Bitcoin Mining

[Odon]

Mt. Gox just had its database hacked and dumped. Rofl.

[Darus Grey]

Yeah, I knew something was fucked up when I started getting notifications that almost all my standing orders to buy 500-1000 coins at $6/5/4 all got completed at once.

Sadly the transactions probably got rolled back.

[Celeras]

What. The. Fuck. Are. You. Talking. About.

You did not need to play the game to get JSP, you could suck a dick for $20, put that in the bank and donate that to the forum for $20 worth of JSP.

You can buy a bitcoin whenever you want, or you can earn them with mining.
You can buy JSP whenever you want, or earn them by gaming.

Spin it any way you'd like, that's fact. The entirety of my FG earning/resale came from Mephisto, pawning off drops and then selling the FG (or in some cases buying other things with it, like ps2 games). The only difference between the two is the fact is that when you buy Bitcoins, you're buying from somebody else rather than have them created for you.

I get everything you're saying, but you're being pretty dense in the comparison if you're trying to make them seem like completely different things just because one of them is capped.

[Maguspk]

Mt Gox is shady as fuck. Bitcoins lol.

[Dmitry]

Does mining take advantage of Xfire GPUs? Also, is it even worth bothering to try and get into this now or would it be a waste of time?

[SnickySnacks]

People saying that bitcoins are a ponzi scheme are mistaken.
Obviously it's a pump and dump scheme.

[raginbull]

I've just got started with this, using the GUIminer program to mine with, and I'm getting a pathetic 50.4 Mhash/s with 2 GTX 460s. Did some quick research and it seems AMD cards shit all over Nvidia for mining. This link highlights the fact: http://pastebin.com/AvymGnMJ

I don't think I'll be buying a new card just for better mining performance, but I can understand why some people might. The performance differences are striking. If you're serious about mining then you need at least a 5850.

[Maguspk]

I see no reason not to mine bitcoins if you already buy a new PC every so often, otherwise I would be paranoid about overworking my PC. Considerations about electric use and heating your room (having to cool it down, etc.) as a result are some tangential concerns. Overall though, get in on a pool and mine, mining alone with 1 PC is sort of stupid. At this point though I'm pretty sure pools themselves are pyramid schemes, set up to reward those who have been in them since the beginning? Correct me if I'm wrong but don't get all butthurt about it.

[Khamsin]

What I don't understand is whom these solved hashes benefit. If a bitcoin is awarded by the successful solving of a crypto problem, and a bitcoin has value, then someone paid you to solve the hash for them. Who is benefiting from the solution, and who is paying you that bitcoin for doing so? With things like protein folding software, SETI@home, etc. it's a bit more apparent why it's being done and who benefits. But I'm lost as to how this one works.

And if these hashes are simply to support itself, then isn't that a bit like creating a new form of currency in order to pay accounts to keep track of your newly invented currency?

[Celeras]

What I don't understand is whom these solved hashes benefit. If a bitcoin is awarded by the successful solving of a crypto problem, and a bitcoin has value, then someone paid you to solve the hash for them. Who is benefiting from the solution, and who is paying you that bitcoin for doing so? With things like protein folding software, SETI@home, etc. it's a bit more apparent why it's being done and who benefits. But I'm lost as to how this one works.

And if these hashes are simply to support itself, then isn't that a bit like creating a new form of currency in order to pay accounts to keep track of your newly invented currency?

They don't benefit anything. The hashes are solved then thrown out the window for no other purpose than creating a random string that may or may not generate a fictional coin if the right value shows up. The coins only have value because anarchists 'say' they do for the purposes of anonymity.

The similarities to folding/etc end with the program crunching, it's quite meaningless by comparison.

[Darus Grey]

Wrong.

The hashes are actually the primary security and transaction system of the network, you running hashes is what verifies other transactions. Well there is a built-in reward mechanism for discovering a new block well hashing, it is simply a side effect of the hashings main function. Once all coins are generated you will still need hashes to run the network.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/FAQ#How_d...ecure_Bitcoin?

[hey]

At this point though I'm pretty sure pools themselves are pyramid schemes, set up to reward those who have been in them since the beginning?

You are wrong. The pool operator takes a fee (usually 1-3%) to run the pool (server costs+profit), but other than that, they pay based only on the work done for each block. If a block is solved in 3 seconds, and you find no hashes in that time, you won't get even .00001 btc, even if you've been mining 24/7 since the pool started.

