Author Topic: Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency  (Read 198556 times)

Offline Marty 85

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Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency
« on: April 3, 2013, 06:31:00 pm »
I'd saw the logo and heard some noise about them in the past year but I'd never properly looked into exactly what they are, who used them, how much they're worth and how easy would it be to get my hands on some.

So earlier this week I started researching them and just a few days ago 1 Bitcoin was valued at  £60. You can check the value here https://mtgox.com/.

I read a few forums and noticed everyone seemed to be holding off buying any as their value had seen a greater than twofold increase in March. Everyday since I've been monitoring their rise. As I write this they're now valued at £87 per BC and if they continue their recent 14% per day upward climb, they won't be to far off the £100 mark this time tomorrow.

http://www.stockopedia.co.uk/content/is-bitcoin-the-worlds-most-perfect-speculative-material-72159/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin

Has anyone here experience of them? I just wish I had a few thousand spare to invest in them.
« Last Edit: December 19, 2017, 10:56:14 am by Marty 85 »

Offline G1 Jockey 4(betfair)

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Re: The bubble that is Bitcoin
« Reply #1 on: April 3, 2013, 06:52:03 pm »
is this where those big cypriot deposits went??
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Re: The bubble that is Bitcoin
« Reply #2 on: April 3, 2013, 06:59:04 pm »
Thought about getting into them this time last year via bitcoin mining. Should have done so after reading how much there value had increased. Would have been well worth the initial investment costs but who'd have thought their value would have lept so high?!

Offline Marty 85

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Re: The bubble that is Bitcoin
« Reply #3 on: April 3, 2013, 06:59:06 pm »
It is indeed. I'm not an economist and don't pretend to understand how it works but Bitcoins are created/mined by a complex mathematical algorithm so there is a maximum that are created in anyne day. I think these are all being bought up fairly quickly causing the value to go up, causing existing investors to hold onto their coins, further increasing the value and around it goes. Eventually some big investor somewhere will dump a whole lot of coins causing the value to suddenly drop, panic will set in while everyone else tries to sell and there will be massive losses.

Offline Bird Bird Bird The Bird Is The Word

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Re: The bubble that is Bitcoin
« Reply #4 on: April 3, 2013, 07:44:55 pm »
Read up about bitcoins a while ago and the bitcoin mining will cease in the next 20/30 years (can't remember the exact number) and there will be no more bitcoins available after that.

I don't have a clue about complex economics but any non-fiat, annoymous currency is good in my book.

Offline Tomo!

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Re: The bubble that is Bitcoin
« Reply #5 on: April 3, 2013, 09:08:00 pm »
I've read your mine them by getting computers to do solve very complex maths equations but I've don't understand who for.
Who do you actually do the work for, who pays out?
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Offline Marty 85

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Re: The bubble that is Bitcoin
« Reply #6 on: April 3, 2013, 09:39:54 pm »
Nobody afaik. It's not centralized. Only so many can be  mined per day.

I was looking into mining myself but apparently you need an ATI GPU and at least a 750PSU so i'm well beat with an NVIDIA GTX 650 and Only 550 PSU. I stopped researching upon reading that but mining is measured in Mhash/s.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison

The above link is a good indication of how many Mhash/s you can produce using various setups.

« Last Edit: April 3, 2013, 09:56:01 pm by Marty 85 »

Offline Marty 85

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Re: The bubble that is Bitcoin
« Reply #7 on: April 3, 2013, 10:16:20 pm »
It's just gone from £89 to £86. The first decrease I've yet to see. I still think it will continue to increase and that's just a small decrease due to people cashing out their profits.

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Re: The bubble that is Bitcoin
« Reply #8 on: April 3, 2013, 10:20:56 pm »
I believe it's actually used quite a bit, mostly on the Silk Road.

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Re: The bubble that is Bitcoin
« Reply #9 on: April 4, 2013, 07:02:39 am »
I believe it's actually used quite a bit, mostly on the Silk Road.
Yep, first saw it in the deepnet.
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Offline Kashinoda

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Re: The bubble that is Bitcoin
« Reply #10 on: April 4, 2013, 08:38:43 am »
I'd saw the logo and heard some noise about them in the past year but I'd never properly looked into exactly what they are, who used them, how much they're worth and how easy would it be to get my hands on some.

