Buying bitcoins

Dr Silly Bollox MD

https://www.khanacademy.org/science/core-finance/money-and-banking/bitcoin/v/bitcoin-overview

tadcan

From my perspective, the internet hit the headlines around 93/94 as this wondrous thing that would change the world. So a system to change how money works isn't strange to me. There has always been an initial barrier to entry for new technology, until it gets simplified or so popular it becomes common place. Another strength of the web is niche products that can exist with a small user base, unlike previous products which needed mass adoption to work.

One of the concerns is if Bitcoins will be traded more for products than speculation, or if it will just disappear. I think that adoption will grow over time as the support services develop and the word gets out. The open nature of the web, gives time for development and it fills a need to have a way to deal in currency world wide, that is cheaper and faster. Instead of the traditional nation based banks that can charge for money conversion and transfer.

Maybe it's naive to just presume this is just another way the internet is redefining how we live. For me that's just a given. The world is changing quickly around us.

Dr Silly Bollox MD

Who's Building Bitcoin? An Inside Look at Bitcoin's Open Source Development

Read more: http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/who...#ixzz2SqGRB0Qs

Capt'n Midnight

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/06/net-us-bitcoin-regulation-idUSBRE9450Y520130506

(Reuters) - The top U.S. derivatives regulator is considering whether the Bitcoin virtual currency should be subject to its rules, a top official at the agency said.
...
"Here's what I know for sure: we could regulate it if we wanted. That is very clear,"
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The U.S. Treasury Department in March said that Bitcoin exchanges would be subject to the same money laundering rules that govern money services business like Western Union.

oops...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/02/bitcoin_mining_game_client/

ESEA Gaming, admitted on Wednesday that its software client had been running Bitcoin-mining algorithms on customer PCs since April 14, generating over $3,700 worth of the virtual currency – not to mention a likely uptick in the electricity bills of the unwitting punters whose graphics cards' GPUs been forced to mine the virtual currency.

moneymad

First #Bitcoin, now #AmazonCoins! http://bit.ly/140QL3V .
Opencoin looks like it will be huge.

Prof Nincom Poop Ph.D

moneymad wrote: »

First #Bitcoin, now #AmazonCoins! http://bit.ly/140QL3V .
Opencoin looks like it will be huge.

Their's a load of them now. Good thing apparently.

A guide to some other cryptocurrencies


Good few alternatives to silkroad now aswell. Silk Road Administrator has given a few comments around the place, very very brief, I wonder has he heard about that new software I was reading about they are pointing at underground hacker sites/Message Boards to try and identify people by their writing styles. Everyone is unique apparently.

Capt'n Midnight

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/15/mt_gox_us_court/

The Department of Homeland Security has frozen an online trade route between US citizens and MtGox - the world's largest exchange of crypto-currency Bitcoin.
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The warrant against the Mutum account effectively halted transfers of money between the popular bitcoin exchange and Dwolla users.

Capt'n Midnight

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/17/google_wallet/

Google has integrated its payment Wallet with Gmail, enabling PayPal-style transactions from within the Gmail interface, and to any over-18 American with an email address and a Google Wallet account.
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Transfers are free, as long as one is prepared to give Google unfettered access to one's current account. Bringing a credit card into the picture will cost 2.9 per cent with a minimum rate of 30 cents per transaction.

The service will roll out across US accounts over the next few months, with Google hoping for organic growth as every received payment activates another user.

It's worth noting that everyone who has shopped at Google Play already has a Wallet account.

Prof Nincom Poop Ph.D

Creator outed, maybe.

http://qz.com/86255/the-mysterious-creator-of-bitcoin-could-be-japanese-mathematician-shinichi-mochizuki-says-the-inventor-of-hypertext/
http://www.businessinsider.com/did-shinichi-mochizuki-invent-bitcoin-2013-5

fergalr

Prof Nincom Poop Ph.D wrote: »

Creator outed, maybe.

http://qz.com/86255/the-mysterious-creator-of-bitcoin-could-be-japanese-mathematician-shinichi-mochizuki-says-the-inventor-of-hypertext/
http://www.businessinsider.com/did-shinichi-mochizuki-invent-bitcoin-2013-5

Hardly any evidence offered. Seems unlikely. I think thats just a waste of time.

