anybody heard of or traded bitcoins? the concept is genius. I'm thinking of ways to profit from them
What do you know already?
I feel as though it's a little late to be investing in them. I find it very interesting and like the idea of a fixed amount of currency. I still don;t really understand who gives you bitcoins for mining into pools and stuff. Are there companies that pay you for mining or individuals or what?
Quote from: Cookie on June 30, 2011, 07:13:30 AM
I feel as though it's a little late to be investing in them. I find it very interesting and like the idea of a fixed amount of currency. I still don;t really understand who gives you bitcoins for mining into pools and stuff. Are there companies that pay you for mining or individuals or what?
No, it's commission-based.
Quote from: _you_ on June 30, 2011, 11:05:04 AM
No, it's commission-based.
from whom? Who is giving you these bitcoins.
Quotethe concept is genius
it's just another bubble. mechanism of manipulation. the concept is simple.
Quote from: Cookie on June 30, 2011, 11:08:52 AM
from whom? Who is giving you these bitcoins.
It's generated by itself. In the case of pooled mining, the current 50 bitcoin reward is split among all miners involved in the generation of a block.
Quote from: Socks on June 30, 2011, 11:35:54 AM
it's just another bubble. mechanism of manipulation. the concept is simple.
Who benefits from such manipulation, if it truly exists? Is that to say that all currencies are a form of manipulation? It's gets you stuff and things (if you have enough currency).
if you figure them out can you buy me drugs on silkroad pls
It is meta-currency, not something I would put a good investment into.
Plus the currency value changes too frequently and too dynamically for their to be any long term investment.
Quote from: silvertone on June 30, 2011, 01:22:37 PM
It is meta-currency, not something I would put a good investment into.
Then don't invest. Earn them instead.
Don't you have to buy the wallet and/or transfer some real money into bitcoins? You won't be able to make big money just by giving a few dollars a single bitcoin alone costs about 17 dollars[?]
Quote from: silvertone on June 30, 2011, 01:28:46 PM
buy the wallet
akudood;
Quote from: silvertone on June 30, 2011, 01:28:46 PM
You won't be able to make big money just by giving a few dollars a single bitcoin alone costs about 17 dollars[?]
If you wanna spend your time trying to predict an investment's future, go right ahead (before 2011, 1 bitcoin was worth less than a dollar, but having reached $30 within this year, the price has been fairly stable at around $16.95, fluctuating just as much as stocks would, being traded 24/7).
But again, if you're somehow able to obtain bitcoins without buying them (maybe selling stuff, maybe doing something for someone, maybe mining), all you'd see is profit (if you're more interested in profiting on bitcoins instead of buying stuff with them).
Quote from: _you_ on June 30, 2011, 01:46:51 PM
But again, if you're somehow able to obtain bitcoins without buying them (maybe selling stuff, maybe doing something for someone, maybe mining), all you'd see is profit (if you're more interested in profiting on bitcoins instead of buying stuff with them).
Yeah exactly, 'investing' in them doesn't seem like a worthwhile use of money I already have, but I was thinking of starting an offshore hosting site with no ToS or content restrictions and payments accepted only in Bitcoin -- complete anonymity for clients and myself, and I'd amass coin while using hardware I already make (real) profit on from my other sites.
Or else colocating (to save electricity cost and have constant availability) some sort of awesome server (or rack even) with like 160 GPUs (or 4 lol) to mine my own blocks 24/7... this actually seems incredibly lucrative, because even though the 'difficulty' (which I don't fully understand yet except that it increases as more blocks are mined) would only make a block available every several weeks, 1 block equals ~$1000 at the moment so you'd make your hardware investment back in no time... and then have some 100s of Bitcoins when this shit bubbles.
Quote from: Socks on June 30, 2011, 11:35:54 AM
it's just another bubble. mechanism of manipulation. the concept is simple.
I don't know if you get it, the p2p system it uses to regulate itself IS actually genius. I don't know if anyone even fully understands the algorithms behind it all, or else it would be completely manipulated and useless... the market value can fluctuate thousands in a day, yeah, but the way it's setup basically guarantees against deflation at any point in the currency's lifetime.
Quote from: Cookie on June 30, 2011, 11:08:52 AM
from whom? Who is giving you these bitcoins.
There isn't any sort of central issuing/'minting' organization, it's like if the dollar ran on bittorrent. To get bitcoins you either receive them from someone, trade 'real' currency through an exchange, or generate them yourself by 'solving' what's basically a huge algorithmic puzzle (this is the way more coins are put into circulation, with many complex rules about how difficult it is to do, so that the amount of bitcoins will cap eventually and become infinitely difficult to generate).
Quote from: Cookie on June 30, 2011, 07:13:30 AM
I feel as though it's a little late to be investing in them. I find it very interesting and like the idea of a fixed amount of currency. I still don;t really understand who gives you bitcoins for mining into pools and stuff. Are there companies that pay you for mining or individuals or what?
