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What Is Bitcoin? A Step-By-Step Guide for Beginners

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Re: What Is Bitcoin? A Step-By-Step Guide for Beginners

#21

Post by vbezhenar »

shuntress wrote: post #8

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.

Re: What Is Bitcoin? A Step-By-Step Guide for Beginners

#22

Post by Lordarminius »

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) .

Re: What Is Bitcoin? A Step-By-Step Guide for Beginners

#23

Post by saalweachter »

Lordarminius wrote: post #22

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) .

No.

Re: What Is Bitcoin? A Step-By-Step Guide for Beginners

#24

Post by CmdrSprinkles »

Lordarminius wrote: post #22

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) .

These days: not reasonably (more on that later). The computations are the kinds that traditional computers just don't do great on (intentionally, in both directions).

In the past: Yup. That is why many server admins for the big clusters learned what bitcoin was. Either to do that themselves or to yell at the people who were trying to.

But this is (arguably) a problem as certain geopolitical regions have a LOT of miners and resources which give them a significant advantage with respect to mining new coins. Think of it as increased probability rather than a guaranteed return. But, more importantly, it arguably gives them too much control over the system. Do some research on the subject, but I am sure that if I gave you two guesses you would get it.

Re: What Is Bitcoin? A Step-By-Step Guide for Beginners

#25

Post by Lordarminius »

saalweachter wrote: post #23
Lordarminius wrote: post #22

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) .

No.

> No.

Explain please?

Re: What Is Bitcoin? A Step-By-Step Guide for Beginners

#26

Post by shuntress »

m3ta wrote: post #13
shuntress wrote: post #8

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…

Bitcoins can be split and divided up to 8 decimal points. You can own 0.00000001 BTC. Additionally, the software could be forked to allow division of BTC to a more granular amount than 0.00000001, meaning if all but 1 BTC were lost the entire world could still transact with that last singular BTC by dividing it up into smaller units.

So, eventually everyone will be trading with yocto-satoshis but I guess that doesn't really change anything.

A little bit like how a 'Calorie' is actually a kilo-calorie.

Re: What Is Bitcoin? A Step-By-Step Guide for Beginners

#27

Post by niij »

CmdrSprinkles wrote: post #10
shuntress wrote: post #8

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…

This is incorrect. Bitcoins will eventually all be moved. There is a limit on how many can be mined. At that point, the "miners" will no longer be finding new Bitcoins, but harvesting the transaction fees (which take computational power to verify)

Re: What Is Bitcoin? A Step-By-Step Guide for Beginners

#29

Post by digler999 »

Lordarminius wrote: post #25
saalweachter wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No.

> No. Explain please?

Same reason a CPU can't compete with a GPU when floating point math is involved. GPUs evolved to do one thing and do it very well, in parallel. CPUs are swiss army knives. It's like comparing a swiss army knife to an electric meat slicer at a deli. Bitcoin miners built their own chips (called ASIC's, application-specific IC's) just to do hashing.

Re: What Is Bitcoin? A Step-By-Step Guide for Beginners

#30

Post by dagw »

Lordarminius wrote: post #22

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) .

Do these machines have top of the line GPUs that you can use? If not you are basically screwed. Using even a modern fast CPU you are literally looking at, at most, a penny a year if you run all core flat out 24/7. Even 'normal' $200-300 GPUs you won't do much better.
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