I've messed around with bitcoin plus since its easy but I've made like 2 cents from it so its not exactly practical. Anyone have any recommendations for a real mining application? There seem to be a lot out there.
You'll be paying more for the electricity and computer wear than you'll be getting in Bitcoins.
Bitcoin mining is a bad idea, but if you want to try and get some money quick you can do the whole investment thing. Just pick a dollar value you want to sell at, otherwise you're going to be in for pain.
I mean my computer is on a lot of the time anyway so I don't know how much extra power it would cost, but it might now be powerful enough to do much anyway. I might try investing in them when I actually have some money to invest. Maybe by the time I have the money they'll be back down for a little while.
You boost power usage and wear on your fans, processors, and power supply, which will still increase what you're paying for electricity. I'd be cool and run something like Folding@Home instead.
In all seriousness, though, reasons like the above make a good case that the long-term value of Bitcoin is zero. Of course, that doesn't invalidate it as a short- or medium-term investment, but I'd be highly skeptical about those as well.
Long term value may be zero but the trick is to get the stupidly rich to buy into it at an inflated price so that the poor folks who got in early can cash out with a profit. Think of it as engineered redistribution of wealth where the greed of the wealthy is used trick them into willingly giving up their wealth.
Long term value may be zero but the trick is to get the stupidly rich to buy into it at an inflated price so that the poor folks who got in early can cash out with a profit. Think of it as engineered redistribution of wealth where the greed of the wealthy is used trick them into willingly giving up their wealth.
s/rich/goldbug this has already happened. That said, I guess it could still continue to gather more money from those people.
Long term value may be zero but the trick is to get the stupidly rich to buy into it at an inflated price so that the poor folks who got in early can cash out with a profit. Think of it as engineered redistribution of wealth where the greed of the wealthy is used trick them into willingly giving up their wealth
It's called hedge funds, only in that case it's the wealthy taking advantage of the not-quite-as-wealthy.
One thing that I really liked about Bitcoin is that it's got a large amount of denominations, and you can throw it between friends like nothing. Me and a few friends used it for a while just to pay each other back for stupid stuff, like splitting the cost of ordering out food, since none of us ever carry cash around.
Major problem of this being that it's been fluctuating a lot recently, but that's a separate issue.
It is trivial for almost anyone to transfer US dollars digitally. How do I buy things on Amazon? It certainly isn't with drawings of dead presidents printed on paper!
Anyone who wants to make a digital currency has stuff like this- http://buttcoin.org/easy to deal with. But seriously what step of this process didn't sound like a pyramid scheme? -Completely new currency system free from government fiat and regulation -Have to buy a rig to "mine" this currency which is useless for anything else and already costs several thousand fiat dollars and will probably burn itself out in a few months, besides the increase in electricity and A/C costs to run it -Exchanges where prices can fluctuate wildly and on an almost hourly basis and really only those who cashed in and out early see any returns -Propped up by Libertards who vehemently claim it will be the new government-free currency and who are all -Mostly only used by the aforementioned Libertards and people trying to conduct illegal activities without fear of government intervention. -Now that the whole system is collapsing nobody is willing to pay actual currency for their scrip and at least some people are laughing all the way to the bank with enough fiat money to retire. (Libertage gif's content has little to do with my post, and really needs an embedded guitar riff. Libertage swiped from John Green's Crash Course American History.)
It is trivial for almost anyone to transfer US dollars digitally. How do I buy things on Amazon? It certainly isn't with drawings of dead presidents printed on paper!
You're not actually transferring money directly in that case. That transaction is them accepting an IOU from your credit card company, who then later bill you for that debt.
You then pay them by telling your bank to pay them. At no point do you make an intrinsic cash transaction.
It is trivial for almost anyone to transfer US dollars digitally. How do I buy things on Amazon? It certainly isn't with drawings of dead presidents printed on paper!
You're not actually transferring money directly in that case. That transaction is them accepting an IOU from your credit card company, who then later bill you for that debt.
You then pay them by telling your bank to pay them. At no point do you make an intrinsic cash transaction.
I could use a debit card if I so chose, which would result in a direct transfer from my bank account.
It is trivial for almost anyone to exchange US dollars digitally.
It is actually mostly impossible to do so if you are a normal human being. If you are a customer at the same bank this may be true in the sense of transferring an amount of dollars digitally from one person's account to another's.
In all other cases, a complex system of dept and promissory notes must be used (either those of a credit card company or the banking systems internal clearinghouses or commercial paper). The term "digitally" here, then applies only in the most ancillary form of being the medium over which very old banking protocols are transmitted.
I think the main point people want to argue with Scott is that in those cases there are multiple points of failure and external control when compared to bitcoin. This means that even though it looks and feels like a direct transfer in actuality it is not. This is also evident in the fact that you usually end up paying fees when transferring money through banking services.
There are also cases where governments regulate the exchange of dollars. We've got a person a work whose main job is to help our Venezuelan students exchange Bolivares for Dollars.
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I might try investing in them when I actually have some money to invest. Maybe by the time I have the money they'll be back down for a little while.
In all seriousness, though, reasons like the above make a good case that the long-term value of Bitcoin is zero. Of course, that doesn't invalidate it as a short- or medium-term investment, but I'd be highly skeptical about those as well.
Or bitcoin could just be the new tulip.
s/rich/goldbug this has already happened. That said, I guess it could still continue to gather more money from those people.
Major problem of this being that it's been fluctuating a lot recently, but that's a separate issue.
To add, did you hear about how one of the major online wallets stole everyones Doges and people are flipping their shit?
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/29/an-ubernerd-weighs-in/?_r=0
To me Bitcoin is very much on par with World of Warcraft gold.
However I can foresee a global digital currency, it's just that we have a few world problems to take care of before we get to that point.
edit -
Well thinking about it for a second I agree it is but a uniform infrastructure for a digital currency is not present.
-Completely new currency system free from government fiat and regulation
-Have to buy a rig to "mine" this currency which is useless for anything else and already costs several thousand fiat dollars and will probably burn itself out in a few months, besides the increase in electricity and A/C costs to run it
-Exchanges where prices can fluctuate wildly and on an almost hourly basis and really only those who cashed in and out early see any returns
-Propped up by Libertards who vehemently claim it will be the new government-free currency and who are all
-Mostly only used by the aforementioned Libertards and people trying to conduct illegal activities without fear of government intervention.
-Now that the whole system is collapsing nobody is willing to pay actual currency for their scrip and at least some people are laughing all the way to the bank with enough fiat money to retire.
(Libertage gif's content has little to do with my post, and really needs an embedded guitar riff. Libertage swiped from John Green's Crash Course American History.)
You then pay them by telling your bank to pay them. At no point do you make an intrinsic cash transaction.
In all other cases, a complex system of dept and promissory notes must be used (either those of a credit card company or the banking systems internal clearinghouses or commercial paper). The term "digitally" here, then applies only in the most ancillary form of being the medium over which very old banking protocols are transmitted.
I think the main point people want to argue with Scott is that in those cases there are multiple points of failure and external control when compared to bitcoin. This means that even though it looks and feels like a direct transfer in actuality it is not. This is also evident in the fact that you usually end up paying fees when transferring money through banking services.