So earlier this week I started researching them and just a few days ago 1 Bitcoin was valued at  £60. You can check the value here https://mtgox.com/.

I read a few forums and noticed everyone seemed to be holding off buying any as their value had seen a greater than twofold increase in March. Everyday since I've been monitoring their rise. As I write this they're now valued at £87 per BC and if they continue their recent 14% per day upward climb, they won't be to far off the £100 mark this time tomorrow.

http://www.stockopedia.co.uk/content/is-bitcoin-the-worlds-most-perfect-speculative-material-72159/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin

Has anyone here experience f them? I just wish I had a few thousand spare to invest in them.

Easiest way to buy Bitcoins would be to find a trader on www.localbitcoins.com. There's a list of traders who accept online transfer here:
https://localbitcoins.com/online_sellers_GB

The reason the rates are much higher than the current exchange rate on MtGox is because right now the market is extremely volatile, usually the prices are round 8-10% above the exchange. Probably not the best time to put your money in.

Why the steep increase? There's an increasing amount of hackers using botnets to mine for bitcoins, there's also new hardware which makes the process of mining using your graphics card (as is traditional) obsolete.

The market will level out over the next few months as people start to receive new mining hardware, it could crash as well but no matter what it will level out again. It's not the wisest thing to invest in in my opinion. Though saying that I had 1.75 bitcoins in January, worth around £13-15 at the time, now I'm sitting on £154.

I've read your mine them by getting computers to do solve very complex maths equations but I've don't understand who for.
Who do you actually do the work for, who pays out?

You're not doing it for anyone, you're helping solve mathematical equations which are exponentially harder to solve as time goes on. Every time an equation is solved a Bitcoin is rewarded/released, typically as a miner you participate in a pool with other users and everyone gets a slice of the pie. There will never be any more than 21 million coins in the system, it's expected these will all be mined by something like the year 2140.

Bitcoins essentially work just like gold does, gold is actually worthless - we assign value to it ourselves by originally using it to trade for goods and services. This is how Bitcoins have obtained value, people use it to trade for a variety of things (many illegal, as it's mostly untraceable and decentralized).

Hope I've explained that well, hopefully there's an economist on RAWK who could shed more light on it.
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Offline Marty 85

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Re: The bubble that is Bitcoin
« Reply #11 on: April 4, 2013, 02:27:02 pm »
Easiest way to buy Bitcoins would be to find a trader on www.localbitcoins.com. There's a list of traders who accept online transfer here:
https://localbitcoins.com/online_sellers_GB

The reason the rates are much higher than the current exchange rate on MtGox is because right now the market is extremely volatile, usually the prices are round 8-10% above the exchange. Probably not the best time to put your money in.

Why the steep increase? There's an increasing amount of hackers using botnets to mine for bitcoins, there's also new hardware which makes the process of mining using your graphics card (as is traditional) obsolete.

The market will level out over the next few months as people start to receive new mining hardware, it could crash as well but no matter what it will level out again. It's not the wisest thing to invest in in my opinion. Though saying that I had 1.75 bitcoins in January, worth around £13-15 at the time, now I'm sitting on £154.

You're not doing it for anyone, you're helping solve mathematical equations which are exponentially harder to solve as time goes on. Every time an equation is solved a Bitcoin is rewarded/released, typically as a miner you participate in a pool with other users and everyone gets a slice of the pie. There will never be any more than 21 million coins in the system, it's expected these will all be mined by something like the year 2140.

Bitcoins essentially work just like gold does, gold is actually worthless - we assign value to it ourselves by originally using it to trade for goods and services. This is how Bitcoins have obtained value, people use it to trade for a variety of things (many illegal, as it's mostly untraceable and decentralized).

Hope I've explained that well, hopefully there's an economist on RAWK who could shed more light on it.

