Anyone else interested in cryptocurrency?

[CaptainD]

I have to admit the whole thing passed me by somewhat until a dev of an altcoin (basically any crypto that is not Bitcoin) got in touch wanted to sponsor one of my games.  Since then I've become very interested in the whole thing, from trading crypto (obviously in very small amounts with stuff I've been given, I've not invested a penny of fiat currency into this and never will) to the use of cryptos in gaming (other than gambling, which is something very popular with crytpos but not something I involve myself with).

So... anyone dabbled in cryptocurrency?  Anyone mined some Bitcoin back when it was feasible to do so with an ordinary PC?  Anyone interested in the idea of decentralised currency and any thoughts on whether that's actually genuinely possible?

[Cassiebsg]

* Cassiebsg considers this to cryptic to reach enlightenment

In other words, I have no idea about what you talking about, never even heard of it before.

[CaptainD]

Basically, any form of digital currency.  The most famous is of course Bitcoin, not many "altcoins" are well known outside the Cryptocurrecy community, but the best-known are Litecoin, Dogecoin and Ethereum.

A cryptocurrency (or crypto currency) is a medium of exchange using cryptography to secure the transactions and to control the creation of additional units of the currency. Cryptocurrencies are a subset of alternative currencies, or specifically of digital currencies.
Bitcoin became the first decentralized cryptocurrency in 2009.
Since then, numerous cryptocurrencies have been created. These are frequently called altcoins, as a blend of bitcoin alternative.
Cryptocurrencies use decentralized control as opposed to centralized electronic money/centralized banking systems. The decentralized control is related to the use of bitcoin's blockchain transaction database in the role of a distributed ledger.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptocurrency

New currency is "mined" by using mathematical formulae (known as "hashing")

A cryptographic hash function is a special class of hash function that has certain properties which make it suitable for use in cryptography. It is a mathematical algorithm that maps data of arbitrary size to a bit string of a fixed size (a hash function) which is designed to also be a one-way function, that is, a function which is infeasible to invert.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptographic_hash_function

(I have to admit that it's taken me quite a while to get my head around the terminology and come to a reasonable understanding of it all!)

[Retro Wolf]

Over the years I've read multiple articles on the subject and still have no bloody clue what it's all about!

[selmiak]

I use it to buy crack and hookers!

[Jack]

They solve the problem of currency issuance in a really wasteful manner. If these ever saw global adoption the energy cost would be astronomical. Obviously there are better ways than having the world's computers running in circles 24/7 to make something which by itself has no value. Just because central banks are corrupt, that does not mean fiat currency could not be implemented in a sound manner.

It also means anyone who has a datacenter, or the money to buy one, is automatically in possession of a printing press which the other 99.9% of people will never match.

[Cassiebsg]

Uhm... besides the fact that seems to be some kind of digital currency (or some programming language/algoritht to create it?)... all remaining text might as well be in an unknown alien language...

It's like who ever wrote all that just assumed ppl know what he/she is talking about.

[Jack]

Basically it's a currency which self-regulates its issuance (creating of new currency) by being limited to the cost of the number of computations it takes to create new currency. This is to solve the run-away inflation which is possible with fiat/paper currency, as seen in the weimar republic and zimbabwe.

[Cassiebsg]

Okay, thanks for talking almost understandable english.

[selmiak]

Did you calculate that through Jack? Some might argue the power needed to run internet servers and backbones and datacenters and things like that is a waste, use alternative methods of communication. The value is what you make of it. Do these papers with colors on it have any value when you consider they are just paper with color on it and some shiny treasure coins.

[Jack]

Consider that mining bitcoins currently turns only a marginal profit largely because of power consumption. Multiplying that by a few billion is not going to help things.

Fiat currency has practically no intrinsic value, digital currency has none. Spending that much of a precious resource making it is a terrible way to go about things.

[KyriakosCH]

I use it to buy crack and hookers!

Careful in the deepweb

[CaptainD]

@Jack - on the energy usage side, modern ASICs and whatnot appear to be extremely energy efficient, although some alts can be mined with CPU/GPU, any serious miner uses specialised equipment.  It's an interesting question though - if hypothetically crytpo ever replaced fiat (can't see it happening myself), how would the energy costs of maintaining it compare to the energy costs of running a huge note / coin minting operation?  But yes, either way energy usage (especially on the massive farms China are said to have, though I'm sure they're not the only ones) is a very big concern either way.

