If you aren't on the cryptocurrency train then you're about to get left at the station

a reply to: Chadwickus

The problem at the moment as I understand it is Ethereum mining and people buying banks of graphics cards to mine them , it's all above my head to be honest but my wallet felt the effect of the Ethereum craze.

a reply to: gortex

Ripple looks to change all that.

No more mining and a centralised system.

a reply to: Chadwickus

So buy ripple currency?

XRP? honestly, I'm kinda lost on this stuff but if Google supports this new currency then chances are it'll take off.

Any clue where I can buy these XRPs?

originally posted by: Missmissie173
a reply to: coldkidc

This concept is difficult for me to understand. Is there a "Bitcoin for Dummies" or like info that you could recommend? Sorry to be so dense, but I am interested, just can't wrap my mind around it. Thanks for the heads-up! S&F.

The idea behind bitcoins is that instead of having bits of paper with serial numbers (paper currency), you have digital currency with digital serial numbers (bitcoins) stored as a long sequence of bits (>=256 random bits). These bitcoins can be exchanged between accounts. Every person trading bitcoins has an account. To make sure there isn't any accounting fraud a blockchain is used to keep track of all transactions between accounts. Everyone has a copy of this ledger and this has to be kept up to date before you can trade.

To make things a bit more fun, they allow people to "mine" for bitcoins, where somebody can try and test to see whether a particular serial number is valid. They apply a crpytographic hash function to each serial number and test if it is in a valid range, known as the "difficulty". This helps control any inflation that might happen. Users used to be able to mine for bitcoins using a standard desktop PC. Now there are all sorts of custom ASIC based hardware used to do mining in the range of Gigahashes a second.

This is only "virtual currency" as long as you are unable to buy items with it. But that is changing with currency exchanges accepting bitcoins and retailers allowing purchases with them. The biggest hazard is that the value of this currency can rise and fall suddenly like international exchange rates or stock market prices. There are terms like whales, dolphins and little fish. The value may drop suddenly because a large investor suddenly wants to move out of one market and into another. A group of invididual investors may come together suddenly cause the price to rise for their own benefit. Then there is the little guy who just has a few bit coins.

Now there are many other cryptocurrencies apart from Bitcoins; Ethereum, Solarcoins and others.

originally posted by: gortex
a reply to: Chadwickus

The problem at the moment as I understand it is Ethereum mining and people buying banks of graphics cards to mine them , it's all above my head to be honest but my wallet felt the effect of the Ethereum craze.

It is going insane. ASUS launches a motherboard with 19 PCI sockets, for 19 GPU's

www.pcper.com...

originally posted by: ManFromEurope
To me, this is a pyramid scheme. Cryptocurrency is only of value if enough people believe that it has value. So every believer in her/his currency wants to have more followers so the currency gains more value.

I do not believe. It is a typical "get rich quick without effort" thing. How many of those, in your personal experience, have ever worked?

To be fair, USD is a pyramid scheme, too, which only has value of people believe it has value.

I mean, look at fractional reserve lending and tell me this isn't a scam.

Once a digital coin is established, there are a limited number of those coins- they have a certain rarity to them.
There are entire countries embracing this tech as a currency, to help combat their own failing Ponzi scheme currencies... Which is making the demand go up.

I don't think they'll every let something they have this little control over replace USD, but believe me when I tell you they're trying to find their replacement, and it won't be as free as cash or as anonymous as current crypto.

Meanwhile, I do plan to make a few bucks on the rise and fall off current options

Cashless society is a COMPLETELY controlled society.

EVERY SINGLE TRANSACTION WOULD BE TRACKED! Even the five bucks you lent your pal the other day.

It's amazing to me that people are on board with this crap. Technology isn't the cure all for EVERYTHING!

Good luck to you too.

Hmmm..think I’ll use my bitcoin to fill up my car and go pick up my 100 new GPUs...oh,wait /s. Seriously, get back to me about your gimmick “currency” when I can trade it for all goods/services available.

Any of you who get taken in these schemes deserve ecactly what you get.

a reply to: Lab4Us

uhhh anyone who is holding bitcoin right now is getting rich not taken

originally posted by: toysforadults
a reply to: Lab4Us

uhhh anyone who is holding bitcoin right now is getting rich not taken

Which is exactly how bubbles work right up till they burst.

a reply to: ScepticScot

thats what they said when it went up the first time

originally posted by: ScepticScot

originally posted by: toysforadults
a reply to: Lab4Us

uhhh anyone who is holding bitcoin right now is getting rich not taken

Which is exactly how bubbles work right up till they burst.

Does anyone not see the irony here?
USD is in a bubble, which will have to burst eventually.

When it does, our good pals the goober squad will come out with a government backed (and tracked/taxed) digital currency to stem the collapse of the country.

Meanwhile, we're seeing incredible adoption rates of this relatively new, mostly unregulated digital currency.
Since it's rate limited on production,(they can't just print more, it create it out of this air with skeezy lending practice) high adoption rates will mean high demand.

With high demand comes high price.

Anything is a gamble, even sitting on a pile of USD in the bank, or a pile of silver coins in the mattress... But if you've got some cash to gamble with, betting that all major crypto currency will at least double in USD value over the next four months seems like a pretty safe bet.