Prof Nincom Poop Ph.D

http://chartgirl.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/SATOSHI_large.jpg

Prof Nincom Poop Ph.D

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1ez6p4/we_are_the_hosts_of_the_lets_talk_bitcoin_show_we/

Capt'n Midnight

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/29/okpay_suspends_bitcoin_processing/

OKPay suspends payment processing to all Bitcoin exchanges
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The headline on the notice says the suspension is temporary, but to hear Mt. Gox tell it, it may be some time before OKPay resumes business with the Bitcoin community.
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On Tuesday, federal prosecutors shut down the alternative online payment network Liberty Reserve and arrested three of its founders, describing the company as a $6bn global money-laundering operation.

While Liberty Reserve didn't have any direct connection to Bitcoin payment processing, many in the Bitcoin community worry that the incident is a signal that the government is increasing its scrutiny of alternative payment schemes and that Bitcoin could be its next target.

alb

Prof Nincom Poop Ph.D wrote: »

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1ez6p4/we_are_the_hosts_of_the_lets_talk_bitcoin_show_we/

from that link:

bitcoin is to money, what email is to the post office, what skype is to phones, what youtube is to TV.

If this analogy holds true, every one of the 18 million coins will be worth quite a bit.

alb

alb wrote: »

from that link:



If this analogy holds true, every one of the 18 million coins will be worth quite a bit.

You can already transfer money electronically, though. Some people can go days without handling money. What's the difference with bitcoin, other than it being much less stable? Were you to use Bitcoins for financial transactions in the same fashion as a credit or debit card then you would be still likely to be paying some sort of fee.

Capt'n Midnight

alb wrote: »

If this analogy holds true, every one of the 18 million coins will be worth quite a bit.

IF

but it breaks down very quickly when you remember that it's usefulness as a medium of exchange is reduced if people hoard them. And the only special thing about bitcoins is that it's first to market , and sort of in use, every other property can be replicated.

alb

Rojomcdojo wrote: »

You can already transfer money electronically, though. Some people can go days without handling money. What's the difference with bitcoin, other than it being much less stable? Were you to use Bitcoins for financial transactions in the same fashion as a credit or debit card then you would be still likely to be paying some sort of fee.

One difference is that the government and banks control the money supply - they can create new money diluting your fiat currency such as euros whenever they like. Another is that with bitcoin you can send money to anyone in the world close to instantly with little or no fee, and no 3rd party intermediate.

alb

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

IF

but it breaks down very quickly when you remember that it's usefulness as a medium of exchange is reduced if people hoard them. And the only special thing about bitcoins is that it's first to market , and sort of in use, every other property can be replicated.

Gold is not particularly useful as a medium for exchange and plenty of people hoard it, it still has value. Once enough traction is gained in terms of a perceived value it can be self propagating for any scarce resource.

Sure, bitcoin was first and is not necessarily the best crypto currency, but there has already been many others launched and so far only litecoin comes anywhere close to the same traction as bitcoin. I'm not afraid of this, there's room for many crypto currencies just as there are many fiat currencies. Anyone can launch a forum such such as boards.ie tomorrow - BB software is open source, and there's more advanced BB software now (http://www.discourse.org/ for example) than the one boards uses. Is it easy to do so take all of boards users? - not so much.

Capt'n Midnight

alb wrote: »

Is it easy to do so take all of boards users? - not so much.

Joining boards is free.

More than half of all the bitcoins that will ever exist are already being held. It costs real money to join. An until it's used as a stable medium of exchange the value is in hoping that others want to join.

Yes there is a network effect. But far bigger networks could be build tomorrow. Imagine something like Facebookcoins

scamalert

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Joining boards is free.

More than half of all the bitcoins that will ever exist are already being held. It costs real money to join. An until it's used as a stable medium of exchange the value is in hoping that others want to join.

Yes there is a network effect. But far bigger networks could be build tomorrow. Imagine something like Facebookcoins

would cause same effect as bitcoin network,only while someone would be willing to accept them as payment and give them value would they exist.
Government based currency is only currency that can sustain stability to some extent,most would argue of it loosing value to inflation,and so on,but longterm you are protected and safe using it,where bitcoin became business where people mine them like mmorpg games require you to grind for gold.

alb

scamalert wrote: »

would cause same effect as bitcoin network,only while someone would be willing to accept them as payment and give them value would they exist.
Government based currency is only currency that can sustain stability to some extent,most would argue of it loosing value to inflation,and so on,but longterm you are protected and safe using it,where bitcoin became business where people mine them like mmorpg games require you to grind for gold.

