Bitcoin sellers remorse.... how many people are kicking themselves for cashing out>?

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JEDI

JEDI

Lifer
Sep 25, 2001
29,391
2,738
126
airdata said:
Basically you use mining programs to harness your video cards processing power to contribute to "finding a block " of bitcoins which i believe is now 25btc per block ( used to be 50 ).

You join a pool which is a group of other people like yourself mining and increases your chance of finding a block and you get a percentage of the payout each time a block is found.

When I was into mining and coins were going for around $30 each I'd check peridoically and be like... there's andother $30... another $30. Downside was that I had a couple horrendous electric bills from all the power the video cards ate up.
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what do u mean finding a block?
and how does bitcoinmake $ from blocks?
 
Juddog

Juddog

Diamond Member
Dec 11, 2006
7,851
6
81
JEDI said:
what do u mean finding a block?
and how does bitcoinmake $ from blocks?
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Think of it as the equivalent of printing money. It's computationally intense to create a new block, to the point of every-increasing difficulty. When a new block is discovered, the result is that a new chunk of bitcoins are available. By generating new bitcoins, you can then cash them in for money, because they are being used as an alternative currency.

The system only has what people dump into it; by itself it is worthless, but by so many people becoming involved with it, it now becomes worth something. Just like currency from any country, by itself the currency is just a stack of paper. People have somehow been convinced that the stack of paper is worth something, by so many people buying into the system, the currency gains value.
 
M

Mandres

Senior member
Jun 8, 2011
944
58
91
Interesting, I wonder what's behind the recent run-up. Seems like someone is manipulating the value. I wonder who, and why?

and yea, bitcoin is already dead as a currency. It's strictly an investment vehicle at this point. It was far too volatile in it's early days to establish the trust it needed.

Interesting experiment though! I wonder if economics students will be studying BTC in their textbooks in the near future.
 
Juddog

Juddog

Diamond Member
Dec 11, 2006
7,851
6
81
Mandres said:
Interesting, I wonder what's behind the recent run-up. Seems like someone is manipulating the value. I wonder who, and why?

and yea, bitcoin is already dead as a currency. It's strictly an investment vehicle at this point. It was far too volatile in it's early days to establish the trust it needed.

Interesting experiment though! I wonder if economics students will be studying BTC in their textbooks in the near future.
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The recent run-up is caused by people using it as an investment vehicle.
 
I

IceBergSLiM

Lifer
Jul 11, 2000
29,932
3
81
Both BTC and USD have intrinsicly no value. They are both fiat faith based monetary systems.

The main differences between BTC and USD that I can see is that there isn't seemingly limitless printing press of BTC. The BTC total circulation was determined in the beginning.
 
SheHateMe

SheHateMe

Diamond Member
Jul 21, 2012
7,251
20
81
Not worth your time if you don't have one of those fancy (and expensive) mining thingamabobs that people are using to make a ridiculous amount of coins.
 
I

IceBergSLiM

Lifer
Jul 11, 2000
29,932
3
81
SheHateMe said:
Not worth your time if you don't have one of those fancy (and expensive) mining thingamabobs that people are using to make a ridiculous amount of coins.
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Pretty sure nobody(no single person) is making a ridiculous amount of coins anymore. They are harder and harder to make.
 
lxskllr

lxskllr

No Lifer
Nov 30, 2004
59,960
10,439
126
SheHateMe said:
Not worth your time if you don't have one of those fancy (and expensive) mining thingamabobs that people are using to make a ridiculous amount of coins.
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Depends. Sometimes you may just want to make heat. For some reason, I forgot all about bitcoin this year. I work my computer when it gets cold to generate heat, and if I get a couple bitcoins, all the better. This year, I just did folding, and remembered bitcoin too late. Not enough time to setup now cause it's getting warmer.
 
Blackjack200

Blackjack200

Lifer
May 28, 2007
15,995
1,688
126
IceBergSLiM said:
Both BTC and USD have intrinsicly no value. They are both fiat faith based monetary systems.

The main differences between BTC and USD that I can see is that there isn't seemingly limitless printing press of BTC. The BTC total circulation was determined in the beginning.
Click to expand...

Really? That's the main difference you see?

You don't think that the fact that I can buy food, shelter, clothing, health care, and transportation with dollars, and cannot buy those thing with bit coins is a notable difference?

You don't think that the severe volatility of bit coin is a notable difference?

You don't think that there's a notable difference between the full faith and credit of the United States of America and some anonymous inventor and a product whose servers have been hacked several times?

Yikes.
 
T

Train

Lifer
Jun 22, 2000
13,586
81
91
www.bing.com
Blackjack200 said:
Really? That's the main difference you see?

You don't think that the fact that I can buy food, shelter, clothing, health care, and transportation with dollars, and cannot buy those thing with bit coins is a notable difference?

You don't think that the severe volatility of bit coin is a notable difference?

You don't think that there's a notable difference between the full faith and credit of the United States of America and some anonymous inventor and a product whose servers have been hacked several times?

Yikes.
Click to expand...

I think you're missing the larger picture. No matter how much faith and credit the USA has, it's still a single entity. BTC is not tied to it's inventor, or any single entity, it is 100% distributed. If one processor goes down, hacked, out of business, others can continue processing transactions. BTC is backed by ALL parties who use it, not a single party who happens to be in a metric shit ton of debt and has the power to devalue it's own currency whenever it wants, without warning.
 
Zstream

Zstream

Diamond Member
Oct 24, 2005
3,395
277
136
Yeah but why is a bitcoin worth money? Is it because you did something to cure cancer or something? I'm just confused as why someone would buy a block of number ran by a video card.
 
lxskllr

lxskllr

No Lifer
Nov 30, 2004
59,960
10,439
126
Zstream said:
Yeah but why is a bitcoin worth money? Is it because you did something to cure cancer or something? I'm just confused as why someone would buy a block of number ran by a video card.
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It's pretend money, just like US currency. It's worth what people say it's worth.
 
T

Train

Lifer
Jun 22, 2000
13,586
81
91
www.bing.com
IceBergSLiM said:
not all true, precious metals have inherant value as a material for tools and stuffs
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sure, when used as commodities, but a commodity is not a currency.

Using a finite resource, such as gold, as a currency, only helps the currency because you can't counterfeit gold.
 
I

IceBergSLiM

Lifer
Jul 11, 2000
29,932
3
81
Blackjack200 said:
Really? That's the main difference you see?

You don't think that the fact that I can buy food, shelter, clothing, health care, and transportation with dollars, and cannot buy those thing with bit coins is a notable difference?

You don't think that the severe volatility of bit coin is a notable difference?

You don't think that there's a notable difference between the full faith and credit of the United States of America and some anonymous inventor and a product whose servers have been hacked several times?

Yikes.
Click to expand...

well thats not true. You can't pay your mortgage with japanese yen either, you would need to convert it to dollars.

As far as servers being hacked I don't think there has been any significnat compromise since like the first year it was released even with the source code fully available.

Where as the chinese are trying as just about as hard as the USG to devalue the dollar by printing it(or counterfeiting it) 24/7

Full faith and credit of the USA? There is nothing but black markets(CASH) and its current status as a reserved currency keeping the dollar afloat. Take away one or both and come talk to me about the full faith and credit of the USA.
 
Last edited:
KeithTalent

KeithTalent

Elite Member | Administrator | No Lifer
Administrator
Nov 30, 2005
50,231
118
116
Never really understood how it worked; always sounded like a scam to me.

KT
 
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