I checked out that localbitcoins site and there were a few sellers near me, I'm not entirely sure how it works but I think it relies heavily on trusting the seller to send the coins after you've deposited the money into their account and I would rather avoid doing that with a complete stranger online. A member of RAWK however :D If you plan on selling that 1.75 coin, i'll gladly buy it off you!

Offline Kashinoda

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Re: The bubble that is Bitcoin
« Reply #12 on: April 4, 2013, 02:43:56 pm »
I checked out that localbitcoins site and there were a few sellers near me, I'm not entirely sure how it works but I think it relies heavily on trusting the seller to send the coins after you've deposited the money into their account and I would rather avoid doing that with a complete stranger online. A member of RAWK however :D If you plan on selling that 1.75 coin, i'll gladly buy it off you!

Just check the feedback mate, some sellers have over 500 successful transactions. If they have 'OTC' next to their name it means they've been verified at bitcoin-otc.com so they've got even more feedback there.

Failing that you can go through an exchange service, head over to https://intersango.com/

You'll need to transfer Euros to their Polish bank account, then you can buy Bitcoins on their stock exchange. You used to be able to do a simple UK bank transfer but this was disabled a few months ago, the same happened to MtGox. This is due to English banks not being happy with Bitcoins.
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Offline Marty 85

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Re: The bubble that is Bitcoin
« Reply #13 on: April 4, 2013, 02:59:37 pm »
Yeah, these guys had no feedback lol.

I'll do something similar and transfer to moneywise where it'll get converted to Euros and then buy from MTGox that way.

Offline damian

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Re: The bubble that is Bitcoin
« Reply #14 on: April 4, 2013, 04:25:29 pm »
Hack attacks hit Bitcoin exchange rates

Bitcoin exchange rates have fluctuated as exchanges are hit by attacks

Online services and exchanges dealing in Bitcoins have been hit by hack attacks that led to a drop in the value of the virtual currency.

Trading on the MTGox exchange, which handles most trades in Bitcoins, was sluggish yesterday as the site fought off an attack.

The attack helped to force a swift fall in the price of Bitcoins.

In addition, the Instawallet website - where people store Bitcoins - is offline indefinitely after an attack.

Website bombarded
The value of Bitcoins surged to a new high this week with each one worth about $142 (£94). Barely a week ago, each virtual coin was worth only $90.

But Bitcoins dropped sharply in value as the MTGox exchange came under a sustained attack by hackers. The vast majority of trade in Bitcoins takes place via the site.

In a tweet on its Twitter feed, MTGox said it was fighting off a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, which involves a site being bombarded with huge amounts of data. The attack was one of several against the site this week,

The attacks, coupled with a spike in trading volumes, combined to cause delays in trades being confirmed and led the value of Bitcoins to drop sharply to about $120.

The attacks could be the work of malicious hackers who were trying to 'game' the MTGox exchange”

The attacks could be the work of malicious hackers who were trying to "game" the exchange and manipulate the value of Bitcoins so they could cash in, MTGox said in an interview with ComputerWorld. Attackers are thought to be working to a cycle in which they sell Bitcoins when values are high, then mount an attack that forces prices to crash, buy up the cheaper coins and then let the value climb again.

MTGox said it did not know when or if the attacks would cease but said Bitcoin owners should not panic and sell off as values fluctuated. A spokesman for the exchange added that it was in the middle of rebuilding its trading technology but the new system, which would do a better job of handling the high volume of trades, would not be ready until the end of this year.

In a separate development, Instawallet has shut down "indefinitely" after hackers "fraudulently accessed" its core database. In a statement posted on the Instawallet site it said it planned to open a claim process shortly so people could reclaim their Bitcoin balance

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22026961
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Offline Kashinoda

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Re: The bubble that is Bitcoin
« Reply #15 on: April 4, 2013, 04:42:40 pm »
Yeah, these guys had no feedback lol.

I'll do something similar and transfer to moneywise where it'll get converted to Euros and then buy from MTGox that way.

That's because you're looking at local meet ups, you just need an online transfer:
https://localbitcoins.com/online_sellers_GB

Anyway, goodluck in the bitcoin world however you deposit.
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Offline Marty 85

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Re: The bubble that is Bitcoin
« Reply #16 on: April 7, 2013, 05:18:37 pm »
On the move again, it's up to £100 now.

