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

HardyBuckFan · 28-12-2010 12:20am #1

Can anyone explain to me in plain english what bitcoin is? see it popping up a bit, know its something to do with an online currency, how does it work?

Mod Note:

FINANCIAL ADVICE
Disclaimer: This is not a financial advice forum. Any opinion offered, in any guise, is to be taken as opinion, and nothing else. That means that if somebody proposes a particular investment, this is not to be thought of as financial advice. In the event that a poster says they are qualified to give such advice, neither Boards.ie Ltd., nor any of its affiliates, accept any liability for any loss or damage arising therefrom. In other words, members can assume that nobody who posts in this forum is qualified to give financial advice. BY POSTING IN OR READING FROM THIS FORUM, YOU AGREE TO THIS DISCLAIMER. Any financial advice sought or given will result in an immediate week long ban. Second offences result in an indefinite ban.

HardyBuckFan · 28-12-2010 5:42pm

slasher_65 · 10-01-2011 5:20pm

Smells like a scam to me.

drunkmonkey · 10-01-2011 5:39pm

i've got some magic beans for sale if anyone's interested, bitcoins not accepted, paypal only please.

HardyBuckFan · 16-01-2011 12:35pm

interesting to say the least!

amacca · 16-01-2011 12:44pm

Golobulus wrote: »

Why do you think it is a scam? I have been involved with it for 6 months now and made a few thousands income on generating coins and investing in them.
.

How....just the basic idea, it cant be the same as currency trading can it?

what makes a bitcoin appreciate or depreciate even?

cant quite bring myself to read through lashings of text this early on a Sunday on another website.....please indulge me.......

amacca · 16-01-2011 5:14pm

Golobulus wrote: »

The price of 1 bitcoin was ~0.06USD back in September 2010. Now it is ~0.40USD. You can easily check that in one of the on-line Bitcoin exchanges, like http://mtgox.com/trade/history. Click on "All time" to see what I am talking about. If someone was "brave" enough to invest some decent amount of EUR in BTC back then, they made ~800% profit. But I am not going to mention any names.

jaysus...seem to have missed the gravy boat on that one

but presumably...high reward = high risk which also presumably still exists.

given me some interesting research anyway

amacca · 16-01-2011 5:31pm

Golobulus wrote: »

only 21 millions of Bitcoins will ever be created

If that is true and wont ever change I cant see it working.....

but perhaps my puny brain and lack of research on the topic is making me incorrect

The Waltzing Consumer · 16-01-2011 5:35pm

Is this just some thread created by people involved in Bitcoin as some advertisement?

digme · 13-06-2011 10:49pm

bitcoin owner may own 1.5 million bitcoins.This is the funniest thing I've heard all year.If you are retarded enough to have
some of these I'd sell them right now as you are getting taken for a ride.You can bet your ass he's the one selling them for 30 dollars a pop to gullible idiots. So 30 times 1.6 million is a lot of money,obviously he's not selling them all but he is offloading them at a nice rate for a new yacht or something along those lines.

jesus_thats_gre · 13-06-2011 10:57pm

The Waltzing Consumer wrote: »

Is this just some thread created by people involved in Bitcoin as some advertisement?

It's in the media lately as it one of the funding mechanisms used by that hacking group Anonymous.

EverEvolving · 13-06-2011 11:02pm

At first glance of this thread I thought the OP was HardLuckMan and thought what a lovely match for HardLuckWoman. I may need glasses.

Badgermonkey · 13-06-2011 11:07pm

What Is BitCoin?

Sam Biddle — Maybe you've heard of BitCoin—it wants to shake the entire global economy. And some people think it might! It's online money—an alternative to dollars and euros. Well what's that mean? It's complicated, but we break it down.
BitCoin is a digital currency...

BitCoin is not real money. It's an online "currency"—virtual tokens that can be exchanged for goods and services at places that accept it, the same way you'd give someone a dollar for a cookie.

...with mega aspirations...

In their YouTube manifesto, BitCoin's creators say they're going to revolutionize global finance the way the web changed publishing. So! Kind of a lofty goal, aiming to be a global currency up there with (or replacing) the dollar. Right now, that's still the pipiest of pipe dreams.

...that's exchanged via P2P...

When you write your friend a check, money from your account is withdrawn from your bank, and then transferred to her bank, and then she withdraws it as cash (maybe). With BitCoin, there are no middlemen (other than the users that comprise the network itself). Money goes straight from you to whomever, through the BitCoin P2P system, with no intermediary agency passing along the chips.

...and generated by its users...

This is where it starts to get a little weird! Unlike traditional currency, that's backed up by something, (be it gold, silver, or a central bank), BitCoins are generated out of thin air. Through a process called "mining," a little app sits on your computer and slowly—very slowly—creates new BitCoins in exchange for providing the computational power to process transactions. When a new batch of coins is ready, they're distributed in probabilistic accordance to whomever had the highest computing power in the mining process. The system is rigged so that no more than 21 million BitCoins will ever exist—so the mining process will yield less and less as time goes on, and more people sign up. This makes the whole system a lot sweeter for early adopters.

...to be spent at the few places BitCoin is accepted...