Actually I'd argue the opposite about gov controlled fiat currency - the only thing this assures you of these days is that they'll print more of it, devaluing whatever amount you already have. Do you think 10 euro will be worth more or less in 10 years than it is now?

There's a few different concepts that people are using here, that have some important differences:

fiat currency: traditional currency, controlled by governments. Gov may do quantitative easing (print more money) at any time which devalues in real terms the holdings of the currency people have.

Digital exchanges/payment processors: This something like paypal, a middle man that converts to/from fiat and/or makes electronic transactions in fiat possible. They take a fee, they control you account and can close it. They usually force integration with traditional bank accounts to add funds.

Centrally controlled, closed digital currency: Like the recently launched Amazon coins or the mmorpg currencies (I assume). This is just like a digital version of regular fiat currency. It's controlled centrally, more can be printed at any time by amazon - they effectively can control how much it's worth and how it's used. If amazon closed as a business this would likely cease to exist and be worthless. I'm guessing this is what the suggested facebookcoins would be. Typically Bitcoin enthusiasts have absolutely no interest in something like this as it is centrally controlled. They want money to be free (as in speech).


Open source, de-centralised crypto currencies: These offer secure transactions between people *without* a central 3rd party. The total supply has an absolute limit, and is known, and distribution of new value is controlled by the mining process. Bitcoin is the most famous example of this, Litecoin also has some traction now, but there are also many other attempts at these which have not really gained any popularity at all (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=67.0). It effectively can't be shut down without shutting down the internet. No one controls your accounts (wallets) except you, unless you choose to let a 3rd party do it for you.

It's crucial to understand the difference between the last two to understand the value of Bitcoin. I realise this isn't straightforward or easy (especially when you get into the technology and cryptography details) and finding a way to help people understand and trust it is one of the main challenges now facing the Bitcoin community.

Capt'n Midnight

scamalert wrote: »

where bitcoin became business where people mine them like mmorpg games require you to grind for gold.

At this stage Bitcoin mining is essentially limited to a select group who have invested heavily in custom built hardware. It's almost centralised since the largest group is limiting membership to prevent the appearance of a monopoly.

alb

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

At this stage Bitcoin mining is essentially limited to a select group who have invested heavily in custom built hardware. It's almost centralised since the largest group is limiting membership to prevent the appearance of a monopoly.

Sure, *anyone* can still mine bitcoin, nothing stopping you, it's just likely that soon unless you have some of this custom hardware it will cost you more in electricity than it gains you in bitcoin. I'm not sure it matters though, as long as there is a strong network of miners it doesn't matter so much who they are. The rest of us can just buy them from the miners.

Litecoin cannot be mined by the custom Bitcoin hardware so there was some speculation it may overtake bitcoin in popularity as all the GPU miners moved to it, so far this hasn't really come to pass, and in recent days the value of Litecoin against Bitcoin has even dropped. Who knows how it will play out.

Capt'n Midnight

alb wrote: »

I'm not sure it matters though, as long as there is a strong network of miners it doesn't matter so much who they are. The rest of us can just buy them from the miners.

So it's not like investing in De Beer's diamonds then ?

Stuxnet

anybody know of a quick way to buy bitcoins. I've been using Mt.Gox exchange for over a year, a bank transfer used take about three days to complete. Now there is a ten to twelve day wait for your funds to clear, (due to checks) before you can buy coins. This is too long.

anybody know of a faster legit way ?

Prodigious

localbitcoins.com

howamidifferent

https://www.bitstamp.net/

hmmm

hmmm wrote: »

Silk Road. Officials are "powerless" to shut it down apparently, so drug users and dealers are flocking to the site. LOL - the naivety.

In other news
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-18604492

What did I say
http://www.reddit.com/r/SilkRoad/comments/1nl7p9/sr_shutdown_fallout_discussion/ccjlwgp

Where does Bitcoin go from here?

Tar.Aldarion

Somebody replaces it.

Grecco

IS THIS A NAIL IN THE COFFIN??

http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/02/bitcoin-falls-15-following-fbis-silk-road-seizure/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29