My modest investment from two months ago has already doubled, and today I'm thinking about taking out my initial investment to be safe- but with countries adopting block chain currency, it's not going back down any time soon, so I'm also considering doubling down for the ride.

Just never bet what you can't afford to lose.

Just imo.

originally posted by: ScepticScot
I have used electricity to type this post. Do you think that gives this post value?

If it costs you hundreds or thousands of dollars to generate the post, I'm sure you'd think twice about creating it. And if after you created it had many nice cryptographic properties that allow you to claim ownership of it or transfer ownership of it then you might find the utility of it to have some value.

originally posted by: EternalShadow
Cashless society is a COMPLETELY controlled society.

EVERY SINGLE TRANSACTION WOULD BE TRACKED! Even the five bucks you lent your pal the other day.

It's amazing to me that people are on board with this crap. Technology isn't the cure all for EVERYTHING!

There is such a thing as anonymous cryptocoins. Even Bitcoin is anonymous to some degree even though every transaction is recorded on the blockchain, they still don't know who made those transactions without knowing who owns what addresses.

originally posted by: ChaoticOrder

originally posted by: ScepticScot
I have used electricity to type this post. Do you think that gives this post value?

If it costs you hundreds or thousands of dollars to generate the post, I'm sure you'd think twice about creating it. And if after you created it had many nice cryptographic properties that allow you to claim ownership of it or transfer ownership of it then you might find the utility of it to have some value.

Electricity is a cost. It has no bearing on the value of the end product.

The idea that bitcoin or any currency has value based on the cost to create it is ridiculously Wrong.

originally posted by: toysforadults
a reply to: ScepticScot

thats what they said when it went up the first time

A statement that can also be applied to pretty much any bubble ever.

originally posted by: ScepticScot

originally posted by: Alien Abduct

originally posted by: ManFromEurope
To me, this is a pyramid scheme. Cryptocurrency is only of value if enough people believe that it has value. So every believer in her/his currency wants to have more followers so the currency gains more value.

I do not believe. It is a typical "get rich quick without effort" thing. How many of those, in your personal experience, have ever worked?

You don't seem to know much at all about bitcoin. It takes computing power to decrypt (mine) the bitcoins. A LOT of computing. Which means a LOT of electricity. That alone gives bitcoin a base value. Your statement is actually kinda funny. In what ways is crypto currency the same as a pyramid scheme?

How does using electricity give bitcoin value?

I have used electricity to type this post. Do you think that gives this post value?

To "mine" bitcoins, you are basically are looking for 250 million needles in a haystack of 1.158 x 10^77 bales of hay. No different from trying to find gold coins in the center of the Atlantic simply by swimming around. A desktop PC can try a few million every second. GPU's can go into a few thousand million every second. Some people who do "random" hash attempts with a PC are lucky to find one bitcoin after several months.

Because they are hard to find, and that they can be exchanged for some items, that gives them value.

originally posted by: lordcomac

originally posted by: ScepticScot

originally posted by: toysforadults
a reply to: Lab4Us

uhhh anyone who is holding bitcoin right now is getting rich not taken

Which is exactly how bubbles work right up till they burst.

Does anyone not see the irony here?
USD is in a bubble, which will have to burst eventually.

When it does, our good pals the goober squad will come out with a government backed (and tracked/taxed) digital currency to stem the collapse of the country.

Meanwhile, we're seeing incredible adoption rates of this relatively new, mostly unregulated digital currency.
Since it's rate limited on production,(they can't just print more, it create it out of this air with skeezy lending practice) high adoption rates will mean high demand.

With high demand comes high price.

Anything is a gamble, even sitting on a pile of USD in the bank, or a pile of silver coins in the mattress... But if you've got some cash to gamble with, betting that all major crypto currency will at least double in USD value over the next four months seems like a pretty safe bet.

My modest investment from two months ago has already doubled, and today I'm thinking about taking out my initial investment to be safe- but with countries adopting block chain currency, it's not going back down any time soon, so I'm also considering doubling down for the ride.

Just never bet what you can't afford to lose.

Just imo.

Bitcoin has a limited supply however the very unregulated nature of it means that there is virtually no limit to the number of crypto currencies that can be created.

For the cast vast majority of transactions crypto currencies offer no benefits and a host of potential drawbacks so the demand very much is limited.

Don't get me wrong I do think crypto currrency has its place but the value of the main ones, bitcoin on particular, is being driven up by speculation not actual use value.

a reply to: RAY1990

The easiest way is to read, read and then read, quite a few forums should point you in the right direction.

Much easier for USD EURO etc too.

I've had to buy it starting with AUD.

a reply to: ScepticScot

The value of Bitcoin is of course determined only partially by how much it costs miners to generate coins, any free market will have speculators which cause the price to fluctuate away from the electrical cost of mining Bitcoins. If people find that Bitcoin has a lot of utility they will demand it and push the price up, for instance if they require the ability to send and receive money anywhere in the world with very little fees.

Many things in this world have a value based on how difficult they are to create. The cost of oil goes up as it gets harder to find and access, deep sea oil rigs require a lot of time and energy so the final cost of the oil is not the same as the cost of oil which is easily extracted. People used to carve huge stones into flat disks with a hole through the center and used those as currency because they were so hard to make.