bitcoin


(Nail) #1

any thoughts on bitcoin ?

been pondering the idea ever since I read “Cryptonomicon”


(Mustang) #2

In what respect?

I hear a lot of people have been making quite a bit of monies from an investment point of view.

I dabbled in the early days but found I couldn’t spent any of it, unless I wanted a Vietnamese wife or to hire a Mexican drug cartel.

Then I re-formatted my PC and lost my “wallet” so that was that.


(Nail) #3

I like the idea of a non traceable, non taxable currency, even now I prefer to work in a barter system. It seems eminently more fair to all involved. Things are changing quite rapidly for bitcoins as they get accepted more and more in the real world financial system. While most traffic is still on silk road, other venues are opening. I have a friend who’s really into it, he figures either mine bitcoins or buy ATI stock (apparently their cards make the best miners)


(YoshiChief) #4

It is an interesting concept, but a few aspects like mining flies over my head! Plus it’s a bit risky for my tastes.


(slicepie) #5

ahhh the esea bit coin scandle


(edxot) #6

there is something very strange about these bitcoins

computers are getting faster and bitcoins are getting more expensive ?

there is something wrong with this picture


(Mustang) #7

Haha, that is exactly how it was designed to work.


(tokamak) #8

Cryptocurrency is the invention of this decade. I’ve completely fallen in love with the technology.Right now the whole field feels like the Wild West however. It’s completely unregulated and filled with cowboys, crooks and aspiring tycoons.

And that makes it incredibly exciting. For someone who missed the earliest days of the internet this is the closest thing you can get to that feeling of limitless possibilities again. All you have to do is be careful of those who want to prey on all the dreamers that flock toward it.

Bitcoin is also just the beginning. I’d say it’s starting to become redundant already. The technology is prehistoric compared to what some of the new coins are doing. It’s slow, it’s crude and it’s blatantly obvious that these mining farms required to uphold the network aren’t going to last. That’s why there’s tons of coins stepping in that use different means of securing the network and are faster as well.

In a same vein, financial transactions are also just the most basal application for it. Sure you can buy stuff or hold value (in a really volatile way), and with Dogecoin’s efforts you can now start tipping people coins in games and social media (which is eventually going to be integrated into betting and micro-payments for trading content). But even that is still only scratching the surface.

Within a few weeks we’re going to see the first fully decentralised markets appear. Think Ebay and Craigslist but without a middle-men. Users can secure their trades by holding collateral (escrow) against each other.

The blockchain isn’t just there for coins. You can also use it to store data. Data that is peer-secured and can’t be fudged opens the way to a huge range of new possibilities. People are starting to trade processing power, store domain names, encrypted communication,

There’s even an attempt at a corporate social responsibility credit trading system:

http://climatecolab.org:18081/plans/-/plans/contestId/1300404/planId/1305801

So yeah. All things considered there’s an enormous positive energy behind what’s going on. It’s just that the first people to jump on board are mostly gambling speculators hoping to get rich overnight. I hope that’s just a phase though. Even if Bitcoin may fill (I don’t think it will) then the technology is going to be here to stay and it’s going to disrupt a lot of ways we’re currently managing ourselves.


(tokamak) #9

Saw this quote the other day:

When evaluating the advantages of Bitcoin as a “so called currency”, I think it’s important to recognise what Bitcoin is. Bitcoin is a methodology for achieving distributed dynamic consensus at scale. What this means is that for the first time in history, a vast number of people are able to have agreement, with a high degree of certainty, over the state of an arbitrary data set, without relying on a central authority. The “so called”currency is an integral and necessary component of the system, which ensure users are appropriately incentivised to conduct the necessary action to achieve consensus. The question then becomes not whether the “so called” currency has any advantages, but whether there are any advantages or applications of distributed consensus systems.

There are a large number of categories of systems out there in the world, which require some degree of consensus, currency systems, naming systems, financial systems, communication systems, governance systems, political systems, infrastructure systems.I don’t think it’s unreasonable to believe that a small subset of these could benefit from a degree of distributed consensus, rather than a central authority.

It’s a governing structure more than it is a store of value. The media doesn’t really understand this so they’re only reporting when the price goes up or down.

However when you’re interested in policy and social structures the price is the least interesting thing about crypto. There are so many known issues and dilemmas in hard science, economics and public administration that arise from not having a decentralised field to operate in.

These things are hard to sell without sounding like a broker on his own kool-aid. People automatically assume that the only way to get involved with all this is to buy Bitcoins or any of the other countless other coins. But that’s not what’s actually going on. People can start their own coins and start running their own experiments if need be. It’s easy and it wouldn’t cost a thing. That’s why you see so many nonsense coins starting and failing constantly.

I wish there was more awareness on this already. More organisations and institutes raising their own personal challenges and letting people figure out ways how decentralised datasets can help them out. It’s still going to be difficult to actually successfully implement something and make it work. But that’s a worry for after the exploration phase.


(edxot) #10

(edxot) #11

the expected outcome

some people keep building towers on top of the sand castle


(BrightIs) #12

So now your a multimillionaire you can buy the rights to W:ET and make a sequel.


(Nail) #13

Bethesda/Zenimax won’t sell for any amount, sorry