Re: inflation - whilst Bitcoin and others seem to naturally work against too much inflation with halving and increasing difficulty of hashing, there are also several POS (Proof Of Stake) coins whose interest rates cause them to run on massive hyper-inflation - then again this is self-limiting as eventually these coins (for instance SPROUTS) lose all value and eventually cannot be traded even for one satoshi (0.00000001BTC, the [currently] smallest unit of Bitcoin exchange)

[RickJ]

There is an interesting TED Talk about Blockchains that explains the technology and it's implications quite nicely.  The presenter mentions one such currency that has contract fulfillment built into it. 

I don't buy the mining energy argument. There are already multitudes of data centers everywhere and a mining application can soak up spare cpu cycles when the are available. Even for dedicated mining centers I would guess they have a much smaller energy requirement than traditional banking operations with everyone carting around bags of paper and metal in cars, truck, and vans on top of their very own data center.     

[Jack]

There are already multitudes of data centers everywhere and a mining application can soak up spare cpu cycles when the are available.

So that takes care of the mining for those who already own datacenters. I'm sure they will make a tidy profit. I'm sure you're not suggesting they will give their mined currency away rather than just mining for their own profit. So what about the other 7 billion people on the planet? If it saw widespread adoption, the currently existing datacenters will shortly become a tiny percentage of global output, since we currently use them for work, and there will have to be a lot more of them if we start using them to waste processor cycles.

If anyone who owns a computer, or could acquire a suitable one, could use it to turn even a marginal profit after their power consumption by mining a widely accepted currency, what do you think they're going to do? Not mine?

EDIT:

What happens when one person leaves their laptop on for one year?

65W/h x 24 x 365 = 560kWh.

According to google, electricity consumption per capita in 2011 was 3,045 kWh.

[RickJ]

I'm sure you're not suggesting they will give their mined currency away rather than just mining for their own profit. So what about the other 7 billion people on the planet?...

Maybe you should watch the linked video in my previous post.

What happens when one person leaves their laptop on for one year?

People already leave their computers on 24/7 and use their idle cpu cycles to search for ETs, solve research problems and for crash commercial purposes.  Here are  just a few suggestion from our friend Mr. Google.
http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-ways-to-donate-your-cpu-time-to-science/
http://www.techgyd.com/turn-pc-on-make-money/6458/
https://cloud.mql5.com/

[edit]
Btw, CaptianD can you recommend a path into the crypto community you mention, at least a google clue.  Thanks

[Jack]

People already leave their computers on 24/7 and use their idle cpu cycles to search for ETs, solve research problems and for crash commercial purposes.

They all produce something intrinsically valuable which can't be made from thin air at no cost at all.

[Gurok]

I'm happy to use it as currency, but I wouldn't invest in it. I would rather buy gold and mining stocks.

[CaptainD]

[edit]
Btw, CaptianD can you recommend a path into the crypto community you mention, at least a google clue.  Thanks

Apologies, I never noticed this before.

There's a good community at https://bitcointalk.org/.  Personally I'm more interested in the alts than Bitcoin itself but the discussions there are wide-ranging.  As with any forum you have to spend a while distinguishing which members actually know what they're talking about and which ones only think they do!

If you ever pop over there my username is TeamDisaster (since I joined up initially purely as a result of sponsorship of my game, I used our dev team name).

[milkanannan]

Hey I hate to bring an old thread back, but this is the thread I myself was thinking of starting. Pretty exciting ride these past few months. Probably all going to nosedive again as it did a few years ago during the last boom in interest, but it sure is interesting to see companies offering crypto debit cards that make it now possible to use crypto to make purchases in the real world.

[CaptainD]

Hey I hate to bring an old thread back, but this is the thread I myself was thinking of starting. Pretty exciting ride these past few months. Probably all going to nosedive again as it did a few years ago during the last boom in interest, but it sure is interesting to see companies offering crypto debit cards that make it now possible to use crypto to make purchases in the real world.

BTC continues on an upwards surge - possibly about to drop a bit though? Litecoin's recent surge was interesting (also annoying as I nearly bought a load the day before the first surge... gah!) and I'm curious to see what some of the developments / proposed developments have on market value.  I can't say I'm all that clued in as to what all of them are or how they will turn out, although it seems that unless BTC can truly get some kind of control over the block size issue, Eth or one of the other big alts might actually overtake it in market cap eventually.

One of the coins I'm interested in, "GoldPieces", is having a good little revival and has a new official website - http://goldpieces.network/ - and another, HYPER, has been relaunched as HYPER 2.0, with a pretty strong community behind it.  In terms of mass adoption though even Bitcoin is still in its infancy, and I still think BTC will be the first to gain any real traction on genuine usability for eCommerce.