There's 6m out of 21m possible in circulation right now, seems like a perfect time to me.
Mining pools are just groups of people pooling their hardware to mine faster, the coins are created out of nowhere, and split among the pool members.
Quote from: Quis sum? on June 30, 2011, 04:28:13 PM
from what i've read about bitcoins from the government, it's a secret currency used to buy illegal drugs and download pirated music
Yeah the vendors I've seen who accept it seem to mostly sell services that buyers wouldn't want to be connected to, like illegal web hosting and drugs (not like there's anything wrong with that)... but if it can grow to be popularly known and successful, it's an incredible precedent.
Quote from: Quis sum? on June 30, 2011, 04:42:23 PM
I think we could see some government regulation on virtual currency
why...? a p2p, self-regulating digital currency is pure democracy.
How much power does it cost vs value of when you generate a bitcoin?
You're losing money if you're spending more on electricity than you are generating value in coins.
Quote from: Khadafi on June 30, 2011, 05:41:56 PM
How much power does it cost vs value of when you generate a bitcoin?
You're losing money if you're spending more on electricity than you are generating value in coins.
That's exactly the problem for most people who try to mine effectively -- using 1-2 GPUs takes many months to get a block. So I had the idea of colocating a specially configured server in a dc, where you get dedicated amps of power for a flat rate (like $40-50/mo for a single server)
Quote from: Quis sum? on June 30, 2011, 05:50:48 PM
It's pretty much a threat to the traditional banking industry, and guess who is a major contributor to political campaigns. Two corporate lapdogs, Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-NY) and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), want the government to shutdown Silk Road. Schumer has even described bitcoins as "money laundering."
well yes obviously. but the goal is to get rid of these things by democratically (
actually democratically) introducing and supporting a new standard that doesn't require the government to support it (because the actual point of democracy and capitalism is identical to the point of p2p -- collective power, collective decisions. the uneducated will call this socialism). In a dream world where PayPal and other 'virtual' banks turn into bitcoin-like systems, what would governments be able to do vs. the power of millions of people around the world using billions of dollars of decentralized currency, who choose to abandon their government's currencies and keep their money in a deflation-proof virtual system that everything supports? it would be easier, faster, and unable to be manipulated by the people who run it, because no one would be running it. what would come next? (THINK ABOUT IT)
Quote from: Quis sum? on June 30, 2011, 04:42:23 PM
but I wouldn't know where the Supreme Court would stand on it since they characterize money as free speech.
goonish
i dont know what the fuck this bitcoins shit is about
Quote from: Quis sum? on June 30, 2011, 08:54:18 PM
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission
Read it.
That does not refer to money itself.
Quote from: Quis sum? on June 30, 2011, 11:33:16 PM
But it talks about the spending of money as free speech.
I wouldn't phrase it that way, but you're right.
Quote from: Quis sum? on June 30, 2011, 11:33:16 PM
Although, one could argue under Article One of the Constitution that Congress does have the right to regulate bitcoin as a "foreign" currency.
What argument would you make?
Quote from: Quis sum? on June 30, 2011, 11:46:09 PM
While Congress can't outright ban the bitcoin, they could pass a bill regulating American companies that exchange bitcoin into USD. From Article I, Section 8: "To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures" Bitcoin is a foreign currency as it is outside American jurisdiction. Easily, these bitcoin exchanges could be setup outside of the US, but other countries might follow suit.
What regulations would we be looking at, and how does that affect individual traders (i.e. if a trading medium exists, but with individuals running that exchange rather than a company, on a p2p-like basis)?
Quote from: Quis sum? on July 01, 2011, 12:21:53 AM
We could see an official ban on the exchange of bitcoin into usd and the purchase of bitcoin from US dollars. We will probably be inundated with propaganda against "illegal currency" much like we have encountered with the war on drugs. And like the war on drugs, individual traders/dealers will probably encounter difficulties processing VISA/Mastercards transactions and take a small risk of not being discovered by the government.
Worse case scenario, that does not nor cannot easily result in a ban in native bitcoin transactions legal or otherwise (i.e. buying vidya games with bitcoins). Worse case scenario, one couldn't legally profit off of bitcoins in USD (and possibly in other currencies, if not other countries, as the case might be in Europe).
Quote from: Quis sum? on July 01, 2011, 12:45:44 AM
But it would effectively limit transactions to bitcoin to bitcoin. To mine bitcoin today requires powerful hardware or joining a pool. By joining a pool, one encounters the threat of collusion. For this and other reasons, bitcoin will be a niche currency for the foreseeable future.
I'm pretty sure there's about 6,709,000 bitcoins currently in circulation. So if everybody stopped mining, I'd say there's enough bitcoins available to make it a viable currency (given the current userbase). However, like all currencies, you'd still have to do stuff in order to obtain bitcoins (assuming you're not mining). But an important aspect of currencies is the ability to buy goods with them.
