i've heard they fluctuate quite a lot whenever you're not paying attention
i've heard they fluctuate quite a lot whenever you're not paying attention
lol bane
Saw this and thought you guys might be interested if you weren't already aware.
http://www.newstatesman.com/future-p...atch-real-time
"There's a £60m Bitcoin heist going down right now, and you can watch in real-time "
Also
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/...9B407L20131205
The price immediately dropped down to $900 from $1,200, but it's already back up to $1,000.
Hope some of you managed to sell and buy in that order during the cycle.
how can this currency even work? its no where backed up in any country by any central bank with some amount of gold. wtf oO
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_money
tl;dr: It's all Monopoly money.
Well, the dollar isn't backed by gold. Hasn't been for decades.
What gives the dollar value is "the full faith and credit of the United States Government" based on it's history. Basically, trust and inertia. It has value because people believe it does, the argument then just becomes "how much value", rather than "is there any".
The US can (and has), print up however much money it likes. There are side effects, and people argue about them, but that's how it is.
The way Bitcoin works is thus.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin_protocol
But basically. There is ultimately a finite amount of bitcoins (21 million), similar to "all the gold in the volume of planet earth". The bitcoins are essentially "buried", and require cryptographic computer work to acquire, "mining".
The cryptography involved in Bitcoin process is reasonably secure enough that you can't lie (to the network) about how many you have, or forge them, or just say that someone has given them to you.
This is in the absence of quantum computing/cryptography, I have no idea what the fuck exactly happens when that comes into play (besides someone starting a new, quantum secure, competitor to Bitcoin. I very much advise mining that shit if you can when it shows up.)Spoiler: show
In fact, much of the cryptographic work in getting bitcoins involves working on the blockchain. I don't have a convenient quote thing to call it, because it's two things at once. First, it's the planet your mining in, but it's also a complete ledger of all Bitcoin transactions ever made, including the awards for mining, and straight transactions between people on the network. It works because the networks computing power is essentially bent to verifying and processing transactions, pretty much the same as what a bank does. In fact, once the all the 21 million bitcoins are found, transaction fees (a tiny slice of the bitcoins being transferred, like a tax, but collected by miners instead of the government) are the reward for continued cryptographic work on the block chain, so as people just don't abandon mining, thus causing Bitcoin to become unsecure. (Actually, transaction fees are already in the protocol, but compared to mining rewards it's fucking tiny, so is largely ignored atm, but it matters later.)
The blockchain is, essentially, the "backed up" part of the currency. Everyone knows what the chain is and it's contents, and it's always being compared to other copies for differences. The only way to "forge" it, is to basically, convince more than half of the network that your forgery is the valid one. But, the only real way to do that is get the copy on more than half the network at the same time. You would either need to personally (or in a group) more DOUBLE the computing power of the network at any given moment. Currently, only a government could possibly do that, and as more people join in on Bitcoin (like what the current news and speculation is causing), it becomes harder and harder.
At that point, the only difference between the Bitcoin protocol, a bank, and a government, is who is in ultimate control of the currency.
Who do you trust more? Politicians, bankers, or math (2+2=4)?
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The other factor is being able to use bitcoins, and well, that's slowly happening. There's the guy that bought an apartment a while back (and whoever sold it, has seen the bitcoins they now posses dramatically rise in value). Someone just bought a Tesla Model S car. There are some odd restaurants that will take bitcoin. Like a dollar, a bitcoin has value because someone thinks and accepts that it does.
Looks like some shady shit went down today. Hearing that the commercial banks are behind the artificial volatility since bitcoin has been making headlines.
unregulated industry stomping on innovation!? shocking.
Doesn't it really just take one group putting down a bil or so to utterly and completely take over mining and while taking most of them for themselves, also be driving up the price at an absolutely insane rate?
It would cost something like $30B in hardware (just for the mining hardware, not including power supplies, and computers to connect them to), plus like $2m+ per year in electricity, not to mention maintenance costs, and hiring a team to run everything, just to match the current network output. So no, not really.
You could spend $100b and fork the blockchain, but you'd never be able to spend enough bitcoins fast enough for that to be even remotely profitable.
edit: how do i math?
Is this site accurate? http://bitcoin.sipa.be/
because according to that the whole network is around 5-6 thousand th/s
5-6 thousand th/s is 10,000 of these: https://products.butterflylabs.com/h...ning-card.html
which is 50 mil >.>
am I misreading something or dropping some zeros in my math somewhere?
Uh, whoops, i added a few extra zeros. So yeah. I suppose that is plausible.
And here's a better, slightly more technical explanation.
http://www.michaelnielsen.org/ddi/ho...ctually-works/
Bitcoin value dropped 50%, top post on /r/bitcoin is suicide prevention services
50% discount on coins is all im seein, full bull mode.
http://invezz.com/news/forex/8175-bi...from-silk-road
I didn't even know this was legal.
http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise...-gox-implodes/
Is this affecting the exchange rate already?