[milkanannan]

Yeah I'm with you. I'm very bullish on the overall idea. I just wonder if BTC is going to be like Netscape was to the internet once upon a time. Either way, it is exciting to be a part of the movement. I got a XAPO account recently and am waiting anxiously for the debit card. I think these sorts of groups are going to help bring the concept into the mainstream and make it possible for non-tech type people to adopt the idea for general use.

Thanks for the leads on Goldpieces and HYPER. I'll check those out. At the moment I'm only really watching BTC, Ripple and Ether (still kind of a n00b).

Maybe Big Blue Cup should start an altcoin.

[milkanannan]

Wow actually BTC has dipped again just tonight! ~2400 USD

[selmiak]

I'd just wait until BTC drops below 2k or even 1.5k again before buying big. then buy and save it and wait some years until BTC reaches 10k *rubs crystal ball* 

[CaptainD]

I'd just wait until BTC drops below 2k or even 1.5k again before buying big. then buy and save it and wait some years until BTC reaches 10k *rubs crystal ball* 

It could happen...

[milkanannan]

I actually wouldn't be surprised to see it go way higher than that in our lifetime. It's an increasingly popular investment vehicle in countries like China among people that want to save money in assets outside the country. I agree it's going to tumble again at some point, but the next resurrection is going to be even bigger. Mwahahaha

[CaptainD]

China has made a huge investment in mining farms, so they desperately need the price to keep rising so they can stay in profit as hashing difficulty increases.  I would expect to see an upward trend overall, over time, though obviously there will be dips as well.  I'm more interested in alts really.

[milkanannan]

Yeah I guess the alts are where the quick money is. Sort of a gamble really. With my luck any alt I buy would go through the floor! lol :-D

[CaptainD]

Haha well they can go up or down really easily.  I've never put a penny of "real money" into crypto, just what I've been given as sponsorship or from playing games (not gambling, games that let you earn a little), and dabbled with trading.  I think in general if you can get in early on an alt that has a solid reason for existing, a good communicative dev team and active community, and above all are patient, you can get a nice profit.  Trying to go for the huge profits is, as you say, pretty much gambling (as is any scheme where you hope to get rich quickly I guess).

I find the whole concept of cryptocurrency interesting though.  Just how do we define value / worth?  Why is fiat currency viewed as "real" and crpto not (by the population at large)?  I'm not convinced that true decentralisation is even possible - you need some way of deciding what new innovations to include in your coin, update the GIThub etc, and that inevitably leads to centralisation of a type.  Then of course there are people that take advantage of other's lack of technical savvy for their own advantage, even big exchanges have been prone to attack, 51% attacks have happened, scams, exploits, ponzi schemes... it's quite a minefield to negotiate!

[EDIT] Although actually... after some thought, I don't feel BTC will necessarily become the first crypto to have major adoption.  Although initially this seemed like a no-brainer, these days confirmation times are long enough that an alt with a big market cap and following might just do it first - ETH seems the obvious contender although some that work alongside the BTC network (as I believe Guilden does) may be able to - usable anywhere BTC is accepted but with much faster confirmations (presumably... haven't really looked into that side of things much).  I've always been impressed with Blackcoin too, I think that could be adopted relatively large-scale at some point.

[milkanannan]

Yeah it is definitely hard to even guess what trends will occur as adoption rates increase. Transaction time for Bitcoin is indeed frustrating, but this will improve mildly with updates. I think people trade off slower transaction time for the safety of lots of nodes due to its massive popularity.

What do you guys think of 'Antshares' (NEO? I think it underwent a name change) This is the most popular China-based crypto at the moment. I tried to read the white paper, but often these concepts are way over my head. Just strikes me like another generic crypto. Seems to be gaining some real steam though.

[CaptainD]

Not familiar with AntShares but one thing immediately noticeable on the BitCoinTalk announcement page (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1571738.0) is that they have a large and highly visible team, led by a couple of (presumably, according to their descriptions) highly regarded, long-standing members of the crypto community.  Their MarketCap (https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/antshares/) seems to have gone through the roof lately, it could just be a massive pump of course but if they're managing to get real-world usage (presumably in China and possibly surrounding countries?) then they could hold the value or even increase it.

I know what you mean about white papers, I've looked at a couple but 1/ the technical specifications are way over my head and 2/ I'm simply not interested enough to persevere reading about them.  I prefer to just know what plans there are for usage in games, acceptance by online traders, and community aspects.

