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    Yeah. If you are kicking yourself about that, then consider it somewhat akin to buying a load of Apple shares just after they launched the Newton. It was an insane idea then and no-one, absolutely no-one had any idea that this is going to happen. As ursus says, BTC has gone up 16x in about a month based on... absolutely nothing. Something is going wrong.

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      Originally posted by Ginger Yellow View Post
      Conceptually, or in practice?
      IRL

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        All I really know about bitcoin is that there are meant to be a finite amount of them but until then you 'mine' them by getting computers to do sums. What happens when all of the BTC have been mined?

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          Technically it's usually GPUs that are used for mining, not CPUs.

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            Originally posted by Levin View Post
            All I really know about bitcoin is that there are meant to be a finite amount of them but until then you 'mine' them by getting computers to do sums. What happens when all of the BTC have been mined?
            The mining algorithm is designed to become exponentially harder as more bitcoins are mined. Eventually you'd be using all the energy in the universe to mine the next bitcoin.

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              More efficient for doing the calculations.
              Last edited by Snake Plissken; 08-12-2017, 11:38. Reason: Edit: At Reg

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                Originally posted by Reginald Christ
                Why's that?
                They're designed to efficiently do the sorts of calculation mining requires.

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                  It’s also worth noting that, unlike the Newton era purchaser of Apple shares, there is considerable uncertainty as to Ian’s acquaintance’s ability to cash out at something approximating reported prices.

                  The market is notoriously illiquid at times of stress and coins are stolen or disappear with some regularity.

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                    Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
                    The market is notoriously illiquid at times of stress and coins are stolen or disappear with some regularity.
                    Millions 'stolen' in NiceHash Bitcoin heist

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                      It’s also worth noting that, unlike the Newton era purchaser of Apple shares, there is considerable uncertainty as to Ian’s acquaintance’s ability to cash out at something approximating reported prices.
                      Not to mention the reported prices can vary by a staggering amount. Best execution is not a thing in this market.

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                        Apparently Bulgarian police/prosecutors are sitting on a seized stash of bitcoins now "worth" $3bn.

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                          Originally posted by Ginger Yellow View Post
                          The mining algorithm is designed to become exponentially harder as more bitcoins are mined. Eventually you'd be using all the energy in the universe to mine the next bitcoin.

                          So it's a pyramid scam?

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                            Originally posted by Reginald Christ
                            You don't. Bitcoins are "mined" by using individual computers' processors to perform highly complex calculations - solve difficult mathematical problems - that verify transactions that have been made using the cryptocurrency. Because of the size of the network involved, the amount of processing power grows as more calculations are performed. High CPU performance means an increased power drain on the electricity network. Hence it's estimated that the amount of electricity needed to power all the CPUs currently engaged in verifying Bitcoin transactions is enough to provide electrical power for a small country - Ireland/Wales/Denmark/Belgium/Iceland/wherever.

                            EDIT: A primer.
                            Um.

                            It doesn't help.

                            How do I find one?

                            How do I buy some?

                            How do I sell them?

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                              From the link

                              Coinbase is the most popular market and exchange in the United States. (Note: this is not an endorsement.) It offers buying and selling services for Bitcoin and other, similar cryptocurrencies, and will exchange US dollars and other standard fiat currencies for Bitcoins, as well as buying Bitcoins for USD and 31 other national fiat currencies. The company doesn’t charge for exchanges between cryptocurrencies, but exchanging Bitcoins for dollars deposited to a US bank account will cost the user a 1.49% transfer fee. So, to move $10,000 worth of Bitcoin from your own wallet to your bank account would cost 1.74 Bitcoins for the actual value, plus either $14.9 USD or .00259 Bitcoin for the transfer fee. This is a fairly standard transfer for most of the verified markets and exchanges.

                              There are other options for turning Bitcoin into conventional money. Coinbase and other markets can trade Bitcoin for USD and other currencies deposited directly to single-use debit cards or gift cards, or even into more flexible systems like PayPal, generally for a much higher fee. You can trade Bitcoins directly to another person for cash, though this is much more dangerous than going through an established system. (On the same note, be cautious of individuals wanting to trade Bitcoins directly for cash, goods, and services. The untraceable nature of the system makes it susceptible to fraud—see below.)
                              Unless you have access to a large network with a lot of processing power or a botnet, you aren't going to be "mining" any, so you would need to go through an exchange such as Coinbase (I don't know if there is a UK/Euro exchange with similar market share in those markets)

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                                So it's a pyramid scam

                                Well, yes*, but not because of that.

                                Edit: *technically it's more of a pump-and-dump scam.
                                Last edited by Ginger Yellow; 08-12-2017, 14:05.

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                                  Apparently the mysterious guy with the Japanese alias who wrote bitcoin has 10 billion dollars worth of bitcoin. But he's done nothing with them. Maybe he threw the keys away.

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                                    Originally posted by Snake Plissken View Post
                                    Yeah. If you are kicking yourself about that, then consider it somewhat akin to buying a load of Apple shares just after they launched the Newton. It was an insane idea then and no-one, absolutely no-one had any idea that this is going to happen. As ursus says, BTC has gone up 16x in about a month based on... absolutely nothing. Something is going wrong.
                                    Ooh, is it the Russians' fault?

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                                      "Normally"

                                      (and work you piece of edit post shit)

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                                        You seem terribly angry about all this, Guy. Did a bitcoin steal your dog or summat?

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                                          How do I find one?

                                          - Not sure what you mean as "find". To mine bitcoin you download some software and leave it running on your machine. There have been cases of torrent websites using idle seeding machines to mine bitcoin, which is kind of genius though understandably pissed people off.

                                          - Mining is a race. Your laptop is racing against everyone else. When everyone else includes specially cooled server farms, the odds of you winning the race is minimal. This also helps explain why it is so energy inefficient. There are vast amounts of replicated processes.

                                          How do I buy some?

                                          - You set up a wallet and use something like coinbase to buy them

                                          How do I sell them?

                                          - You access your wallet and use coinbase to sell them

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                                            Originally posted by antoine polus View Post
                                            Apparently the mysterious guy with the Japanese alias who wrote bitcoin has 10 billion dollars worth of bitcoin. But he's done nothing with them. Maybe he threw the keys away.
                                            I find the whole Bitcoin thing fascinating. The underlying idea of the blockchain is an elegant technical solution to a problem. The story of how it got there and who the hell Satoshi Nakamoto is worthy of the finest mystery novel. The market around it is a microcosm of human nature, with greed, crime, stupidity and so on. It's like living through the tulip bubble or the Gold Rush.

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                                              Originally posted by Guy Profumo View Post
                                              "Normally"

                                              (and work you piece of edit post shit)
                                              And what happened to the post I tried to edit?

                                              No.

                                              Not angry, just befuddled, bewildered, and bemused.

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                                                It used to be you could have a server set up on a VM not doing much and just earn a little bit. But now, now you're up against things like these hydropowered dedicated bitcoin farms in China

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                                                  Does anyone on here know of a decent explanation of exactly what bitcoin is and how it works, accessible to a non computer-science person? I find the Wikipedia page on it useless with regard to those questions, as it assumes quite a high degree of familiarity with computer science concepts. Or do you need to have spent many hours absorbing principles of computer science from scratch to a fairly advanced level before you can have a hope of understanding it?

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                                                    Was Reginald Christ’s link too technical for you?

                                                    It is difficult to explain how it works without discussing at least some of the tech, but I thought that discussion of the concept was pretty accessible

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