork.
I'll buy them at same rate via bank transfer or SEPA, but with escrow. (You pay escrow fee).

Thought you were staying away from bitcoin for 6 months at least

Is there any exchange where it's possible to set up an automated trade? i.e. buy / sell when price reaches X/btc?

In the case of buying, do funds always have to be left on account with an exchange in order to make the purchase? Can there be a commit to purchase / escrow system? I guess the concern here is the vulnerability of leaving funds on account (if the exchange does a Mt. Gox, you're screwed).

Thanks for the info pro_gnostic_8. I have FIAT funds that are lingering around and not paying their way. I'm looking at a btc price and I'm thinking there's value to be had (subjective/contraversial - and risky - but that's the conclusion I'm reaching as things stand today). I'd like to leave funds on account and buy once a certain price point is triggered. The fear is that murphys law applies and if the exchange goes south, then so do the funds.

I know it's unlikely but it has happened - and one time is one time too many when it's ones own cash that's being put at risk.


Is there just one type of SEPA transfer these days? I know that the banks used to offer an 'expedited' SEPA/IBAN transfer - but perhaps this was just offered as a means to make revenue off the backs of people who were not experienced with this type of transfer at the time? Otherwise, if still offered, what's the fastest that an IBAN/SEPA transfer can be accomplished in? Perhaps I try and respond to the exchange rate (albeit that the difficulty here is that BTC and crypocurrencies generally are pretty erratic / fast moving...

pro_gnostic_8 wrote: »

Makeorbrake, it's up to you, mate, in the final analysis. But personally, I think bitcoin is only going to continue to tank for the near future. The fundamentals raise too many doubts about it. The congestion in transaction times, the ever-increasing fees, the possibility of a hardfork, the political infighting, the departure of companies from it. (Just yesterday, another top-stream techno company -- Storj -- announced its departure fromthebitcoin blockchain and over to ETH -- ( http://www.coindesk.com/storj-migrate-decentralized-storage-service-ethereum-blockchain/ )
In truth, much of the investment smart money has pulled out of bitcoin a week ago, and has gone into other crypto's like Eth etc or is sitting in fiat. Not a time to buy imo. But, it's up to you.

Ok, but unless you think BTC is going to become a white elephant, BTC still has a value. At what price do you see value in BTC? I guess I wasn't necessarily talking about investing today - but it's headed towards interesting territory.
Then again, IF I do buy, I'm thinking in terms of holding - not flipping/shorting it.

pro_gnostic_8 wrote: »

I don't like having fiat or coin in an exchange either. When I make a decision to buy, I transfer funds in and buy the coin as soon as possible and then immediately withdraw that coin to my own wallet. Not 100% safe but it minimizes the danger.
AIB still offers a fast-track SEPA but I cannot speak for its efficiency timewise. I just use the Standard SEPA option. The transfer has always completed within one working day.

I guess I'll have to try and react as soon as possible once I bite on a price. Would be good if these guys had a bank account in every state (of course, they'd need the banks cooperation for that...perhaps that's an issue).

pro_gnostic_8 wrote: »

I just use the Standard SEPA option. The transfer has always completed within one working day.

Apologies !
I meant to say "The transfer has always completed by the end of the following working day."