[milkanannan]

I know for a fact Antshares aren't really being used in China for anything. I lived there for about five years and my wife is Chinese (no one in our Chinese circles has ever heard of Antshares), so there is probably a high degree of hype to the whole thing right now. Still interesting though. People in China move money using WeChat, which is sort of like a Whatsapp but with the ability to transfer Chinese yuan around or use it from the app to pay for things in stores. Not quite sure how Antshares would fit into this picture, but I think for a lot of Chinese people the idea of buying non-state controlled investments (i.e. Antshares instead of RMB) would be attractive. Just have to wait and see I guess.

Btw, that thread link you posted - 338 pages of disucssion?!

[CaptainD]

Btw, that thread link you posted - 338 pages of disucssion?!

Yeah what tends to happen is the announcement thread of any particular alt gets used for any and every update (and the inevitable trolls etc), so it just keeps building and building.

[milkanannan]

Crazy. I checked the Whois on that site, and it gets 1million+ hits a month! Probably a lot of that is bots.

BTC down at the moment...which means the Antshares I just bought are also down. I swear all markets anywhere around the world hinge on whether I get involved or not. If you want anything to drop in value, just get me to buy into it.

[Danvzare]

If you want anything to drop in value, just get me to buy into it.

Really?
So in other words, you could buy a little bit of stock for let's say Microsoft, and when it reaches it's lowest I could buy a load of stock and you sell yours. Then when it gets high again, I sell off my stock and share the profits with you.

[milkanannan]

Hehe cheers.

Guys: BTC going to fall below $2000 USD tonight??? Crazy times. I'm paper walleting everything in the lead up to the possible fork.

[CaptainD]

I read that as long as you have BTC in your own wallet, you will get the value duplicated on both chains?  (Surely this will lead to a massive price dump if true!!)

[milkanannan]

I read that as long as you have BTC in your own wallet, you will get the value duplicated on both chains?  (Surely this will lead to a massive price dump if true!!)

Yes, I read that everywhere too. I'm not quite sure I understand this concept though. I'm keeping my BTC in a paper wallet until this blows over. My understanding is that when I credit the value in the paper wallet back to the exchange, the exchange will give me value in both currencies (should a fork happen). However, if you leave your holdings in the exchange through Aug 1, you are at the mercy of whatever currency the exchange decides to run with.

[CaptainD]

Yeah, pretty much (I've also never fully understood the whole "paper wallet" thing tbh!! ) - I don't think I really have enough to worry about so I'm either going to leave it on the exchanges or possibly turn it all into a POS coin and let is stake for a while.

[milkanannan]

I didn't understand paper wallets either, so I tried using https://walletgenerator.net/ with a really tiny amount and it seemed to work OK. I transferred the remaining amount to paper wallet (not very much), so I guess everything is OK for now. (I hope! )

Hey just realised you're for Birmingham. I work with two guys from there. They tell me all sorts of interesting/hilarious stories about life there.

[selmiak]

what lunacy about a fork are you talking about?
The fork should be something else then. And when you have btc you can exchange via exchanges to btcfoark if you want the fork ... features, or whatever the fork should gain to the codebase...
links?

[CaptainD]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2012799.0

[milkanannan]

Lol I didn't realise it was so easy to make an altcoin! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ir_Xx7GQmOs

Should we launch Big Blue Cup Coin?

[CaptainD]

I think a lot of early alts - and modern (but lazy) ones - were simply very slight deviations of the BTC codebase.  Then we had a phase of LTC clones and more recently ETH clones.  Some alts do use completely new code but these are in the minority.

Strange as it may sound, "Big Blue Cup Coin" isn't really a crazy idea, although we may run into trouble with the abbreviation BBCcoin !

[milkanannan]

BBCcoin! Let's claim it before the BBC does!

What purpose could an AGS coin serve? I guess it could be a way for people to invest in the value of this community? i.e. if the community expands and more people buy the coin, everyone's value goes up. But I think most wouldn't be into that. Part of the AGS charm is its 'secret club' feel. Anything to encourage mass adoption probably wouldn't be welcome by the community I'm guessing.

[CaptainD]

If anything it could theoretically be used as a forum tipping service, much like Reddcoin.  But I don't see many people going for it, it's difficult enough for a coin to gain mass adoption within the crypto community itself, far less a community such as this where the number of people interested / involved in crypto probably stands at about 0.02%!

There was a crowd-funding site based on crypto instead of fiat that I thought was going to be very interesting, but it basically died after a few months.  I still think that idea has merit, but perhaps the climate is not right for it yet.

