Explain Bitcoin Please

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High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber
Nov 8, 2017 - 07:23am PT
Dingus, I was just about to ask if you saw my post? but apparently you have.

Don't you have your wallet anymore? That $5 I tipped you (along w Nature) back in 2014 is now $70 in YOUR wallet.

You're just going to let it go to waste?

The fact that HFCS's 'cup of bitcoin coffee' is now allegedly worth $60 is not really a strong argument in favor of such a system. -dingus

and what's with the "allegedly"?!

Did you not even bother to click one link and see?
Moof

Big Wall climber
Orygun
Nov 8, 2017 - 07:25am PT
Blockchain = useful
Bitcoin = blockchain
Step 3: Profit

Got it.

How come Dogecoin isn’t as valuable and desireable as Bitcoin?
High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber
Nov 8, 2017 - 07:27am PT
well give it to your kids then, or one of their friends, perhaps they'll know what to do with it

1JGpHgrLoWweBFx4GLHxwTnG77CrmKj9Hj

Perhaps I'll retire on it if this growth continues.


smartass - so often the case

"allegedly"

the tell right there

...

My issue with some posters here (like on the God thread) is not that they don't know, it's that they pretend to knowledge or expertise they don't have. Heck of a value.
High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber
Nov 8, 2017 - 07:38am PT
What's to keep the same from happening to bitcoin? What unholy alliances await humanity's future and what then, oh impotent countries of old, will you do in the next currency crash, when your country lacks any and all control to manipulate the currency to smooth out the lumps in the economy?

Much like President Obama did by printing a trillion bucks in paper money? Nyet!

And what horrors await in the code base? I know, some of you are enamored with secure transactions. Security is elusive though, and in this stateless utopia who is going to protect the integrity of the system - whatever system, of money?

Will you all rise up with your pitchforks and storm the, oh wait, no castle. No ruler. No country. No responsibility.

Wow. That certainty of expression! Your powers of seeing the future must be awesome!!!

...

At least Nature knew how to play along - the original intent in 2014 - using his as currency.

https://blockchain.info/address/1JGpHgrLoWweBFx4GLHxwTnG77CrmKj9Hj

You want to piss on the system and not partake, Mr. Certainty, you can always send it back. Only takes a couple clicks.

hfcs... 16mDuHSL3vdBJgRTEj2RahH7emZHa5V7aW

...


Personally, if somebody sent me a five spot for a cuppa a few years back and I hadn't gotten around to using it and just discovered it's now worth $70 I'd be kinda excited about that. But I guess me is not YOU.

:(
High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber
Nov 8, 2017 - 07:55am PT
A bit of reference and clarity. For future self if not others.

Dingus on a 2014 thread post asked how much 9 ten-thousands of btc was worth. Just for clarity sake, that was just a test amount, worth about $.25 at the time, to validate his new wallet address. As above link shows it was then followed, after getting validation here at ST, w a $5 "tip" (for a good story or two, or three, he's written over the years).

So that's how that bit of transaction worked. Above link shows two transactions from me, one worth about $.25 at the time and the other $5.00 at the time.

Nature played too. Year or so later, ledger shows he withdrew his.

Nature's...
https://blockchain.info/address/1GWkJCZHdqyabaLFXwemg6zwHvC6EQoWSu

EDIT: Correction: Nature transferred his tip to a new address. It now has a $40 balance.

https://blockchain.info/address/1H5h7vzJAdQnKmPRbsJkiv4TfKLuPLbXCx

Someone should let him know. :)

For ref: http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=2266103&msg=2352456#msg2352456

...

How about answering a question...

How about doing some research... How about showing due diligence... How about recognizing that some subject matter actually requires investment, even intensive investment, more than some other subject matter.
healyje

Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
Nov 8, 2017 - 07:57am PT
$300m in cryptocurrency accidentally lost forever due to bug

User mistakenly takes control of hundreds of wallets containing cryptocurrency Ether, destroying them in a panic while trying to give them back...
mcreel

climber
Barcelona
Nov 8, 2017 - 09:28am PT
Here's an analysis of the economics of this stuff which argues a few points, including: that an equilibrium will exist such that the currency has a positive value, if there are enough buyers of the currency; and that the energy overhead of mining can be reduced as the amount of cryptocurrency in circulation becomes large enough.

https://www.chapman.edu/research/institutes-and-centers/economic-science-institute/_files/ifree-papers-and-photos/koeppel-april2017.pdf

There's not much economic theory developed on the topic.

I'd be pretty reluctant to invest in bitcoin itself, except with a small amount for speculative purposes. It seems to me that the chances of the bottom falling out of the market are not negligible. The technology behind it looks to be very promising, though.
MikeL

Social climber
Southern Arizona
Nov 8, 2017 - 09:36am PT
“Investing in money” is kind of a strange idea. Usually, it’s meant placing a bet on the relative economic performance of a country that fosters a currency.