Offline longball

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Re: The bubble that is Bitcoin
« Reply #17 on: April 7, 2013, 05:23:42 pm »
So when does this start getting messy?

Offline Marty 85

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Re: The bubble that is Bitcoin
« Reply #18 on: April 7, 2013, 10:02:00 pm »
£102

Who knows? It's still really in it's infancy and isn't that common right now, everyone I speak to either doesn't know what it is or hasn't even heard of it. Once more people find out about it over time or it makes front page headlines it's only going to increase in price. I mean check out this thread from 3 months ago https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=137212.0 people were shocked that it increased to £12.

Here's a good article:

Bubble feared after Bitcoin soars

Thomas Watkins

Paris - Some call it the most famous pizza purchase in history: In May 2010, a programmer called Laszlo asked an online forum if anyone would buy him a couple of pies in exchange for 10 000 Bitcoins, an experimental online currency launched in 2009.

"No weird fish topping or anything like that," he wrote.

With each Bitcoin fetching less than a cent at the time, the order was worth about $41. Today, it would be valued at about $1.4m.

As of Friday, a single Bitcoin traded at around $135, with the currency nearing $147 earlier in the week - up from about $20 at the start of February. It's a stratospheric jump some claim has been fuelled by Cypriots and Russians seeking to invest their euros elsewhere during Cyprus's banking crisis, stoking fears that a new online bubble might soon burst.

"It's completely irrational," said Yannick Naud, a portfolio manager at the London-based Glendevon King Asset Management firm, who has seen an increase in client queries about Bitcoins. "As an investor you can't put any underlying value on the Bitcoin itself."

Bitcoins were launched in 2009 in the wake of the global financial crisis by an anonymous programmer who wanted to create a currency independent of any central bank or financial institution. A form of "e-money", it is made of strings of dazzlingly complex code created by raw computing power - a process called "mining" that can in theory be carried out by anyone with a computer.

The software is written in such a way that it becomes increasingly difficult to generate new Bitcoins, with the number in circulation designed to eventually top out at 21 million.

Once mined, Bitcoins are stored on a user's hard drive in a virtual wallet, and can be sent directly to another person. Such peer-to-peer sharing bypasses the banks so is largely anonymous. But this brings its own risks - in June 2011, hackers targeted virtual wallets and wiped some people's accounts clean.

At first a coder's curio, Bitcoins quickly found a home in the "deep web", the shadier part of the internet that is largely anonymous and requires some good technical understanding to access. It was used to fuel illicit drug buys and pay for other illegal services on specialist sites.

Internet currency

But computer aficionados and tech-savvy libertarians embraced the currency too, and in recent months a flurry of legit businesses have started accepting Bitcoins.

A cottage industry of stores buying and reselling goods online for Bitcoins has emerged, and some high-profile transactions have helped push the currency into mainstream consciousness. One Canadian man reportedly hoped to sell his house for Bitcoins, and a US man claimed to have traded his 2007 Porsche for 300 Bitcoins.

Robert Walker, a digital designer from London, said he bought about 200 Bitcoins over a six-month period starting at the end of 2011. He spends much of his time online and was excited by the idea of the internet minting its own currency, and an investment not beholden to any central authority.

His purchase set him back about $900, but today would net some $27 000. But despite this week's new price highs, he's going to keep his virtual stash - for now at least.

"It's not a life changing amount of money, but it could be if I sat on it for five years," Walker said.

But for Naud, the asset manager, Bitcoin is reaching unsustainable levels. On paper at least, the value of Bitcoins in circulation now tops $1 billion, and a continued increase in price will require a lot of new investors.

"The bubble will burst when there will be less people willing to enter (the Bitcoin market) than people willing to leave it," he said. "It's hard to pinpoint, but it probably won't last another month at this price."

Tough ride ahead

Experts said Bitcoins are especially vulnerable to rapid deflation. Governments trying to regulate them, for example, could spook investors and cause them to lose confidence.

Already in the US, regulators have taken note of the currency and moved to make firms report transactions worth $10 000 or more, according to the Wall Street Journal.

