51–60 of 79 posts
Bitcoin will never be a mainstream medium for exchanging goods just by the fact that its harder to explain casual/newbies that 1 USD gets you 0.001XXX BTC or less and those the reason why the "point system" used by virtual money in videogames is more appealing than explaining their money value in nano cents units. IMHO bitcoin is a proof on how far people can go just to buy illegal drugs.
Bitcoin is the world's most successful ransom payment system.
Bitcoin will never be a mainstream medium for exchanging goods just by the fact that its harder to explain casual/newbies that 1 USD gets you 0.001XXX BTC or less and those the reason why the "point system" used by virtual money in videogames is more appealing than explaining their money value in nano cents units. IMHO bitcoin is a proof on how far people can go just to buy illegal drugs.
I really want to use bitcoin for my purchases.
I still don't understand what happens after all the bitcoins have been mined. It seems to be designed to just fail eventually and be replaced, which I cannot reconcile against the elegance of the rest of the design. To clarify: bitcoins can go away forever. About 6 years ago and had a wallet with a couple bitcoins in it. I have lost the key to that bitcoin wallet and if I can't find it, and noone else can find it, th…
Why would all bitcoins be lost? Even if only one bitcoin left, you can divide it in billions of pieces. And when you've lost every piece but one, you can further divide it. It won't be lost forever, not until our universe will die, and long before that we probably will be able to break SHA-1 and mine lost bitcoins back.
1. You can hand over stupendous amounts of personal identification to an all-but-unregulated exchange. This is best analogised to keeping your money in a sock under someone else's mattress. Occasionally exchange owners disappear with everyone's socks, or get "hacked". This is very rare, and only happens once or twice a month. Our FAQ strongly recommends Cryptsy, they're a good one mate.
2. You can exchange cash directly with someone on LocalBitcoins for bitcoins, because business deals in parking lots are famous for working out well.
3. You can mine them yourself! Note that barriers to entry include designing your own ASICs and super-cheap or subsidised electricity (possibly buying your own hydroelectric plant).
* How do I buy and sell stuff with Bitcoins?
Much simpler than just using your dollars!
1. Change your dollars into Bitcoins.
2. Find a vendor who advertises that they take Bitcoins.
3. See if they can find the staff member who still remembers how they take Bitcoins.
4. Buy your thing.
5. Wait six hours for your transaction to confirm.
6. When it's dropped on the floor, send it again with a larger fee. Make sure you didn't accidentally reverse the amount and fee fields, irreversible remember!
* Example of a Bitcoin transaction
Your mother calls you that her computer has been locked with ransomware demanding bitcoins within 48 hours. Proceed according to the first step.
* What do I need to know to protect my Bitcoins?
Fortunately, we have this super-simple guide to Bitcoin security! https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Securing_your_wallet Your mother will be completely up to speed next time.
* What are the disadvantages of Bitcoin?
It is most useful for speculation (95% of usage), drugs and ransomware in that order.
* Scams to watch out for
Fucking everything. The uses that aren't scams are buying drugs.
* Testimonials
Tyler Winklevoss, co-creator of Facebook, summed it up when he said:
"what was I thinking when I bought all these coins, will I get this ETF up before the bitcoin network collapses. DAMN YOU STOLFIIIIIIIII"
Rick Falkvinge, Founder of the Swedish Pirate party, predicted that:
"The Target Value For Bitcoin Is Not Some $50 Or $100. It Is $100,000 To $1,000,000."
Of course, that was a few months before the bubble popped, but never mind that!
According to John McAfee, Founder of McAfee,
"THEY PUT A RADIO IN MY HEAD YOU KNOW"
* Where do I go from here?
To a shop for armored knee pads, so the next time someone says "Bitcoin" or "Blockchain" to you you can kick them in the nuts and run.
I still don't understand what happens after all the bitcoins have been mined. It seems to be designed to just fail eventually and be replaced, which I cannot reconcile against the elegance of the rest of the design. To clarify: bitcoins can go away forever. About 6 years ago and had a wallet with a couple bitcoins in it. I have lost the key to that bitcoin wallet and if I can't find it, and noone else can find it, th…
Why would all bitcoins be lost? Even if only one bitcoin left, you can divide it in billions of pieces. And when you've lost every piece but one, you can further divide it. It won't be lost forever, not until our universe will die, and long before that we probably will be able to break SHA-1 and mine lost bitcoins back.
Mining can only produce new bitcoins. To recover lost ones, you'd need to break elliptic curve signatures (and possibly RIPEMD160/SHA256 to recover a full public key from a non-spent address).
Bitcoin will never be a mainstream medium for exchanging goods just by the fact that its harder to explain casual/newbies that 1 USD gets you 0.001XXX BTC or less and those the reason why the "point system" used by virtual money in videogames is more appealing than explaining their money value in nano cents units. IMHO bitcoin is a proof on how far people can go just to buy illegal drugs.
The illegal drug market in BTC wasn't actually a thing. It never mattered to anyone but journos.
A tangentially related question (I am a complete ignoramus when it comes to bitcoin). Suppose I could harness the power of 1,000 or even 10,000 private computers distributed over the internet and all contributing resources. Could I profitably mine bitcoin?(This is not a theoretical question, I actually do have a way to do this) .
As others have said ASICs have made it impossible to mine Bitcoin on normal hardware at any sort of profit. However, there are many ASIC-resistant cryptocurrencies out there that may be worth looking into. The most well-known is Ethereum, but there are others with different strategies. Which would be best probably depends on your specific hardware (some are probably more CPU-friendly while others are better for GPUs)…
No such thing. If it relies on a Proof of Work hash, it can be put into a chip, and specialist hardware for a simple function will always be more efficient (hashes per watt) than general hardware. The main barrier is not capability, but bothering to.
Proof of Stake would be different, but all examples are presently experimental.
I still don't understand what happens after all the bitcoins have been mined. It seems to be designed to just fail eventually and be replaced, which I cannot reconcile against the elegance of the rest of the design. To clarify: bitcoins can go away forever. About 6 years ago and had a wallet with a couple bitcoins in it. I have lost the key to that bitcoin wallet and if I can't find it, and noone else can find it, th…
While not an expert (and actually something of a critic): I think the idea is that new bitcoins will be mined at a rate that will outstrip those lost. A LOT of the early coins were lost because they basically had no value. That was when mining was easy. Now, bitcoins have value and people are less likely to lose it. And mining is now harder. Similarly, we migrated from people keeping their wallets in a text file (mon…
The yearly loss is some small percentage, maybe between 1% and 3%. The yearly bitcoin mining production dips under 1% in another 3 halvings, or roughly in the year 2028.