Bitcoin - ###Mod Note in 1st Post - Please Read###

alb

Kikin wrote: »

Fair enough but that level of appreciation is unprecedented, particularly over such a short timeframe.

I agree, Bitcoin is unprecedented, we've never seen anything like it before. It's exciting.

alb

This guy James D'Angelo has been putting up some great videos lately tackling some common questions.

This one explains why it's possible that a 3000% rise in value this year is not crazy, and may be normal.

This one explains why it's not a Ponzi/pyramid scheme, He gives a fairly balanced view as he also highlights the main threats to Bitcoin:

And this one was the most interesting to me, discussing the issues regarding US gov regulation.

I'm in a good mood today so If any people in the discussion here are still confused and want to see what the fuss is about. grab a wallet (I recommend multi-bit) and paste a receiving address here. I'll send you some.

Oat23

Fairly sure I mined like half a bitcoin about 18 months ago. Shame I can't remember my log in or where I mined it!

Can anyone post some links to the most popular websites where you can set up a mining account and I'll give logging in a go. Tried some from google but nada.

alb

Oat23 wrote: »

Fairly sure I mined like half a bitcoin about 18 months ago. Shame I can't remember my log in or where I mined it!

Can anyone post some links to the most popular websites where you can set up a mining account and I'll give logging in a go. Tried some from google but nada.

If you were using a pool, maybe it's one of the ones on this list: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Comparison_of_mining_pools

harryr711

harryr711 wrote: »

That's insane! It has a market cap of around $3b at the moment? There's another 126 years of increasingly difficult mining to generate all the coins, plus processing the transactions. Does processing transactions also involve creating blocks? If so, and bitcoin becomes widely adopted and traded (rather than being held speculatively), the computing requirements and electricity consumption will continue to grow.


The requirement for more powerful and expensive computing creates the risk of the network becoming less decentralised and a small group of powerful miners controlling the currency as described by Eyal and Sirer.


If smaller miners are priced out of the bitcoin market and shift their attentions to the next virtual currency, will the speculative money exit bitcoin and follow them, thereby reducing the value and liquidity of bitcoin and potentially destroying it?

Any of the bitcoin experts got thoughts on my earlier post?

Oat23

alb wrote: »

If you were using a pool, maybe it's one of the ones on this list: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Comparison_of_mining_pools

No luck I'm afraid! The price of bitcoin has skyrocketed since I was looking into buying some on eBay at one point when it cost around €18 for one! Shame I never went through with it.

alb

harryr711 wrote: »

That's insane! It has a market cap of around $3b at the moment? There's another 126 years of increasingly difficult mining to generate all the coins, plus processing the transactions. Does processing transactions also involve creating blocks? If so, and bitcoin becomes widely adopted and traded (rather than being held speculatively), the computing requirements and electricity consumption will continue to grow.

The requirement for more powerful and expensive computing creates the risk of the network becoming less decentralised and a small group of powerful miners controlling the currency as described by Eyal and Sirer.

If smaller miners are priced out of the bitcoin market and shift their attentions to the next virtual currency, will the speculative money exit bitcoin and follow them, thereby reducing the value and liquidity of bitcoin and potentially destroying it?

Not claiming to be complete expert, but I know enough to answer some of your points. firstly the market cap is close to $5b at the moment bit of a moving target lately!

I wrote a lot about mining in post #96, so read that if you haven't already.

It is not specified that the mining has to get more difficult over time. The amount of coins rewarded to miners decreases over time, halving every 4 years (currently 25 coins, per block which is roughly every ten minutes) . So the amount of new coins decreases. The 'difficulty' of mining adjusts based on the total computing power of the miners. it can increase or decrease. So it can actually go down if some miners decide to stop and overall power decreases.

Generally the network will tend to grow as long as there is profit to be made i.e. if someone thinks that they can mine more bitcoin value than the hardware outlay + running costs.

It's a good point about miners abandoning bitcoin for other coins, I wondered the same thing, but it's not really happening. Plenty of hobby miners have left, no one is using regular PCs any more as it isn't profitable and yet the bitcoin network is growing in power exponentially http://bitcoindifficulty.com/ It is becoming more centralised though, whether this is an issue or not is debatable, as it's not in the interests of any miners to destroy the system since it would render them useless.

One issue is that blocks have a fixed maximum size of 1MB, so there are only so many transactions that fit in a block, and we know one block is mined every 10 minutes, so we have a kind of hard limit on the number of transactions a second - currently 7 per second. The amount of transactions currently is not even close to this so it isn't a problem, but I read somewhere that the core developers are deciding whether to set a higher size, or abolish the size constraint altogether, so it will be addressed one way or another in time.

dougal-maguire

1De1y5F9ZzKQXoUauKuRVQRYVKz9nqiNWX

really interested in this. any good reading on minning?

alb

dougal-maguire wrote: »

1De1y5F9ZzKQXoUauKuRVQRYVKz9nqiNWX

Sent 0.1 millibit, since the bitcoin ledger is public, we can browse to your address in a blockchain explorer and see it: https://blockchain.info/address/1De1y5F9ZzKQXoUauKuRVQRYVKz9nqiNWX

dougal-maguire wrote: »

1De1y5F9ZzKQXoUauKuRVQRYVKz9nqiNWX

really interested in this. any good reading on minning?