"If it gets very popular, I can see the government clamping down," said Alistair Cotton, a senior analyst with Currencies Direct. "I think it would lead to a massive drop off in the number of users."

The Cyprus banking crisis - which saw the tiny nation agree a bailout deal with the International Monetary Fund, European Commission and European Central Bank that will shrink the banking sector and lead to losses on deposits of more than €100 000 euros - also coincided with a run-up in Bitcoin valuation.

Cotton sees similarities between Bitcoin and Napster, an early online file-sharing service that ran into legal difficulties and was eventually closed, though it was soon replaced by numerous other file-sharing services. Even if Bitcoin doesn't last, other virtual currencies will surely rise in its place, he said.

"If you look back in history in terms of financial bubbles, they always end," he said. "It's going to be a very rough ride for guys that invest in Bitcoin for speculative purposes."


http://www.news24.com/Technology/News/Bubble-feared-after-Bitcoin-soars-20130407
« Last Edit: April 7, 2013, 10:25:47 pm by Marty 85 »

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Re: The bubble that is Bitcoin
« Reply #19 on: April 7, 2013, 10:40:10 pm »
So when does this start getting messy?

When the tulips blossom.

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Re: The bubble that is Bitcoin
« Reply #20 on: April 7, 2013, 10:42:35 pm »
I don't do polite so fuck yoursalf with your stupid accusations...

Right you fuckwit I will show you why you are talking out of your fat arse...

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Offline Kashinoda

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Re: The bubble that is Bitcoin
« Reply #21 on: April 8, 2013, 12:17:55 am »
...Fucking hell

It's getting crazy.
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Offline kennedy81

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Re: The bubble that is Bitcoin
« Reply #22 on: April 8, 2013, 01:50:43 am »
so it's basically a ponzi scheme then.

Offline Kashinoda

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Re: The bubble that is Bitcoin
« Reply #23 on: April 8, 2013, 02:17:04 am »
so it's basically a ponzi scheme then.


"In a Ponzi Scheme, the founders persuade investors that they’ll profit. Bitcoin does not make such a guarantee. There is no central entity, just individuals building an economy.

A ponzi scheme is a zero sum game. In a ponzi scheme, early adopters can only profit at the expense of late adopters, and the late adopters always lose. Bitcoin has an expected win-win outcome. Early and present adopters profit from the rise in value as Bitcoins become better understood and in turn demanded by the public at large. All adopters benefit from the usefulness of a reliable and widely-accepted decentralized peer-to-peer currency."
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Offline kennedy81

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Re: The bubble that is Bitcoin
« Reply #24 on: April 8, 2013, 02:31:29 am »
a win-win outcome?
load of bollox, there's always losers in a bubble.

if they mean that everyone wins by having a useful currency, surely some people are going to 'win' more than most.
so if I buy 100 bitcoins now at say $100 each, will I still feel like I'm winning 5 years from now if they're only worth $1 each?
and who's to say they won't be?

also, I noticed you took that quote from bitcoin's website, despite not referencing the source.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Myths#It.27s_a_giant_ponzi_scheme

I'm sure it could be very useful, but it seems many people might be piling on this in the hope of making a killing.
in which case, some people will get badly burned, just like in a ponzi scheme.
« Last Edit: April 8, 2013, 02:38:42 am by kennedy81 »

Offline Kashinoda

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Re: The bubble that is Bitcoin
« Reply #25 on: April 8, 2013, 02:49:56 am »
I did put quotation marks ;)

Anyway, by very definition it's not at all a Ponzi scheme. People are piling money on with the hope of making a killing, if they get burned they get burned. How is that different to any other investment? Would Gold have been classed as a Ponzi scheme?

Also look at other currencies that have collapsed in recent years, Argentina, Greece, Cyprus, Zimbabwe etc.

The whole Bitcoin system is transparent, nothing stops anyone finding out exactly how it works and studying the market. The problem at the moment is there were some sharp gains and now the media has picked up on it and everyone has gone a bit mad - I wouldn't want to touch it with a barge poll.

