Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency

[Fau Teixeira]

My main thing with bitcoin is whether or not we'll ever get to the point where the primary intention is to spend it, rather than simply to play it like a future with the intention of converting it to USD.

The single biggest help for its stability as a currency would be regular, encouraged acceptance at major online retailers.

the chineese place near me takes bitcoin as a form of payment for online orders

[Tenshot13]

One of the companies doing cool things is Ripple.  They are actually implementing feeless, instant money transfers, and are working with MoneyGrahm and Western Union.  A lot of crypto people don't like them because they're a banker's company and bitcoin is all about getting away from banks, but it does have a realistic, actual world use.

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

John Oliver

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=g6iDZspbRMg

[fyo]

John Oliver

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=g6iDZspbRMg

That was surprisingly cogent. I fully expected to come away disappointed and disgusted, but that was a pretty solid piece. Of course, it skirted a lot of the typical problems with bicoin and blockchain reporting by not actually trying to explain what they are or how they work, but in a way that was the strength of the piece. Most people don't need to know, just like most people don't need to know how an internal combustion engine works, or the inner working of the NYSE.

It is worth noting that scams can be made using just about anything and a little bit of critical thinking goes a long way. Some of the scams described in the segment were so outrageously obvious that it boggles the mind. One type of scam surprisingly not covered was the "exit scam". Those can be a whole lot harder to see through than crazy "we're changing the world, bro" schemes. Basically, know who you are giving your money to. An online presence, however slick, should never be sufficient.

As basically on big PSA, the piece could also have touched on one aspect of bitcoins that has burned a lot of people: If you hand over your bitcoins, you don't own any bitcoins. If you store "your" bitcoins in a "wallet" owned by some company, YOU don't own any bitcoins. You have an IOU from a company which may or may not be worth anything. As I said, though, the strength of the piece was at least partly its simplicity and going down that particular rabbit hole might have been too much.

[Phishfan]

Check out this story: Bitcoin Could Become Illegal Almost Everywhere, After Shocking Discovery in The Blockchain http://flip.it/BCO4nJ from Flipboard

Here is a pretty compelling reason to stay away. It seems the blockchain contains links to child porn. I am a novice to all this but thought I'd share

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

Wouldn't surprise me if at some point cyber currency becomes illegal, but not because of embedded links, but because its primary application is to aid illegal activities, black market, tax invasion etc.

[Tenshot13]

Wouldn't surprise me if at some point cyber currency becomes illegal, but not because of embedded links, but because its primary application is to aid illegal activities, black market, tax invasion etc.

Doubt it, as black market dealings have been addressed by numerous governments.  Crypto was discussed at G20 with positive results.  Even the U.S. has acknowledge that crypto does have a future and isn't going away.

[Dave Gray]

Bitcoin was 9800 in the day of this thread being started.
Today, it's at 37,500.

[masterfins]

Bitcoin was 9800 in the day of this thread being started.
Today, it's at 37,500.

It was relatively worth the same two years ago (Jan 2020), with a value of approximately $8500.00.  In the 4th quarter of 2020 it started taking off, along with a bunch of cryptos, reaching a high of about $67,000 just a little over two months ago.  Now with the big selloff last week who knows where this will go.  I do believe Bitcoin is the one crypto currency that will survive.

[masterfins]

Over the last couple years I have been trying to figure out what exactly Bitcoins are, and have yet to really get an intelligent explanation.  Outside of "investing" in them, how do you get a bitcoin? Is there a place to exchange hard currency to buy a bitcoin, and more importantly how would one convert a bitcoin back into a hard currency?  From what information I have read it seems a bitcoin is just some sort of encrypted number saved on your hardrive or thumbdrive; it seems in this day and age someone could steal this information or create a bogus bitcoin.  Who is the bitcoin treasury that creates and identifies whether a bitcoin is real?  For all of these reasons I just can't bring myself to invest in them.

I have learned more about Bitcoin since this post of mine almost four years ago.  The first being when they talk about "mining", or effectively creating the value, it's done by owning large computer server farms which process data.  So if you own a large computer server farm and process transactions you are "paid" in Bitcoins that then have a value.  Two side notes, one I recently watched a news report were environmentalist were complaining about these server farms because they use a lot of electricity and some are run by coal plants that have started up again.  I don't really care about this, if you don't want energy live like the Amish, but I doubt any of these complainers would actually do that.  Then the second is that someone in my locality, that is extremely wealthy, announced plans recently that he was going to build a multi-million dollar server farm in order to mine Bitcoins.  Knowing of the environmentalist complaints he also plans to build a solar panel farm to power the computer farm.

The other thing I learned about Bitcoins since 2018, is that Bitcoin installed ATM machines all over the country, so that people with Bitcoins could convert it to US currency by making a withdrawal from one of these ATMs.  To me this makes it "real", and sustainable in my opinion.

[Dave Gray]

The environmental concerns are totally valid.  It's not a "live like the Amish" thing.  It's that it uses a ton of energy to create bitcoin.  That is inherently bad for a lot of reasons.  There are other cryptos that don't require that, which could be better for their future.

[masterfins]

The environmental concerns are totally valid.  It's not a "live like the Amish" thing.  It's that it uses a ton of energy to create bitcoin.  That is inherently bad for a lot of reasons.  There are other cryptos that don't require that, which could be better for their future.

Maybe I don't understand it, and please let me know, but aren't these computer servers running anyways to process internet flow of data anyways?  So are the owners of these servers generating income (in the form of Bitcoin) for handling these data transactions for us?  If these server farms went away wouldn't that slow the flow of data around the world, and perhaps create an expense to users in other ways?

How do other cryptos generate their initial currency if not from the way Bitcoin does?

[Dave Gray]

Maybe I don't understand it, and please let me know, but aren't these computer servers running anyways to process internet flow of data anyways?  So are the owners of these servers generating income (in the form of Bitcoin) for handling these data transactions for us?  If these server farms went away wouldn't that slow the flow of data around the world, and perhaps create an expense to users in other ways?

How do other cryptos generate their initial currency if not from the way Bitcoin does?

I'm not an expert, but here's how I understand it.

Bitcoin is "harvested" by computers doing complex calculations and discovering or calculating the next coin....think of it like a computer finding out the next digit of pi....

Because bitcoin is so valuable, mining is valuable, so people (mostly in other countries) are buying up whatever computers they can and running them all day and night to try to mine for the next coin.  That's adding a ton of waste, not only in electricity, but also in parts -- as well as causing an issue with the supply chain, as there aren't enough microchips to go around.  These aren't computers being used for other things that just happen to be mining for bitcoin on the side -- these are big rooms, specifically filled with computers, just to mine for coins.



The next part, I don't really understand, but some of these other, more environmental options, don't require actual mining....but something along the lines of you proving that you have the resources to mine for it, and then they award the next coin based on that....something to that effect.  There isn't actual computer mining.

[Pappy13]

And when bitcoin fails they'll be selling all those video cards for pennies on the dollar which is why I'm secretly hoping for failure. Sorry Dave.

[Fau Teixeira]

And when bitcoin fails they'll be selling all those video cards for pennies on the dollar which is why I'm secretly hoping for failure. Sorry Dave.

it's the "i hope real estate crashes again so a regular person can afford to buy their 1st home" approach .. i get it