[milkanannan]

The thought of 0.02% adoption

[CaptainD]

The thought of 0.02% adoption

We could label it as "ULTRA-SECURE" (because no-one would want it anyway) and "ULTRA LOW DISTRIBUTION" (only a million coins will ever be made), no ICO, no pre-mine, You, I and Selmiak can be given a starting stake of 1000 each (yeah I know how can we do this with no pre-mine?
  BECAUSE WE CAN DO WHAT WE WANT!) and it can be pure POS at 0.02% per day.  Yessir, we've got a winner on our hands!

[milkanannan]

The ultimate shitcoin. So secure we can't even give it away!

[Danvzare]

Part of the AGS charm is its 'secret club' feel. Anything to encourage mass adoption probably wouldn't be welcome by the community I'm guessing.

Wait what? I thought we were TRYING to encourage mass adoption here.

[CaptainD]

Well, the fork happened, just didn't seem to be quite what people expected.

Aaaaaaand... with all the uncertainty I used a lot of my BTC on Bittrex to buy more HYPER and GP, thinking that anything held on an exchange wouldn't benefit from the fork.  Just checked my account and I have  equivalent Bitcoin Cash (BCC) as I had BTC... probably worth a lot more profit than I will get from staking my POS coins.  Oh well...

(Incidetnally... over sixty three THOUSAND BTC-worth of BCC traded on Trex today!!   Nearly ten times the amount of ETH traded and thirty times LTC!)

[Stupot]

<---- This is bitcoin going over my head.
<---- This is my head.

[selmiak]

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/9kwepa/bitcoin-has-forked
nice read about the split and speculations about both currencies future.
BTC seems unaffected by the split and BCC drives crazy...

[milkanannan]

Well, the fork happened, just didn't seem to be quite what people expected.

Aaaaaaand... with all the uncertainty I used a lot of my BTC on Bittrex to buy more HYPER and GP, thinking that anything held on an exchange wouldn't benefit from the fork.  Just checked my account and I have  equivalent Bitcoin Cash (BCC) as I had BTC... probably worth a lot more profit than I will get from staking my POS coins.  Oh well...

(Incidetnally... over sixty three THOUSAND BTC-worth of BCC traded on Trex today!!   Nearly ten times the amount of ETH traded and thirty times LTC!)

I'm surprised BTC stayed as stable as it did ('stable' as far as BTC is concerned, that is; I was expected a full on garage sale in the lead up to Aug 1!) Not so surprised about BCC, as I guess it was more the wildcard. I wonder if it's worth buying some Bitcoin Cash soon in hopes it gains some traction down the road the way Bitcoin Classic did? Bitcoin Classic went on to have 1000% growth over the course of a year or two.

Yeah I emptied the little Bitcoin holding I have into a paper wallet, so at some point I'll build a strategy on what to do next. I guess moving it back into a digital wallet is supposed to give you split holdings in both currencies?

[CaptainD]

I'm also quite surprised, I though BTC might drop significantly with a concomitant rise in the major (and possibly minor) alts, but nothing too dramatic seems to have happened.  I'd be quite surprised if ETH didn't surge upwards towards the end of the year (but purely on a hunch).  I wonder how strong LTC will stay?

I expect BCC will go down for a while but I'm certain it'll get pumped at some point.

Hey I also unexpectedly received some Lumen (XLM) for free - seems there's quite an incentive to just hold BTC, even on an exchange, even if it doesn't appreciate that much.

[selmiak]

yay, I bought some BTC yesterday. The amount I traded is probably not responsible for that rise in value but I did profit

[milkanannan]

Congrats! I also randomly bought Antshares (now called NEO) at $8 a few weeks back. Now sitting at $35. This might be the first time EVER something I've invested in didn't tank!

[CaptainD]

Congrats! I also randomly bought Antshares (now called NEO) at $8 a few weeks back. Now sitting at $35. This might be the first time EVER something I've invested in didn't tank!

Hehe it had to happen sometime!

[milkanannan]

BTC $3650+

[CaptainD]

BTC $3650+

Over $4K now!

[milkanannan]

Now I'm wishing it would go back down to $3600! I need to buy more.

Sold my NEO at $48 USD and bought a bunch of Ripple with it, which to me seems underpriced at the moment at 0.16 USD (was up around .30 for a stretch, so I'm hoping it is going to bounce back).