What I don't understand is whom these solved hashes benefit. If a bitcoin is awarded by the successful solving of a crypto problem, and a bitcoin has value, then someone paid you to solve the hash for them. Who is benefiting from the solution, and who is paying you that bitcoin for doing so? With things like protein folding software, SETI@home, etc. it's a bit more apparent why it's being done and who benefits. But I'm lost as to how this one works.

As was mentioned, the hashes are used as the security to run the system. The 50 coins you get for a successful hash are created from magic; no one pays anyone.

The coins only have value because anarchists 'say' they do for the purposes of anonymity.

No, they have value because many people believe they have value. And guess what? Every other currency is the same.

[Kiarax]

http://www.mtgox.dotcloud.com/

[Norellicus]

It's funny seeing who failed Econ 101 in here based on the "bitcoins only have value because someone 'says' they do" mindset lol

[hey]

http://www.mtgox.dotcloud.com/

So he had $2-5m worth of bitcoins, could have easily gotten away with all/most of them, and chose to only take ~10k worth? What a retard.

[Khamsin]

It's funny seeing who failed Econ 101 in here based on the "bitcoins only have value because someone 'says' they do" mindset lol

Well, anything has only the value we give it. Moreso for fiat money than something like gold. But even gold has limited practical worth except that we as a society decided it was valuable, and at one time, it was the most convenient thing to use. Much like some other isolated cultures might have used seashells or rare stones. And on a broader level, if you go to a market to haggle with people for their goods, the value of that good is exactly what you settle on paying for it.

[6souls]

http://www.mtgox.dotcloud.com/

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/image...tcoincrash.jpg

The virtual currency Bitcoin will "bounce back" after a hack attack caused its value to collapse, according to one of its senior developers.

Gavin Andresen said he hoped the crisis would lead to better security on sites where Bitcoins are bought and sold.

Prices on the main exchange, Mt.Gox, fell from $17.50 (£10.80) to almost zero when a large number of stolen Bitcoins were dumped on the market.

Trading was suspended and eventually rolled back to pre-crash rates.

Mt.Gox revealed details of the security breach on June 20 with an announcement on its website.

"It appears that someone who performs audits on our system and had read-only access to our database had their computer compromised. This allowed for someone to pull our database," the statement read.

Around the same time, an unidentified person accessed one of the compromised accounts and sold all of its Bitcoins.

They then attempted to buy the coins again and withdraw them in US dollars.

The fraudster was partially foiled when they hit Mt.Gox's $1000 daily limit.

The decision to reset the Bitcoin rate to a point just before the malicious trades were placed was criticised by some users who had taken the opportunity to buy low.

"Why should everyone who profited from the crash suffer your inability to secure the site?" wrote a user called Elments.

Questionable future

Although the problem was caused by security failings at Mt.Gox, it has raised wider questions about the viability of Bitcoin as a virtual currency.

"Like any start-up, it could change the world but it could also be risk.” Gavin Andresen Bitcoin developer

"I am sceptical about its longer term prospects," said David Birch, director of Consult Hyperion, a consultancy specialising in electronic transactions.

"There were two things here - the specific bubble (caused by the dumping of stolen coins) and the exchange mechanism."

Bitcoin transactions are made by swapping anonymous, heavily encrypted codes which only a specific user can unlock.

Details of who owns each Bitcoin are distributed across a peer-to-peer network, with no central repository.

If an encrypted coin file is deleted, the money is lost.

The system has proved popular with online criminals, keen to keep their financial transactions secret, although it has a wider, legitimate, user base.

Mr Birch said the fact that so many Bitcoins were traded on a single exchange made it vulnerable to market shocks.

He also questioned the fundamental workings of the currency, saying that its emphasis on anonymity and decentralised nature meant there was little recourse for users when things go wrong.

Bitcoin developer Gavin Andresen conceded that current safeguards around the currency may be inadequate.

"I have been the person saying that Bitcoin is an experiment, so you can have confidence in it as much as you can have confidence in any start-up.

"Like any start-up, it could change the world but it could also be risk," he said.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13857192

[Takedown3]

was just going to post that lol

[Vandole]

Is there any use for btc other than silk road now?

[Pandum]

ASSASSINS