I expect there will be bubble burst followed by another bubble for quite some time until it eventually levels out. It's still very young.
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Offline kennedy81

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Re: The bubble that is Bitcoin
« Reply #26 on: April 8, 2013, 03:32:35 am »
I did put quotation marks ;)
you did, in fairness.
though I had no idea where you got that from until I googled the text, and people might find it useful to know that it came from bitcoin's site.

Quote
Anyway, by very definition it's not at all a Ponzi scheme. People are piling money on with the hope of making a killing, if they get burned they get burned. How is that different to any other investment? Would Gold have been classed as a Ponzi scheme?

Also look at other currencies that have collapsed in recent years, Argentina, Greece, Cyprus, Zimbabwe etc.

The whole Bitcoin system is transparent, nothing stops anyone finding out exactly how it works and studying the market. The problem at the moment is there were some sharp gains and now the media has picked up on it and everyone has gone a bit mad - I wouldn't want to touch it with a barge poll.

I expect there will be bubble burst followed by another bubble for quite some time until it eventually levels out. It's still very young.
You're right, strictly speaking it's not a ponzi scheme, as in there's no central entity at work.
I just used ponzi scheme as an example of where people sometimes get burned.
I could have used a booming housing market, currency market, gold etc. as other examples, like you say.
Maybe 'feels like' a ponzi scheme might have been more accurate.

I'm sure its creators were well intentioned, and it could be a usefull currency once all the hype dies down.
But I agree with you, it looks like a risky punt right now.
When the ancient greeks (or whoever) decided gold coins would be useful as a means of trading for goods and services, they didn't envisage derivatives, hedge funds or stock exchanges.
I wonder how bitcoins creator thought it would all pan out with regards speculators?

It's an interesting one though, given the economic climate we live in, though I find the whole computer algorithym stuff baffling.
Given that the IMF have no issue with raiding people's bank accounts in broad daylight, are people looking at it as a safe haven of sorts?
I think I'd still have more faith in gold, at least you can make pretty things out of it.  :D

Offline Walshy7

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Re: The bubble that is Bitcoin
« Reply #27 on: April 8, 2013, 12:40:43 pm »
So would I be mad to put a couple of grand in for the craic?
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Offline Malaysian Kopite

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Re: The bubble that is Bitcoin
« Reply #28 on: April 8, 2013, 01:18:02 pm »
If you mine, do you get free bitcoins?
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Offline Niru Red4ever

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Re: The bubble that is Bitcoin
« Reply #29 on: April 8, 2013, 01:23:40 pm »
If you mine, do you get free bitcoins?

Yes.

I would say wait till the current boom is over and then buy up coins; its cheaper this way.
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Offline Malaysian Kopite

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Re: The bubble that is Bitcoin
« Reply #30 on: April 8, 2013, 02:13:39 pm »
Yes.

I would say wait till the current boom is over and then buy up coins; its cheaper this way.
Is mining not a free process?
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Offline lachesis

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Re: The bubble that is Bitcoin
« Reply #31 on: April 8, 2013, 02:18:06 pm »
Is mining not a free process?

It can take five years to mine one on a laptop. You can join pools but I'm not sure of the payback ratio....

Offline Marty 85

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Re: The bubble that is Bitcoin
« Reply #32 on: April 8, 2013, 02:21:28 pm »
Is mining not a free process?

It is and virtually anyone with a PC can mine. Although maybe not that efficiently. I tried it myself and the calculator predicted I would mine 0.0000356 BTC in one month. Although with a quick GPU change that would jump up but GPU mining now isn't worth it with these new ASIC setups that can mine x100 what the best PC rig could possibly do.

Offline Malaysian Kopite

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Re: The bubble that is Bitcoin
« Reply #33 on: April 8, 2013, 02:26:54 pm »
It can take five years to mine one on a laptop. You can join pools but I'm not sure of the payback ratio....
Oh...
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Offline Kashinoda

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Re: The bubble that is Bitcoin
« Reply #34 on: April 8, 2013, 02:27:50 pm »
you did, in fairness.
though I had no idea where you got that from until I googled the text, and people might find it useful to know that it came from bitcoin's site.
You're right, strictly speaking it's not a ponzi scheme, as in there's no central entity at work.
I just used ponzi scheme as an example of where people sometimes get burned.
I could have used a booming housing market, currency market, gold etc. as other examples, like you say.
Maybe 'feels like' a ponzi scheme might have been more accurate.