Not many places accept BitCoin at the moment, unlike traditional currency. But! There's decent incentive for small businesses to use it—it's free to use, and there aren't any transaction fees. At the moment you can buy the services of a web designer, indie PC games, homemade jewelry, guns, and, increasingly, illegal drugs. If the internet is the Wild West, BitCoin is its wampum.

...or converted into real money.

Just like you can trade in yen for dollars, you can swap your BitCoins with other users for several "real world" currencies. And right now, the BitCoin is trading very high! As I write this, one BitCoin is worth $7.5. Not too shabby at all.

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5803518/what-is-bitcoin

Capt'n Midnight · 13-06-2011 11:08pm

pyramid scheme

The Scientician · 13-06-2011 11:14pm

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

pyramid scheme

Essentially. It's amazing reading up on it. Some people fervently believe this is gonna protect them from economic woes, government tyranny etc. and help them buy weed anonymously

.

Eric Cartman · 13-06-2011 11:15pm

wonderful idea in theory but after they reach a high value and people stop buying them all the people who got in early and mined coins will start selling them , the price will keep falling as everyone sells their coins and it will be dead again in 3-4 years

blubloblu · 13-06-2011 11:16pm

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

pyramid scheme

It pretty much is, but not intentionally. If people just use it to speculate, it's essentially a ponzi scheme. If it's used as a currency, it actually has potential, but this isn't happening on any kind of scale right now.

digme · 13-06-2011 11:30pm

I'll give you a piece of paper if you run around the block, same idea....
might aswell be selling dingle berries on farmville for real money.....

Capt'n Midnight · 13-06-2011 11:45pm

blubloblu wrote: »

If it's used as a currency, it actually has potential, but this isn't happening on any kind of scale right now.

if it's used as a currency

the revenue will take an interest, like they have done with every other medium of transfer so far

if someone figures out a better algorithm the currency will be worthless

NSA could pull the plug if they wanted using spare computer time

if it turns out that a botnet is being used to generate them then the PR will kill it

D-Generate · 13-06-2011 11:47pm

On Bloomberg we have been talking about it a decent amount! In the City it has got some traction but only because it is so nuts with the vols and hilarious that nerds are going mad with the illiquidity when they want to sell. Two articles in the FT about it recently, well in Alphaville which is the FT blog.

strokemyclover · 14-06-2011 12:00am

A lot of nerds trying to get their Bit! Where have I seen that before?

On topic: Looks good but nothing that hasn't been thought of before.

That reminds me, I'm only 400 Funderland tickets away from a sweet Lee Majors 6 Million Dollar Man doll - I hope they come back to the RDS next year!

BlueBaron · 14-06-2011 12:02am

1.Download Bitcoin
2.Computer solves problems
3.Awarded Bitcoins
??????????????????
5.Profit = Free Weed

FTW

digme · 14-06-2011 12:07am

BlueBaron wrote: »

1.Download Bitcoin
2.Computer solves problems
3.Awarded Bitcoins
??????????????????
5.Profit = Free Weed

FTW

1. Get busted for said weed cause electricity bill is through the roof from mining sh!tcoins

BlueBaron · 14-06-2011 12:09am

digme wrote: »

1. Get busted for said weed cause electricity bill is through the roof from mining sh!tcoins

The electricity bill is hardly gonna go through the roof for leaving the computer on for awhile!

ScumLord · 14-06-2011 12:24am

Hi, I am your typical foreign immigrant, I would like to know if I break into some ones house and force them to send their fancy emoney to my cousin in foreignland will this be the perfect crime if I wear the mask?

jagrey · 14-06-2011 12:40am

Many pro/anti views here. Very detailed discussion.

Tyler Cowen - of Marginal Revolution fame - is skeptical.

swordofislam · 14-06-2011 1:16am

There will only ever be 21 million bitcoins. Think about it. Get in now and profit is guaranteed. They find new sources of Gold all the time but Bitcoins are safe.

Safe as houses.

Hal1 · 14-06-2011 1:25am

bitcoin - bit torrent

donutface · 14-06-2011 7:58am

I messed with it last summer and forgot about it completely. They gave me 5 free bitcoins for starting and I sold them for $102 yesterday, not bad for doing absolutely nothing.

Currently the exchange rates are so volatile (lows of $11 and highs of $24) that you can make a nice bit of cash if you know when to buy and when to sell

bnt · 14-06-2011 12:05pm

In addition to the problems pointed out in that article jagrey linked to, it seems to me that there are two things going on here, which are being conflated:
- the technical side of the Bitcoin;
- the perception that they're a money-making scheme;
I think the scheme has some technical validity, but it has attracted people who aim to make money off of it. The technical side seems to be causing people to overlook the economic downside. Such concerns are only exacerbated by the extreme fluctuations in market value, and the hoarding by the likes of the mysterious "deepbit". So, while I think there's a good idea there, and the execution is OK, it was inevitably going to be ruined by speculation, which is what I see now.

A bit of economic analysis: Bitcoin is a market with "information asymmetry". Like the stock market, it has "insiders" who will always have an advantage over "outsiders" or "retail traders". The stock market has rules about insider trading: the Bitcoin market does not. How easy is it for a holder of many Bitcoins to move the market? Very easy, by the looks of it. :rolleyes:

the groutch · 14-06-2011 12:08pm

I'd sooner invest in Iraqi Dinars than go near this

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

Comments