If you're looking to make money from it don't bother, it's cheaper to buy BTC than mine it unless you're one of the few who can get cheap electricity and cheap mining hardware. if you're curious how it works there's loads of information out there, and some videos on https://www.khanacademy.org

Mr. Incognito

Mr. Incognito wrote: »

This is not correct and is the nonsense perpetrated by nut websites.

If you put a euro in the bank, it can lend a euro. It can take eight euro from another source and lend nine and must have reserves but cannot create money.

They really need to teach economics in school.

They do.. And they teach it in university. I know I forget a lot from back then but I also know you're definitely wrong.

Oat23

$823 for 1 bitcoin right now. More than twice as much as it cost 10 days ago I believe?

Oat23 wrote: »

The price of bitcoin has skyrocketed since I was looking into buying some on eBay at one point when it cost around €18 for one! Shame I never went through with it.

So much regret

nostrils

Oat23 wrote: »

$823 for 1 bitcoin right now. More than twice as much as it cost 10 days ago I believe?



So much regret

Unbelievable

AtomicHorror

Oat23 wrote: »

$823 for 1 bitcoin right now. More than twice as much as it cost 10 days ago I believe?



So much regret

Seems to peak when I have my payday and can actually afford to invest :mad:

liamo

Oat23 wrote: »

$823 for 1 bitcoin right now. More than twice as much as it cost 10 days ago I believe?



So much regret

Regret? I sold 14 bitcoins a while back before it all went crazy. Bought and sold for around the same price - €7.50. Initial outlay of circa €100 would be worth about €8,500 now

That's regret!

Capt'n Midnight

How much would that pizza be worth now ?

JONJO THE MISER

:eek: Worth $848 now.

pragmatic1

I bought five of them for around 75 euro each about 6 months ago. If I kept them I'd have made a few grand by now. FML.

Mint Aero

I first heard about them a year ago, would've bought some if I'd a feckin' clue what they were, how to get them, dafuq mining meant feckin' nerds.

Oat23

I bought 0.5 of one today and have it on my mtGOX account now. Expect a major drop now that I have invested a little in it.

mickdw

Can someone explain the very basics in a few lines re buying and storing these.
I would like to have a live 'account' where I could jump if I thought they were down to a certain level.

KyussBishop

It's not smart to invest in a bubble, unless you have some inside information on when the larger market participants (the ones with some actual control over it) are going to cash out and pop the bubble, or unless you are so on top of the available information, that you can cash out as it's popping before anyone else.

Remember, it's like a Ponzi scheme: For people to cash out and get rich at the peak, a lot of people below have to lose. It's also (once you're aware that it's basically like a Ponzi-scheme where many people will lose) unethical to participate in for those reasons as well.

Capt'n Midnight

On Newsnight BBC2 last night it was mentioned that most bitcoin trading is in China.

Mint Aero

I bought 0.06 Bitcoin and I'm gonna buy a couple of 100 Ppc with it soon....regular Gordon Gekko is me :cool: eh what d'ya say Rodaz? This time next year we'll be millionaires, luvely jubbly

Merrion

So - no physical underlying asset, invented and backed by an anonymous group and primarily used in illegal trading? I see no cause for caution whatsoever.

thunderdog

Bought a decent amount of them back in Feb for 27 dollars a pop. Now Im a bitcoin millionaire...........................;)





Well not quite, but did well out of them

thunderdog

liamo wrote: »

Regret? I sold 14 bitcoins a while back before it all went crazy. Bought and sold for around the same price - €7.50. Initial outlay of circa €100 would be worth about €8,500 now

That's regret!

While we're on the topic of regret if I had have left all my money in til this day I could have cashed out for 235,000 dollars today :eek: :eek: :eek:

Best not to overthink and just be happy if you make a nice tidy profit

General General

thunderdog wrote: »

While we're on the topic of regret if I had have left all my money in til this day I could have cashed out for 235,000 dollars today :eek: :eek: :eek:

Best not to overthink and just be happy if you make a nice tidy profit

That's the thing, I would imagine that anyone who valued cash would have sold parts of whatever amount they had at several points of the rise.. so one can likely tone down the regret. :pac:

Mr. Incognito

This is a bubble. It's been repeated over and over and over again in history.

People are stupid. Some will make money. Some will make a lot of money. A LOT more will lose a lot of money.

bnt

Back in June 2011 I posted my opinion that while Bitcoin has some technical merit and possible legitimate uses, those are being swamped by a flood of speculation (which I define as people looking to make money off of other people without creating any value). Nothing I've seen in the last 29 months has done anything to change my opinion. One hint from the Fed that "legitimate" uses might be possible, the price doubles overnight. OK ...

thunderdog

General General wrote: »

That's the thing, I would imagine that anyone who valued cash would have sold parts of whatever amount they had at several points of the rise.. so one can likely tone down the regret. :pac:

Yeah i've panicked a few times and sold most of them when I see them dipping in price!If only I had have kept calm......or had no access to the web :pac: