Bitcoin? Anyone care to give us a practical rundown of how it works?

[rugatika]

And it's pros and cons?

[cody c]

Too much to explain in a post, try and find the joe rogan podcast where he talks about it by one of the fellas involved in its birth.

It makes a lot of sense, kind of a more fair and intelligent currency, but it takes away the control the governments have over it, you can also buy a computer and mine bitcoins with software, making you money or rather portions of Bitcoin every month.

[Grizzly Adams]

Well, you hack the U of C computer, disable it, collect 20,000. in Bit Coin ransom and disappear into thin air with the loot. So, if Bit Coin has no real value, the university paid zero.

Grizz

[Janitor Pants]

Originally Posted by cody c

Too much to explain in a post, try and find the joe rogan podcast where he talks about it by one of the fellas involved in its birth.

It makes a lot of sense, kind of a more fair and intelligent currency, but it takes away the control the governments have over it, you can also buy a computer and mine bitcoins with software, making you money or rather portions of Bitcoin every month.

The guy's name is Andreas Antonopoulos and the first episode of the Joe Rogan Experience he appeared on is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cexawnOlR8

In a nutshell it is a Peer to Peer currency exchange utilizing blockchain technology.

It uses a SHA-256 algorithm as encryption and is highly secure if you know what you are doing.

Miners (or peers in the distributed ledger) all work together to process transactions while simultaneously ensuring the security of the network. This is accomplished through the solving of a difficult math problem which also contains all transactions from the last 10 minutes (give or take). The power of the network determines the difficulty of the problem in an attempt to ensure that bitcoins are mined at a steady rate. While this used to happen on CPU's, and then GPU's, it is no longer profitable due to the introduction of ASICs (application specific integrated circuit).

These are machines designed specifically to mine bitcoins, and the technology keeps increasing with each smaller die size brought to market. CPU and GPU mining now consume more electricity than they will ever make in profit.

The beauty of the system is that while your identity may be kept anonymous, the transactions are not. There is no possibility to double spend, or to 'bounce' a payment.

It's super interesting and I am not doing a very good job of explaining it. Andreas Antonopoulos does a very good job of explaining the technology and its applications. The JRE podcasts featuring him are very good, but if you don't have the time to listen, google his name, or look at the white paper written by the creator of Bitcoin - Satoshi Nakamoto.

I started mining when they were worth less than $40 per bitcoin, and they are now worth over $750 CAD. I wish I had gotten in sooner...

[From The Hip]

Originally Posted by Janitor Pants

The guy's name is Andreas Antonopoulos and the first episode of the Joe Rogan Experience he appeared on is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cexawnOlR8



I started mining when they were worth less than $40 per bitcoin, and they are now worth over $750 CAD. I wish I had gotten in sooner...

Mining bitcoins has not been worthwhile for a very long time.Not to mention when Bitcoin crashed to just a penny in real cash value.As for uncrackable security please explain the raid on the MTGOX Bitcoin site.

That being said I wish I had thrown $500 at Bitcoin when it was a penny each as I definately would have sold them when they hit $500 and had the money put into Cook Island trust.

FTH

[KegRiver]

Everything in life has a price, the question is, who pays.

In order for you to make money through them, someone has to loose money.

Money doesn't just appear, it has to come from somewhere.

[Janitor Pants]

Originally Posted by From The Hip

Mining bitcoins has not been worthwhile for a very long time.Not to mention when Bitcoin crashed to just a penny in real cash value.As for uncrackable security please explain the raid on the MTGOX Bitcoin site.

FTH

As I indicated it is only worthwhile with the newest and best ASICs and even then it is a gamble whether or not the difficulty will increase over the lifetime of the device to the point of making it unprofitable. Realistically unless you have free power the only people making money mining bitcoin are the farms over in China.

There is an argument to be made for gambling on future prices, but that is a little too risky for my tastes. My ASICs became unprofitable about a year and a half ago and now I am just holding the bitcoin I do have without mining any more.

To the MT-GOX raid, that had nothing to do with blockchain technology or bitcoin itself, and everything to do with poor integration and system design. It had been pointed out to Mark Karpeles a few times that his system was insecure, but he chose to ignore it as did many of the people storing coins on his server. Claiming Bitcoin is unsecure because of MT-GOX is like saying the USD is unsecure because of Enron, but I do get what you are saying. Your security is only as strong as the weakest link, and storing your coins on an exchange is risky.

Cold storage combined with a brain wallet is exceptionally secure, but as I said earlier, only if you are 100% sure of what you are doing.

[Buckhead]

It is a big scam.
Bitcoins are not backed by any assets so are worthless.
No matter what the computer nerds would have you believe.

[Janitor Pants]

Originally Posted by Buckhead

Bitcoins are not backed by any assets so are worthless.

How is that different than USD? They are 'backed' by the goods and services in the economy or "full faith and credit of the U.S. Government".

Something has value only if people perceive to have value.

[Buckhead]

Originally Posted by Janitor Pants

How is that different than USD? They are 'backed' by the goods and services in the economy or "full faith and credit of the U.S. Government".

Something has value only if people perceive to have value.

The U.S. actually has an economy that produces goods and services that have value.
And a lot of assets as well.
If you want to put your money into worthless random numbers in an Internet account, go right ahead.
I will not.

Please tell me what are Bitcoins backed by. Ones and zeros on someone's server. What a joke.😃😃😃

[Janitor Pants]

Originally Posted by Buckhead

The U.S. actually has an economy that produces goods and services that have value.
And a lot of assets as well.
If you want to put your money into worthless random numbers in an Internet account, go right ahead.
I will not.

Please tell me what are Bitcoins backed by. Ones and zeros on someone's server. What a joke.😃😃😃

Okay, so you are talking about the GDP of the United States.

GDP is calculated as follows:

Private Consumption and Consumer Spending + The Sum of Businesses Spending on Capital + National Net Exports + The Sum of Government Spending

Private consumption is down to almost nothing due to high unemployment, massive debt and the majority of people barely scraping by.

Business spending on capital is down due to lack of lending, and companies investing overseas wherever possible.

National Net Exports has been in the negative for years due to cheap Chinese imports of almost everything under the sun.

So what does that leave you with? Government spending.

Well, that is certainly through the roof, much like the debt being racked up by the American government.

They have been printing money based on nothing since Nixon.

So to recap, the value of the American dollar is largely fictitious and based solely on debt.



The value of of Bitcoin is arguable, but the developments surrounding block chain technology are immense and very exciting. So exciting in fact that many banks and even Goldman Sachs are starting to pay attention and leverage this technology.

It may pan out, or it may not, but some major players in finance are sitting up and paying attention. Bitcoin companies are being funded and valued into the hundreds of millions of dollars and some very interesting things are happening in China right now.

Is there risk? Definitely. But to dismiss it to 'computer geeks' without understanding how it works indicates a severe intellectual deficit.

1's and 0's on somebodies server? Wrong, on every bodies server. The value of bitcoin is its shared ledger.

[Buckhead]

Originally Posted by Janitor Pants

Okay, so you are talking about the GDP of the United States.

GDP is calculated as follows:

Private Consumption and Consumer Spending + The Sum of Businesses Spending on Capital + National Net Exports + The Sum of Government Spending

Private consumption is down to almost nothing due to high unemployment, massive debt and the majority of people barely scraping by.

Business spending on capital is down due to lack of lending, and companies investing overseas wherever possible.

National Net Exports has been in the negative for years due to cheap Chinese imports of almost everything under the sun.

So what does that leave you with? Government spending.

Well, that is certainly through the roof, much like the debt being racked up by the American government.

They have been printing money based on nothing since Nixon.

So to recap, the value of the American dollar is largely fictitious and based solely on debt.



The value of of Bitcoin is arguable, but the developments surrounding block chain technology are immense and very exciting. So exciting in fact that many banks and even Goldman Sachs are starting to pay attention and leverage this technology.

It may pan out, or it may not, but some major players in finance are sitting up and paying attention. Bitcoin companies are being funded and valued into the hundreds of millions of dollars and some very interesting things are happening in China right now.

Is there risk? Definitely. But to dismiss it to 'computer geeks' without understanding how it works indicates a severe intellectual deficit.