I'm sure its creators were well intentioned, and it could be a usefull currency once all the hype dies down.
But I agree with you, it looks like a risky punt right now.
When the ancient greeks (or whoever) decided gold coins would be useful as a means of trading for goods and services, they didn't envisage derivatives, hedge funds or stock exchanges.
I wonder how bitcoins creator thought it would all pan out with regards speculators?

It's an interesting one though, given the economic climate we live in, though I find the whole computer algorithym stuff baffling.
Given that the IMF have no issue with raiding people's bank accounts in broad daylight, are people looking at it as a safe haven of sorts?
I think I'd still have more faith in gold, at least you can make pretty things out of it.  :D

The algorithm and computation side took me a while to wrap my head around, and I'm on a Computing degree. But it's actually not too complicated really! Probably worth having a good read over.

I think you're right in saying that people look at it as a safe haven. The owner of Megaupload recently put millions into Bitcoins, he's had trouble with the FBI in the past so doesn't want people snooping at his finances. There's also many who put money into it in wake of the Cypriot banks collapsing. There's a lot of distrust of authorities and banks.

Much of the real use for Bitcoins as a currency comes from people trading on hidden drug markets online, perhaps the inventor had this in mind? ;) Whoever it was (we don't actually know, his name is an alias) is a clever cookie for sure
:D

Offline Kashinoda

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Re: The bubble that is Bitcoin
« Reply #35 on: April 8, 2013, 02:33:08 pm »
Oh...

To mine effectively you need at least a high end AMD graphics card, though I have one and all I could mine was about £2 a day several months ago. Probably used about that in electricity to power it!

Mining with your PC is now useless, the CPU or graphics card simply card crunch the calculations fast enough any more - remember as time goes on each problem is exponentially harder to solve. Instead people are using dedicated mining hardware. See here: https://products.butterflylabs.com/

The problem is they will be more beneficial to the people who receive them early, within a matter of months they'll steady out as the algorithms get higher. Wouldn't be worth buying one in my opinion, though if this boom continues for months who knows?

Surely the bubble has to pop soon? Check it out:
:D

Offline MichaelA

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Re: The bubble that is Bitcoin
« Reply #36 on: April 8, 2013, 03:06:00 pm »
Will you people please, please read what you're typing? Mining imaginary money from electrical currents on a computer? It sounds like an ultra modern fairy story.

 If you're interested, I have some magic beans for sale. :wave

Offline Kashinoda

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Re: The bubble that is Bitcoin
« Reply #37 on: April 8, 2013, 03:20:19 pm »
Will you people please, please read what you're typing? Mining imaginary money from electrical currents on a computer? It sounds like an ultra modern fairy story.

 If you're interested, I have some magic beans for sale. :wave

Oh you just don't get it! ;)!
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Offline Niru Red4ever

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Re: The bubble that is Bitcoin
« Reply #38 on: April 8, 2013, 03:51:23 pm »
As far as mining goes, I would say again that its better to ride out this boom and then buy the coins instead. And then sell them on the next boom and so on - not much different from trading really.

People who really are rich are the early adopters who kept making 50 coins using some relatively cheap hardware. I guess they deserve it too. I came across it in 2011 but didn't look too deeply and gave it a pass  :butt
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Offline Malaysian Kopite

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Re: The bubble that is Bitcoin
« Reply #39 on: April 8, 2013, 03:56:38 pm »
As far as mining goes, I would say again that its better to ride out this boom and then buy the coins instead. And then sell them on the next boom and so on - not much different from trading really.

People who really are rich are the early adopters who kept making 50 coins using some relatively cheap hardware. I guess they deserve it too. I came across it in 2011 but didn't look too deeply and gave it a pass  :butt
Came across it last year  :(
Football without fans is nothing.

We've won 18 titles, 5 European Cups, 7 FA Cups, but today must be the greatest victory of all.