In the mean time, mining can not only earn one quite a bit of bitcoins (and as long as it's still legal to exchange it into USD, a lot more USD at current prices). The idea behind bitcoin mining is that by the time it's nearly impossible (or not worthwhile, whichever comes first, if not both) to mine, there'd be more than enough bitcoins in circulation to keep it a healthy currency, even if its usage is restricted in the same manner that the AUD is pretty much restricted for use in Australia in all important ways).
Quote from: Quis sum? on July 01, 2011, 12:21:53 AM
We could see an official ban on the exchange of bitcoin into usd and the purchase of bitcoin from US dollars. We will probably be inundated with propaganda against "illegal currency" much like we have encountered with the war on drugs. And like the war on drugs, individual traders/dealers will probably encounter difficulties processing VISA/Mastercards transactions and take a small risk of not being discovered by the government.
wtf are you ever talking about. so people would exchange it to pesos and then to dollars and make a little intermediary forex profit, or find one of the million and one online exchanging services and trade their coin wallet to their LibertyReserve, Moneybookers, AlertPay, etc other 'offshore' virtual currency and then deposit directly to bank account.
Quote from: _you_ on July 01, 2011, 01:00:12 AM
I'm pretty sure there's about 6,709,000 bitcoins currently in circulation. So if everybody stopped mining, I'd say there's enough bitcoins available to make it a viable currency (given the current userbase). However, like all currencies, you'd still have to do stuff in order to obtain bitcoins (assuming you're not mining). But an important aspect of currencies is the ability to buy goods with them.
In the mean time, mining can not only earn one quite a bit of bitcoins (and as long as it's still legal to exchange it into USD, a lot more USD at current prices). The idea behind bitcoin mining is that by the time it's nearly impossible (or not worthwhile, whichever comes first, if not both) to mine, there'd be more than enough bitcoins in circulation to keep it a healthy currency, even if its usage is restricted in the same manner that the AUD is pretty much restricted for use in Australia in all important ways).
exactly
Quote from: Quis sum? on July 01, 2011, 07:37:50 PM
Guess who's a member of the World Trade Organization? Mexico. Other countries would probably follow suit if we regulated bitcoin exchanges.
uuggghhhhh
Quote from: Quis sum? on July 01, 2011, 07:37:50 PM
Guess who's a member of the World Trade Organization? Mexico. Other countries would probably follow suit if we regulated bitcoin exchanges.
Again, worse case scenario only limits the use of bitcoins to online use. One could regulate bitcoin exchanges, but good luck regulating Bitcoin itself.
Quote from: Quis sum? on July 01, 2011, 08:53:59 PM
Then what use would be of bitcoin if it were limited to online usage.
More than you may think.
Quote from: Quis sum? on July 01, 2011, 08:53:59 PM
You can't pay your utilities with bitcoin, which bitcoin will surely depend on. It will be a niche currency for this reason.
If you can get web hosting with bitcoins, if you could pay for internet access for bitcoins, if you can buy food with bitcoins (http://bitmunchies.com/index.php), then you could pay for the utilities with bitcoin; for if things keep gohttp://bitmunchies.com/index.phping the way they are, the USD, our fiat currency, may too be a niche currency used exclusively in the US with no value outside the country.
Quote from: Quis sum? on July 01, 2011, 09:47:54 PM
You can't pay your electric bill with bitcoins. Nice try.
you're not correctly understanding anything in this thread, just making bad arguments about irrelevant things.
obviously Bitcoin will never be a worldwide currency or available for finance/utilities. you pick one illustrative example from each reply, treat it as an objectively stated fact (e.g. your interpretation 'the only way to convert bitcoin would be to use the peso'), and reply with another tangentially related fact that barely has to do with the topic. are you experiencing severe psychological stress, or just stupid?
Whether or not you are intentionally fucking with this makes no difference to my impulse to flame you akudood;
why dont we change the source code and make our own currency?
Quote from: vziard on July 01, 2011, 10:24:52 PM
you're not correctly understanding anything in this thread, just making bad arguments about irrelevant things.
obviously Bitcoin will never be a worldwide currency or available for finance/utilities. you pick one illustrative example from each reply, treat it as an objectively stated fact (e.g. your interpretation 'the only way to convert bitcoin would be to use the peso'), and reply with another tangentially related fact that barely has to do with the topic. are you experiencing severe psychological stress, or just stupid?
Whether or not you are intentionally fucking with this makes no difference to my impulse to flame you akudood;
Not to mention that electricity is a utility, and thus could be paid like any other utility.
Quote from: silvertone on July 01, 2011, 10:49:00 PM
why dont we change the source code and make our own currency?
Too much work, not enough users (poast moar), not to mention that Bitcoin's source appears to be restricted to the project's development team.
i still have no idea what the fuck they are