1's and 0's on somebodies server? Wrong, on eve
ry bodies server. The value of bitcoin is its shared ledger.

So go ahead and invest then.

I will not for the reasons I have already stated.

I already researched the Bitcoin fad more than 5 years ago.
This is nothing new. A pyramid scam by another name.

[deerguy]

Originally Posted by Buckhead

It is a big scam.
Bitcoins are not backed by any assets so are worthless.
No matter what the computer nerds would have you believe.

Originally Posted by Buckhead

The U.S. actually has an economy that produces goods and services that have value.
And a lot of assets as well.
If you want to put your money into worthless random numbers in an Internet account, go right ahead.
I will not.

Please tell me what are Bitcoins backed by. Ones and zeros on someone's server. What a joke.😃😃😃

North American money is just as useless, it's paper with a number printed on it. It's literally not even good enough for fire starter anymore so during hard times has no practical use to be carried on ones person.

You want something real? Get precious metals like Canadian Maples 1oz coins. Those will have plenty of use during hard times or economic crash, no one ever needed a wheelbarrow of silver to buy bread, but western trash money on the other hand.....

[From The Hip]

Originally Posted by Buckhead

So go ahead and invest then.

I will not for the reasons I have already stated.

I already researched the Bitcoin fad more than 5 years ago.
This is nothing new. A pyramid scam by another name.

I concur....would have been nice to throw $500 at Bitcoin when it crashed....50,000 Bitcoins at $500 = 25 MILLION in real money which can buy you your own tropical island not to mention the weapons to defend it and I am not talking about rifles and shotguns.

FTH

[From The Hip]

Originally Posted by deerguy

North American money is just as useless, it's paper with a number printed on it. It's literally not even good enough for fire starter anymore so during hard times has no practical use to be carried on ones person.

You want something real? Get precious metals like Canadian Maples 1oz coins. Those will have plenty of use during hard times or economic crash, no one ever needed a wheelbarrow of silver to buy bread, but western trash money on the other hand.....

Personally I dont see an economic collapse nor an apocalypse kinda future any time soon.If you are of the type that likes to hoard silver/gold and right now you are buying it at a 35-37% premium because both of those metals are priced in US currency then go right ahead and do it.The premium comes from the low exchange rate not to mention buyers pay a premium over spot price.

FTH

[Buckhead]

Originally Posted by From The Hip

I concur....would have been nice to throw $500 at Bitcoin when it crashed....50,000 Bitcoins at $500 = 25 MILLION in real money which can buy you your own tropical island not to mention the weapons to defend it and I am not talking about rifles and shotguns.

FTH

So you are saying you have your own island country with an army, airforce and navy. Keep dreaming bud.
Ain't gonna happen except in some Internet fantasy.

[rugatika]

In that Rogan podcast they talked about a University kid that was doing some bitcoin mining on his laptop when they first started up. He forgot about it, and checked on it a few years later and he had 917 bitcoins. @ about $800 per. Not a bad find.

The computations have become so complex now that buildings full of computers are being used to mine. Just google bitcoin mining images. Amazing!

They said that the computing power involved now is greater than the top 600 supercomputers in the world.

[deerguy]

Originally Posted by From The Hip

Personally I dont see an economic collapse nor an apocalypse kinda future any time soon.If you are of the type that likes to hoard silver/gold and right now you are buying it at a 35-37% premium because both of those metals are priced in US currency then go right ahead and do it.The premium comes from the low exchange rate not to mention buyers pay a premium over spot price.

FTH

Yeah well something tells me you don't have the status to be making claims like that. I also never said to hoard silver and gold, just that you have never needed a wheelbarrow of it to buy a loaf of bread. In all situations silver and gold have value, paper money only has a value that the government of the day puts on it, and certain situations render paper money to its true value, nothing.

[Grizzly Adams]

Originally Posted by Buckhead

It is a big scam.
Bitcoins are not backed by any assets so are worthless.
No matter what the computer nerds would have you believe.

There are good reason people have historically valued Worth with gold.

Grizz

[whitetail Junkie]

Originally Posted by Grizzly Adams

There are good reason people have historically valued Worth with gold.

