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Bitcoin $500

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Re: Bitcoin $500

#61
post #56
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You cannot make bitcoins with a shitty CPU, or a shitty GPU. You can try, but the difficulty is too high, and is always increasing Yes you can. It's called pooled mining. http://mining.bitcoin.cz/

@Jach: Seriously, you can. Just based on your comment alone: > an i7 with free electricity mining all the time at 8 MH/s would make about 9 US cents in a month This means at the current rate you will make 0.09/470 = 0.000191489362 BTC = 19148.9362 satoshi Oh, and the calculator you linked to is crap, it only gives 3 significant digits of BTC, which is quickly becoming relevant.

Okay, in the hypothetical world where 1 satoshi is worth some huge amount of USD more than it presently is, if you suck up the electricity cost now (which I believe would be less than $1 USD per day for an i7) you can get a few satoshi that may one day make that up-front cost worth it...

Whether you can actually get a single satoshi from a pool is another story. If the pool uses PPLNS, you might not ever. I think most would object to you for being misleading. If you want bitcoins, buy them, or get an ASIC miner and don't use a sucky-ass CPU or GPU.

Re: Bitcoin $500

#62
post #56
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You cannot make bitcoins with a shitty CPU, or a shitty GPU. You can try, but the difficulty is too high, and is always increasing Yes you can. It's called pooled mining. http://mining.bitcoin.cz/

@Jach: Seriously, you can. Just based on your comment alone: > an i7 with free electricity mining all the time at 8 MH/s would make about 9 US cents in a month This means at the current rate you will make 0.09/470 = 0.000191489362 BTC = 19148.9362 satoshi Oh, and the calculator you linked to is crap, it only gives 3 significant digits of BTC, which is quickly becoming relevant.

@Jach:

I specifically addressed electricity costs in my original comment.

My point was, you can make BTC even with a shitty CPU. Whether it's worth it is a different question.

Re: Bitcoin $500

#63
post #20

I remember trying to buy some BTC on MtGox for fun, the last time the price crashed. What an unspeakably horrible service. I thought I was in for hundreds of dollars over budget, but it turns out that not a single BTC was purchased at all. I only intended to buy ~$50 worth, so I would only have earnt something like $200, but for the love of everything, stay the hell away from MtGox. It's insane how unprofessional the…

MtGox was handling 90% of exchange last year, but now - only 25-30%. Bitstamp is huge now, and Bitcoin-Central.net is easy to use (although it hasn't regained it's past volume yet).

Just signed up with Bitstamp to try it out, but why don't they accept VISA deposits?

Re: Bitcoin $500

#64
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> now it must definitely be too late to invest So said people at $3, $30, $100, etc.

I came across this in my chat log history today, on a friend who I rarely message. http://i.imgur.com/EaAVLYZ.png

[deleted]

Re: Bitcoin $500

#65
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MtGox was handling 90% of exchange last year, but now - only 25-30%. Bitstamp is huge now, and Bitcoin-Central.net is easy to use (although it hasn't regained it's past volume yet).

Just signed up with Bitstamp to try it out, but why don't they accept VISA deposits?

Bitcoin is not reversible after 10 minutes, credit card transaction is not reversible after 90 days in some cases. Guess how much fraud will happen to anyone selling Bitcoin with PayPal, Visa or similarly reversible payment mechanism.

The pain in the ass with buying Bitcoins is due to a simple thing: you never own government currency, you always ask someone else for permission to use it and it's always based on human decision. Gold and Bitcoin you can own. Paper bills you can own to some degree (they print more of them every minute, thus taxing your savings all the time). Digital virtual currency USD or EUR in your virtual bank account - you don't own. Banks can even reverse SWIFT/SEPA transfers if they want.

Re: Bitcoin $500

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> now it must definitely be too late to invest So said people at $3, $30, $100, etc.

That works the other way too...people who invest during a bubble are quick to say "it's not a bubble!" - I'm not saying this is a bubble (I won't pretend to know enough or have clairvoyance), but it's not a valid defense to say something isn't overvalued just because people had said that at prices it has since eclipsed.

Indeed. Saying that it's too late or that it's just a bubble means nothing, because the truth is that it could be either of those things, and no one will know which until everyone knows.

Re: Bitcoin $500

#67
No matter your take on bitcoin's long-term viability (or lack thereof), it can hardly be argued that this isn't damn interesting to watch unfold.

A cryptocurrency with zero backing that exists only in digital form is now worth many billions of dollars. Is it a bubble? Will this foment a currency revolution of sorts? If it doesn't crash, how will governments react? If it does crash, what will replace it? Obviously there is a demand for a decentralized currency, and as more people realize that something like this is possible, I can only see demand for it going one way: up. Most people have never even heard of bitcoin; I've only talked to a few people in my own life who are even familiar with the word, and fewer still who know what it actually is. Yet with even such a small awareness, bitcoin's value has grown from zero to billions in a few years. Unless governments step in and find some way to put the kibosh on decentralized currencies in general, it seems unlikely that demand is going to shrink as awareness continues to increase. We're so used to governments essentially owning currencies that it is very difficult to imagine a world where they don't, but obviously, if cryptocurrencies take off in a big way, the implications for the future are profound.

Re: Bitcoin $500

#68

No matter your take on bitcoin's long-term viability (or lack thereof), it can hardly be argued that this isn't damn interesting to watch unfold. A cryptocurrency with zero backing that exists only in digital form is now worth many billions of dollars. Is it a bubble? Will this foment a currency revolution of sorts? If it doesn't crash, how will governments react? If it does crash, what will replace it? Obviously the…

1. Any money is a bubble in a sense. It's a feedback loop of speculation that the commodity at hand will be widely accepted by other speculators in the future. The only basis for this speculation is that people need some money to trade. The money bubble pops only if there's some other, better commodity on the horizon that speculators may bet on. http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.fr/2013/04/bitcoin-...

2. Some governments are very supportive (at least, not intrusive): Germany, China, Hong Kong, Canada. In United States Bitcoin is effectively 90% forbidden already. Banks close accounts for Bitcoin businesses with no reason, regulatory approval is very slow and very-very expensive (need to get it from all states), past history of very aggressive raids on financial experiments.

Re: Bitcoin $500

#69
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just signed up with Bitstamp to try it out, but why don't they accept VISA deposits?

Bitcoin is not reversible after 10 minutes, credit card transaction is not reversible after 90 days in some cases. Guess how much fraud will happen to anyone selling Bitcoin with PayPal, Visa or similarly reversible payment mechanism. The pain in the ass with buying Bitcoins is due to a simple thing: you never own government currency, you always ask someone else for permission to use it and it's always based on human…

Thanks for the explanation. Food for thought in the second paragraph there...

Re: Bitcoin $500

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find that many companies related to Bitcoin are extremely unprofessional and they still run their businesses like 3 years ago when Bitcoin was just an internet novelty and not a real currency the way it is today. Just look at the latest Blockchain fiasco where the guy who runs the company got butthurt over some Reddit comments and got involved in a flame war. MtGox's lack of professionalism is just the tip of the i…

This is part of the scary naivete of Bitcoin boosters. It's as if how to set up and run computers for serious financial systems was never worked out by anyone before. There has to be a Bitcoin exchange that isn't run by clowns ... hasn't there?

I've had good experiences with CampBX. However' I've never met the people who run it, so I can't comment on their clownishness.
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