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I Bought a Bitcoin

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Re: I Bought a Bitcoin

#51

Post by downandout »

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the issues that the author had with Bitinstant. The API error indicated that the service - allegedly one of the largest and most reputable Bitcoin sellers in the US - had a total of $16.48 in its possession at the time and could not deliver his order. His experience is not unique - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=128314.2660

My guess is that the next big Bitcoin implosion story will be about Bitinstant. Something is rotten over there.

Re: I Bought a Bitcoin

#52

Post by cperciva »

hp50g wrote: post #50
AlexDanger wrote: post #43

Is there any evidence of nation states or three letter agencies dipping their toes into Bitcoin? Its seems like a perfect solution for the CIA when they need to move money quickly and discretely to 'difficult' regions or individuals. I know that Gavin Andresen (unofficial leader of Bitcoin movement) did a talk for the CIA in 2011. But I dont know if their interest was about catching bad guys, using it for themselves…

NSA use FPGAs. Even they can't afford ASICs unless its a supercomputer CPU I.e IBM power and they aren't all that quick compared to an FPGA.

Are you sure about that? There have definitely been times in the past when the NSA rented fab capacity from Intel.

Re: I Bought a Bitcoin

#53

Post by Nursie »

etherael wrote: post #26
bumbledraven wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[bitcoin] is no different from any currency or monetary commodity with no use value No, bitcoin is different insofar as there is no powerful entity that taxes people and requires payment in bitcoin. This makes it even less valuable than currencies that DO have that feature.

That's hilarious, do you even realise what you're saying? You consider it a feature of a currency that there is a violent extortionate power engaged in parasitism of the monetary base.

"You consider it a feature of a currency that there is a violent extortionate power engaged in parasitism of the monetary base."

If by that you mean a democratic government empowered to stabilise the currency via a variety of means, including supply inflation...

Hell yes that's a feature.

Re: I Bought a Bitcoin

#54

Post by hp50g »

cperciva wrote: post #52
hp50g wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NSA use FPGAs. Even they can't afford ASICs unless its a supercomputer CPU I.e IBM power and they aren't all that quick compared to an FPGA.

Are you sure about that? There have definitely been times in the past when the NSA rented fab capacity from Intel.

Up to 2008, 100% sure. AFAIK, they were doing primarily mixed mode analogue as this stuff is harder to do inside an FPGA. I worked for one of their nefarious suppliers for a bit.

Re: I Bought a Bitcoin

#55

Post by etherael »

anigbrowl wrote: post #48
etherael wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it is; There is no powerful entity (violent extortionate power) that taxes people (engaged in parasitism) and requires payment in bitcoin. (the monetary base in question) It's just in statist apologist clothing. Monetary bases exist on any money, whether that is government issued or otherwise, to insinuate otherwise is to imply that there is no money outside that issued by the state, and that has never been and i…

You have misunderstood the grandparent post. His point was that since states exist as a matter of fact and want to have their taxes paid, Bitcoin is less useful than currencies which are acceptable legal tender for that purpose. For one thing, you'll have to pay a small conversion premium on top of the debt you're servicing. I don't expect you to agree, whenever I have noticed any comment from you it has without exce…

> You have misunderstood the grandparent post. His point was that since states exist as a matter of fact and want to have their taxes paid, Bitcoin is less useful than currencies which are acceptable legal tender for that purpose. For one thing, you'll have to pay a small conversion premium on top of the debt you're servicing.

No, I follow perfectly well, the mugger demands his due in a specific form of paper, therefore that specific form of paper is more valuable than one in which similar predation does not take place, that's precisely why I disagree that it's actually feature.

> You're calling me strident and shrill, when you're characterizing all government as violent and extortionate? OK, if it makes you feel better.

That's not a characterisation, it's a simple fact. Government is a monopoly of force, there are no governments in existence who do not use that monopoly of force for extortion.

> Monetary bases that are not government created are essentially worth only their commodity value

As opposed to absolutely nothing in the event of the failure of the backing state.

Re: I Bought a Bitcoin

#56

Post by joeyo »

Mahn wrote: post #47
paulhodge wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First question, yes, I think you'd be talking about a timespan of months before seeing a reward as a lone miner. Joining a pool is pretty painless though. You just create an account, and probably give them an email address, and then start running GUIMiner or something. You also give them a Bitcoin address to send the rewards. That's it, no other personal information needed.