Grizz

The USD/United states is backed by over 800 Tonnes of Gold that the American government hoards in there vaults......Canada currently owns only 77 ounces of gold,since the big sell off of it by Mr Truedeau not to long ago....supposedly the Canadian government exchanged our gold for other countries paper currency's......if the world's fiat currency system collapses in the near future Canada will be down the creek without a paddle......

[Hooter]

Originally Posted by whitetail Junkie

The USD/United states is backed by over 800 Tonnes of Gold that the American government hoards in there vaults......Canada currently owns only 77 ounces of gold,since the big sell off of it by Mr Truedeau not to long ago....supposedly the Canadian government exchanged our gold for other countries paper currency's......if the world's fiat currency system collapses in the near future Canada will be down the creek without a paddle......

There are many who believe that Fort Knox is empty. Google it. Quite interesting.

[whitetail Junkie]

Originally Posted by Hooter

There are many who believe that Fort Knox is empty. Google it. Quite interesting.

I have read that before and who really does know the real truth besides a handful of people.my guess is if they do have 800 tonnes its in more then a few locations.

one interesting thing I read the other day was that some scientist's have figured that man has already mined most of the gold out of the earths crust in all the accessible locations and in 20 years it will essentially be an extinct resource except for what has already been mined and is out of the ground.I personally find that hard to believe.....eitherway interesting theory.

[fishtank]

i read something a while back that over 80% of the cash volume is trade in china's yuan . Demand will grow because, how will all the corrupt money move out of china .

[Redfrog]

Originally Posted by Janitor Pants

The guy's name is Andreas Antonopoulos and the first episode of the Joe Rogan Experience he appeared on is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cexawnOlR8

In a nutshell it is a Peer to Peer currency exchange utilizing blockchain technology.

It uses a SHA-256 algorithm as encryption and is highly secure if you know what you are doing.

Miners (or peers in the distributed ledger) all work together to process transactions while simultaneously ensuring the security of the network. This is accomplished through the solving of a difficult math problem which also contains all transactions from the last 10 minutes (give or take). The power of the network determines the difficulty of the problem in an attempt to ensure that bitcoins are mined at a steady rate. While this used to happen on CPU's, and then GPU's, it is no longer profitable due to the introduction of ASICs (application specific integrated circuit).

These are machines designed specifically to mine bitcoins, and the technology keeps increasing with each smaller die size brought to market. CPU and GPU mining now consume more electricity than they will ever make in profit.

The beauty of the system is that while your identity may be kept anonymous, the transactions are not. There is no possibility to double spend, or to 'bounce' a payment.

It's super interesting and I am not doing a very good job of explaining it. Andreas Antonopoulos does a very good job of explaining the technology and its applications. The JRE podcasts featuring him are very good, but if you don't have the time to listen, google his name, or look at the white paper written by the creator of Bitcoin - Satoshi Nakamoto.

I started mining when they were worth less than $40 per bitcoin, and they are now worth over $750 CAD. I wish I had gotten in sooner...

AHA! That's what I thought it was.

Now any thoughts on how they get the caramilk in to a Caramilk bar?

[funkman]

Bitcoin current price $14,160.87

https://www.cbix.ca/

Some people are getting very rich....

[mgvande]

Mining bitcoins with 10000 dollar computers is an exspensive way to heat your garage. Lots of power used and the heat to go with it. CBC did a peice on it and it apparently is environmentally unsound due to the needless power consumption. It was quite interesting, I forget the watt/hrs per bitcoin. One of the few times I listened to CBC and didn't turn it off in a bad mood.

[funkman]

I don't heat my garage.

[jstubbs]

Originally Posted by funkman

Bitcoin current price $14,160.87

https://www.cbix.ca/

Some people are getting very rich....

I did a presentation in school less than two weeks ago on some basics of Bitcoin, and the price at that time was $10.5k CAD. Christ. TWO WEEKS AGO!

[CMichaud]

Any thoughts on the other top traded e-currencies?

An older guy I know bought into to some of this recently. He showed me the three he had but I can't remember the names.

I reckon that the time to get into these was before guys like us started talking about them on an outdoors forum.

[nitro]

All I need to know about bit coin is ,when it first started I went pffft why mine it ,it will never be worth anything.