Bitcoin mining made easy

[klapmongool]

So by what means should money be made? I advocate for the free markets deciding the value, what do you advocate for?

Bitcoin is the first technology since ever which allows for the people to take back the control from the leeching banking class.

I think the free market mechanism should decide value. You keep confusing the currency used for transactions with the goods bought with that currency. The choosing of the currency is a meta-condition for this free market mechanism. If a free market mechanism is applied to currencies there are massive exchanges (wins and losses) of 'value' from one person to another. Since most people can't afford to 'play' with their value (income from their jobs, savings, etc) like this, because they risk becoming insta-poor (patent pending) due to the market choosing a different currency. That is just unacceptable.

[Cheesecan]

Exactly what klap said. Bitcoin now has become a get-rich-quick scheme. Ordinary decent working folk don't want to gamble their hard earned savings away. This leaves the people with quick and easy money, like criminals and people who inherited fortunes and never worked a day in their life.

Bitcoin is simultaneously a criminal's and upper class man's dream. It can't be for the working class - bitcoins don't buy anything really unless you exchange them. So much for the leftist / liberal dream of world peace.

UPDATE: Bitcoin is now crashing. Here we go!

[SinbadEV]

based on that graph I'd say the "functional" value of a bitcoin is around $300-$350... currency speculation always messes with value on international exchanges so I'd say this "crash" is actually a self-correction.

If bitcoin goes back to a nice steady (unexciting) incline I feel like there's a good chance it could be used for commerce... but it's going to take a while for the "scare" of a bubble to ware off.

[varikonniemi]

A crash ends down. It does not bounce back 50% in 2 days. What bounces back are corrections.

I guess this is not unexciting enough yet

Here is one very interesting upcoming event: http://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comme ... _bitcoins/

Perhaps we should try and set up a Bitcoin tournament in Spring also?

[very_bad_soldier]

A crash ends down. It does not bounce back 50% in 2 days. What bounces back are corrections.

Afterwards its always easy to explain... It still lost 25% of its value which is quite a heavy "correction".

[varikonniemi]

Crash
Correction
Bubble

[very_bad_soldier]

I personally dont think the term we use to describe it is very important. What do you think about the 25% - 50% drop? Did you expect it? Did you sell your coins?

[varikonniemi]

Yes, i am daytrading/gambling with 1/3 of my holdings. Selling on the way up and buying on the way down

Arbitraging is also fun, but is not so easy/profitable anymore.

[smoth]

Yes, i am daytrading/gambling with 1/3 of my holdings. Selling on the way up and buying on the way down

excellent.

[varikonniemi]

CNN: Can Bitcoin replace PayPal?

"Credit cards were designed in the 1950s and were never designed for the Internet. It leads to issues like identity theft and payment fraud."

"For small businesses that have unique items, it really opens up their business to a truly worldwide customer base ... It's going to become the default payment system for the internet by the end of this decade,"

Another from CNN: Bitcoin reshaping future of money

"We will now see payments and money flow on the Internet in the same way that content flows on the Internet and in the same way that images flow on the Internet,"

I think the outlook is quite positive when such articles are on the front page of CNN. Not a hit piece void of any researched facts like in the beginning.

Something very interesting from a recent keiser report:

Finance minister of Cyprus is studying a proposal for turning Cyprus into a Bitcoin hub and for example, allowing Bitcoin to be traded on the official Cyprus stock exchange

And finally to end this quote bonanza, here is the financial times giving all the doubters an advice:

The moment has come to take Bitcoin seriously.

[klapmongool]

http://www.businessinsider.com/927-peop ... ns-2013-12

[Cheesecan]

On the other hand:


I'm starting to think that digital currencies must be valued in the same way social media companies are - by the number of active users and/or trade volume. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts.

[gajop]

@Cheesecan, that really just shows how unfair bitcoin is, when it's many orders of magnitude less fair than the already broken US financial system.
Will not endorse.

[Cheesecan]

Don't forget there's still 9 million bitcoins left to mine. Also remember that the US has an unproportional share of world wealth to begin with.

That said, I'm sure the bitcoin wealthy people also made tons of money in "real" currencies selling mining rigs, to drive up prices up further (lest nobody would go for it). It's just like Klondike - people selling spades got richer than the poor sobs who went digging. A lot of them also put their mining rigs on sale for bitcoin, that drove prices up because the market is so small. It's a nice scheme .

[tzaeru]

It'll stack up to a small group of people like any other currency. It'd be naive to think otherwise. Basic understanding of how humans at large handle money, how money can be stacked, and how economies work, seems to be at loss with the most absurdly utopian visions regarding BitCoin.

Anyhow, in other news: Bitcoin Proves The Libertarian Idea Of Paradise Would Be Hell On Earth

A little over the top wordings there and here, but myeah. Libertarian economical ideas are really twisted and tend to be based on "proof" that has been rebutted time after again.

[varikonniemi]

For a very long time i had to every month open a letter, read&type in all the necessary info to make a transfer.

Then after a long wait they managed to make it electronic. So now i just have to log into the bank using multiple passwords, and finally copypaste the info from my email into the bank's service. Still a major annoyance every time...

Using Bitcoin they could just send me an address, and amount to pay. That's it!

I see you having grand thoughts about what is wrong with Bitcoin, but you offer no solutions. I have similar thoughts, and my solution was to hedge over to Litecoin mining. It fixes both major unfairness factors mentioned here. But the truth is that only Bitcoin has any mainstream penetration, so it remains the USD of altcoins.

[Anarchid]

But the truth is that only Bitcoin has any mainstream penetration, so it remains the USD of altcoins.

Do you think/agree that cryptocurrencies are a winner takes all market?

[varikonniemi]

No, if mining LTC gives me 25x more return than mining BTC, there clearly are more than one significant player out there.

edit: One aspect which may mix the game up is the miner wars. Bitcoin is currently considered secure because 51% attacking it would be ridiculously expensive. But any other altcoin using SHA can not be considered secure, since hundreds of people in the world own so much hashing power that they can 51% attack successfully.

Litecoin is another game entirely since it uses scrypt.

Perhaps we will see a SHA altcoin and a GPU altcoin duopoly?

[cheapsheep]

Bitcoin might be Netscape

[varikonniemi]

Of course every bubble is slightly different, but they are similar. I won’t go into any economics, but it’s fundamentally impossible for everyone to sustainably make xx,xxx% gains.

Invest in Bitcoin with the expectation that it will not make you profits, it will only protect you from inflation and provide you with capabilities that you did not have access to before. You will probably not be disappointed, and there is a chance you will be very glad in the future.