1 bitcoin worth more than dollar • Hacker News Board

Re: 1 bitcoin worth more than dollar

#61

Post by hunterp » Thu, Feb 10, 2011, 6:16 AM UTC

sgornick wrote: post #15

antimatter15 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I read somewhere that the value is derived from the amount of electricity and hardware required to mine for a bitcoin.

Not really, but to make MORE bitcoins yourself you would need to expend a fair amount computing power that chews up a fair amount of electricity. Here's a chart showing that possibly as the price rises, the amount of computing power (and thus electricity) rises to match. http://www.bitcoin.org/smf/index.php?topic=2399.msg42269#msg...

mobiles take pennies a day of electricity to power. mobiles are computing and cheap to power.

Re: 1 bitcoin worth more than dollar

#62

Post by efnx » Thu, Feb 10, 2011, 6:19 AM UTC

sabj wrote: post #11

sgornick wrote: post #2

For those who are new to Bitcoin and would like to learn more: Bitcoin FAQ - https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/FAQ Bitcoin Wiki - https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Main_Page How Bitcoin Works - https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/How_bitcoin_works Installing Bitcoin - https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Getting_started HowTo Mining Bitcoin: Fedora 14: http://bit.ly/fb54ye and Ubuntu: http://bit.ly/ewVzhu The Bitcoin Faucet (free bitcoins) - https:/…

I'm more confused than when I started. I understand the concept, but not the ecosystem or money supply... or exchange rate.

I'll agree that it's confusing, but I will also say that it's less confusing than our practices with mainstream fiat currency.

Re: 1 bitcoin worth more than dollar

#63

Post by kiba » Thu, Feb 10, 2011, 6:24 AM UTC

mynameishere wrote: post #23

sgornick wrote: post #2

For those who are new to Bitcoin and would like to learn more: Bitcoin FAQ - https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/FAQ Bitcoin Wiki - https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Main_Page How Bitcoin Works - https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/How_bitcoin_works Installing Bitcoin - https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Getting_started HowTo Mining Bitcoin: Fedora 14: http://bit.ly/fb54ye and Ubuntu: http://bit.ly/ewVzhu The Bitcoin Faucet (free bitcoins) - https:/…

All of the above absolutely screams BULLSHIT harder than anything I've ever read before.

Please tell us why it is absolute bullshit?-

Re: 1 bitcoin worth more than dollar

#64

Post by mkramlich » Thu, Feb 10, 2011, 6:30 AM UTC

solipsist wrote: post #5

Anyone want to offer some insight into what a bitcoin is? (Sorry for my ignorance. I tried looking it up, can't seem to understand what it really is.)

Ummm....

http://www.bitcoin.org/

Re: 1 bitcoin worth more than dollar

#65

Post by phirephly » Thu, Feb 10, 2011, 6:32 AM UTC

trotsky wrote: post #21

solipsist wrote: post #5

Anyone want to offer some insight into what a bitcoin is? (Sorry for my ignorance. I tried looking it up, can't seem to understand what it really is.)

A gentleman's agreement between a certain faction of econ-crypto-tinfoil-hat-botnet nerds to assign trade value to the wastage of increasingly large amounts of electricity.

Best description I've seen yet. Granted, I'm impressed with how much momentum they seem to have already collected, so I feel like their implementation is sound, but still tin-foily.

They are working on a real problem though. Paypal kind of works, but isn't ideal.

Re: 1 bitcoin worth more than dollar

#66

Post by kiba » Thu, Feb 10, 2011, 6:32 AM UTC

johnny22 wrote: post #36

sgornick wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ecosystem? How about the Payment portion of the ecosystem ... let's take a "competitor", PayPal, for example. When you send $100 to a business using your Paypal, the recipient gets $97, or less. With bitcoin, when you send $100, the recipient gets $100 (at least until fees are necessary ... but even when that starts being necessary the fees should be just a FRACTION of what Visa / MC / PayPal / etc. take.)

so, you're saying if paypal/mastercard/visa charged no money for transfer, you would continue using them? that example isn't reason enough for me to use bitcoin.

Said paypal/mastercard/visa would lose money to fraud.

The bitcoin miners only process the transactions. They don't care about fraud and chargeback.

Re: 1 bitcoin worth more than dollar

#67

Post by solipsist » Thu, Feb 10, 2011, 6:33 AM UTC

mkramlich wrote: post #64

solipsist wrote: post #5

Anyone want to offer some insight into what a bitcoin is? (Sorry for my ignorance. I tried looking it up, can't seem to understand what it really is.)

Ummm.... http://www.bitcoin.org/

> I tried looking it up, can't seem to understand what it really is.

Re: 1 bitcoin worth more than dollar

#68

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Feb 10, 2011, 6:35 AM UTC

sgornick wrote: post #10

solipsist wrote: post #5

Anyone want to offer some insight into what a bitcoin is? (Sorry for my ignorance. I tried looking it up, can't seem to understand what it really is.)

Security Now on TWIT tv covered Bitcoin today. Steve Gibson does a pretty decent job describing it. http://twit.tv/sn287 Bitcoin coverage is from 0:41:25 to the end of the podcast.

[deleted]

Re: 1 bitcoin worth more than dollar

#69

Post by mkramlich » Thu, Feb 10, 2011, 6:38 AM UTC

trotsky wrote: post #21

solipsist wrote: post #5

Anyone want to offer some insight into what a bitcoin is? (Sorry for my ignorance. I tried looking it up, can't seem to understand what it really is.)

A gentleman's agreement between a certain faction of econ-crypto-tinfoil-hat-botnet nerds to assign trade value to the wastage of increasingly large amounts of electricity.

I'm fairly certain that more money is spent to create & manage a single US dollar in circulation than is used for a single bitcoin unit. The latter has no paper form, no need to be physically lugged around, no ongoing R&D design overhead spent on counter-counterfeiting measures, no Department of Treasury budget costs, no Secret Service budget costs, no banks or bank vaults, no armored trucks with armed guards lugging money bags... I could go on but I'll stop.

To address from a different angle, the phenomenon where you say electricity is being "wasted" to produce a bitcoin is analogous to the creation of a US dollar. Not to the using of it or acquiring of it. You can buy and acquire a bitcoin fairly quickly and cheaply, CPU/electricity-wise. Much more so than if you had to "mine" it. Much like dollars. Much cheaper/easer/faster to "buy" a dollar than to construct one out of thin air. (A legal one, anyway.)

Re: 1 bitcoin worth more than dollar

#70

Post by hristov » Thu, Feb 10, 2011, 6:41 AM UTC

svrocks wrote: post #45

I really like the idea, but I have a question about how transaction growth can be sustained once all 21MM bitcoins have been generated. In order to support borrowing/lending IMO you need an increasing supply of currency. Otherwise where will the interest on debt come from? The only other type of non-inflating "currency system" I can think of is the market for collectibles (baseball cards, limited edition artwork, etc…

You are entirely correct. This will eventually develop all the problems associated with a strictly limited currency. If a nation's economy was purely based on bitcoins, one would expect that economy to quickly grind to a halt as people start hoarding their bitcoins instead of investing them in businesses, etc. (BTW something like this is currently happening to the world with gold).

However, I doubt any economy will be purely based on bitcoins. If successful, the bitcoin will merely be a useful way to do painless and anonymous internet transactions, and not the only money out there. And if bitcoins get too rare for internet transactions (because people are hoarding them) it would be very easy for someone else to start another bitcoin-like currency.