How does that work? I guess the resulting bitcoins are divided between the people who participate in the pool of there's any success?

That's right. There are a variety of different schemes that have been devised by the pool operators to enact fair compensation for the pool workers. Most pools pay proportional to the amount of work that the worker accomplishes with a fee for the operator. But there are many of tweaks and variations, some of which are to deal with bad actors (pool skipping) or to allow for a steady pay out to the workers in the face of the unpredictable variability in time between coins that the pool successfully mines.

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

Re: I Bought a Bitcoin

#57

Post by etherael »

Nursie wrote: post #53
etherael wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's hilarious, do you even realise what you're saying? You consider it a feature of a currency that there is a violent extortionate power engaged in parasitism of the monetary base.

"You consider it a feature of a currency that there is a violent extortionate power engaged in parasitism of the monetary base." If by that you mean a democratic government empowered to stabilise the currency via a variety of means, including supply inflation... Hell yes that's a feature.

> If by that you mean a democratic government (violent extortionate power) empowered to stabilise the currency via a variety of means, including supply inflation (engaged in parasitism of the monetary base)...

It's funny how many different ways there are to paint over the underlying unpleasant reality of the situation with pretty words designed to lend a veneer of legitimacy to the enterprise. It's almost like there's an uncomfortable underlying truth that many people would prefer you would not state in such a blunt fashion.

Re: I Bought a Bitcoin

#58

Post by Nursie »

etherael wrote: post #57
Nursie wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You consider it a feature of a currency that there is a violent extortionate power engaged in parasitism of the monetary base." If by that you mean a democratic government empowered to stabilise the currency via a variety of means, including supply inflation... Hell yes that's a feature.

> If by that you mean a democratic government (violent extortionate power) empowered to stabilise the currency via a variety of means, including supply inflation (engaged in parasitism of the monetary base)... It's funny how many different ways there are to paint over the underlying unpleasant reality of the situation with pretty words designed to lend a veneer of legitimacy to the enterprise. It's almost like there'…

No, what's funny is how differently people see the world.

You see a violent extortionate power, I see a cooperative, democratic government. You see parasitism of the monetary base, I see an important stabilising role in the common currency that keeps the economy ticking.

These are not words I use to gloss over "the underlying unpleasant reality", there is no "uncomfortable underlying truth that many people would prefer you would not state in such a blunt fashion". We genuinely have different views on these things.

This is one of the things I find so fascinating (and childish) about internet libertarians and objectivists - they assume that everyone that doesn't agree with them is either actively evil, totally deluded, or just hasn't been exposed to their self-evidently correct way of thinking yet.

I bet it never occurs to you that other people think about the very same things you do but can come to completely different conclusions?

Re: I Bought a Bitcoin

#59

Post by zanny »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #23
Mahn wrote: post #4

I keep wondering whether I should be buying bitcoins now, but I have mixed feelings about it. I'm pretty sure its value will continue going up for a while, but I guess I'm still skeptical.

If you want to buy because you think the value will go up for no other reason than that the value has been going up then you're just participating in a speculative bubble. You might as well be gambling.

If stock markets and currency markets have taught us everything, to some degree, human behavior is slightly less random than a shuffled deck or rolled set of dice.

Just a bit, though. Not much.

Re: I Bought a Bitcoin

#60

Post by zanny »

contingencies wrote: post #38
etherael wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's hilarious, do you even realise what you're saying? You consider it a feature of a currency that there is a violent extortionate power engaged in parasitism of the monetary base.

To be fair, it is a historically significant motivator in the adoption of new centralized currencies. On the balance, however, we are shifting away from that with globalization and the ridiculous logistical requirements of such an approach (eg. every new US president doesn't de-circulate, debase and re-issue USD.) These days, as long as you have liquidity that allows money to viably function as one or more of a mediu…

> To be fair, it is a historically significant motivator in the adoption of new centralized currencies.

Historically, a new monetary base needed significant printing infrastructure, law enforcement to prevent its counterfeiting (if it is a paper and coin currency, which is effectively every currency ever) and you needed to artificially control its reproduction. That requires a government. That usually is associated with taxation.

I think you are looking at the causal relationship in the wrong way. Old paper money required artificial limiters to prevent anyone from printing it and using it. With bitcoin, the trust system of the block chain means to "counterfeit" bitcoins you need as much computational power as a majority of the swarm.

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