Here’s it seems to be something different. Instead, it’s a bet on a technology, and with regards to that, that’s pretty much always a crapshoot. No one has been able to successfully and repeatedly been able to predict which technology will win in a competition among other technologies because it’s never been a question of which technology is technically superior. Social factors (which are often seemingly illogical or irrational) often end up choosing a technology over others. The books are full of stories about how so-called inferior technologies won.

I’m using one right now. It’s called the QWERTY keyboard.
healyje

Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
Nov 8, 2017 - 09:43am PT
Regardless of its implementation, currency is and will always be social construct. And as a software engineer I would have complete confidence in cryptocurrencies if they weren't written in software, wholly sync'd to human behavior, and embedded in an insecure digital world. As it is, it's reminding me a lot of any other speculative bubble, but with way more technological and social unknowns and risk.
Moof

Big Wall climber
Orygun
Nov 8, 2017 - 10:04am PT
The basic argument is that this stuff will be super useful "someday" and be an alternative or replacement for regular cash. It will be faster and more secure than moving money via banks. That is the value proposition.

The current value placed on Bitcoin and similar widgets does not really reflect this. Currently a transaction is not instantaneous or very cheap (averaging $6 a pop). Most people are hoarding it like a goose laying golden eggs, not actually spending it.

The real test would be if the value did stabilize like a real currency should and stopped growing at 100% a year. Would people actually spend it like money? Would they sell it and move to some other faster growing asset? Would miners stop being able to pay their electric bills and sell their graphic card farms for pennies on the dollar? Will governments continue to step in an ban the stuff? If a major terrorist attack is funded secretly with the stuff will it suddenly get a tainted image?

I can see it plummet to nothing easily, especially given the dozens of me-too crypto-currencies that exist, even if one takes root most will be doomed to the scrap heap. I cannot see it continue to grow on the current trajectory in perpetuity.
FRUMY

Trad climber
Bishop,CA
Nov 8, 2017 - 10:08am PT
^^^^^^^
mcreel

climber
Barcelona
Nov 8, 2017 - 10:10am PT
The same way there are a lot of CPU cycles mining bitcoins, there are also probably a lot of them sending out messages to stimulate interest in bitcoin and to make us believe that its value will go up. With a slowly growing supply, and demand increasing due to actual usefulness and speculation fueled by spam, it's not surprising that the value is going up, at least for some length of time. There's no federal reserve injecting bitcoins fast enough to prevent deflation.
MH2

Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
Nov 8, 2017 - 10:18am PT
messages to stimulate interest in bitcoin


Yes.

Don't underestimate the importance of marketing.


Whatever you may regard as the value of anything, don't forget the way expert advertising can play a role. We live "under the influence in an age of persuasion" as ad-man Terry O'Reilly might put it. Yeah, the hockey player.

High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber
Nov 9, 2017 - 10:31am PT
Sorry Dingus.

As something of a fan of this and similar innovations and where it all might lead (via a type of evolution of course) yesterday this crazy enthusiasm got the best of me and I posted over the top in the moment and too quickly. Sorry man.

By and large, lol, love your posts!
hooblie

climber
from out where the anecdotes roam
Nov 9, 2017 - 05:43pm PT
fresh air's terry gross topic: "understanding bitcoin" on her podcast today

http://www.npr.org/podcasts/381444908/fresh-air
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Nov 9, 2017 - 06:44pm PT
Yeah, I always go to Terry Gross for financial beta. LOL
Jeremy B.

climber
Northern California
Nov 9, 2017 - 07:35pm PT
You can find a decent overview on bitcoin the currency and bitcoin the protocol at https://macro-ops.com/bitcoin-bubble-6000-pokemon-card/ (Yes, it's a newsletter site, no I have no relation to it.)
ECF

Big Wall climber
Ridgway CO
Nov 9, 2017 - 10:44pm PT
Ever go to Vegas?
Same rules apply, don't spend more than you can afford to lose.

That said, I have made money buying and selling bitcoin.
Its damn easy. Just don't sell when it's below a profit point.
Just wait, it will go back up.
This is a global phenomenon, USA centered thinking will make it seem foolish.
healyje

Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
Nov 9, 2017 - 11:21pm PT
Who said hope and aspiration couldn't be digitized...
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Nov 10, 2017 - 08:50am PT
I might be stoopid, but I’m no crankloon. The dollar is being shorted today, time to go long before the Fed ups rates next month. Oh, Bitcoin, you asked?

LONDON
Bitcoin dropped below $7,000 on Friday to trade more than 5 percent down on the day, having fallen by well over $1,000 since hitting an all-time high on Wednesday.
Bitcoin dropped to $6,800 on the Luxembourg-based Bitstamp exchange by 1200 GMT, before recovering a little to $6,870 just over 20 minutes later.
On Wednesday around 1800 GMT, it had touched $7,888 after a software upgrade planned for next week that could have split the cryptocurrency in two was suspended.
As bitcoin fell, Bitcoin Cash - a clone of the original that was generated from another split on Aug.1 - surged, trading up as much as 35 percent on the day at around $850, according to industry website Coinmarketcap.
Despite losing almost 7 percent this week, bitcoin is still up more than 600 percent so far this year.
(Reporting by Jemima Kelly, Editing by Abhinav Ramnarayan)
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