I heard some cool things about this Ark. Building a platform for anyone to create a cryptocurrency using a few clicks, which I think is a really cool idea and would make for a platform in which the public could literally invest in ...anything! Create a coin for yourself, your dog, the city of Seoul, your punk rock community, ...anything! Not exactly sure whether the idea will take off or not, but definitely interesting.

[CaptainD]

I heard some cool things about this Ark. Building a platform for anyone to create a cryptocurrency using a few clicks, which I think is a really cool idea and would make for a platform in which the public could literally invest in ...anything! Create a coin for yourself, your dog, the city of Seoul, your punk rock community, ...anything! Not exactly sure whether the idea will take off or not, but definitely interesting.

Ugh... as if there aren't enough alts around already!!!   I guess if there's a large community and something to give new coins created some intrinsic value, maybe they've got as good a chance of succeeding as anything... guess things like 51% attack protection must be built into it?  DIY altcoins will surely just become P&D coins 99.9% of the time?  Like the vast majority of existing alts.

[milkanannan]

Yeah fair enough. And yes, so many alts out there already! But I do think there's going to be some sort of 'kickstarter' of crypto, where users start coins as a way to raise capital but also gives others a chance to invest in the project instead of just donate.

[CaptainD]

But I do think there's going to be some sort of 'kickstarter' of crypto, where users start coins as a way to raise capital but also gives others a chance to invest in the project instead of just donate.

That's an interesting idea actually.  PICISI was supposed to be a crypto-based Kickstarter but never really took off and has subsequently vanished... but yeah, there's probably mileage in the concept.

[milkanannan]

Yeah I think it is a cool concept too. Or the idea that you could be a smart university student, 20 years old, very bright future ahead of you, and you start a coin so the world can invest in you, i.e. betting on you gaining some mileage in life and creating something of value for humanity.

[Stupot]

I don't get those numbers. What does $3600 etc mean? Surely that's not the amount that one bitcoin is worth?

[selmiak]

I don't get those numbers. What does $3600 etc mean? Surely that's not the amount that one bitcoin is worth?

The crazy thing is, this is exactly what one bitcoin is worth.
https://bitcoincharts.com/charts/bitstampUSD#rg5ztgSzm1g10zm2g25zv
one BTC was worth $3.900 3 days ago. If you had bought one 3 days ago for $ 3900 you could have sold it half a day ago for $4450 and made $550 in 2 days. If you had bought 2 BTCs your profit would have doubled. But look at that crazy curve, the same thing can happen downwards and you might have lost $500 or $1000 (but still have the same amount of BTC if you don't sell it...). BTC is very volatile and the worth is changing all the time, so don't invest if you need the money somewhere else and urgently need BTC to rise

[milkanannan]

I don't get those numbers. What does $3600 etc mean? Surely that's not the amount that one bitcoin is worth?

Yeah the price has been going up like crazy. Bound for a correction soonish. If you are new to Bitcoin, numbers like '3600' doesn't mean you can only buy in if you pay for a whole Bitcoin. You can by any fraction of a Bitcoin you want.

[milkanannan]

Anyone tried this 'Brave' browser you keep hearing the crypto community talk about? I'm downloading it now.

[selmiak]

I did read into it

from here: http://www.knowyourmobile.com/products/brave-web-browser/23731/brave-browser-basically-anti-chrome

So instead of blocking all ads, Brave seeks out the really intrusive onesâ€"those ones known as “Malvertising” that can install malware on your computer without your knowledgeâ€"and replaces them with Brave's own advertising that is less intrusive on your privacy.

The company will then keep 15% of the ad revenue for itself, pay 55% of the revenue to the content publisher whose site the ad appears on, give 15% to ad partners, and finally, give 15% of ad revenue to Brave users, who can then donate that money to bloggers and other content providers via micropaymentsâ€"meaning that you decide which sites of those you love gets the cash for the ads.

so how will they pay the 55% to website publishers? The words sound noble but how? It seems to me more like they replace ads on websites with their own ads, take 70% (15%+55%) of the admoney and bait users with the 15%  they share to use their browser and view their ads.
the brave website says the browser just blocks all ads and trackers and has some payment system...

[selmiak]

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/zmvkke/this-is-not-a-drill-a-hacker-allegedly-stole-dollar32-million-in-ethereum

even bad press draws some attention. And hackers deem ether (ETH) worthy of stealing and hacking, so, this bad press might even down the value of ETH some, but it will rise again after people get over the cautioness from the hacks and see it is worthy the investment. So don't take my word for it, noone knows the future, but it seems now is a good time to put some 50-100 or 1000 real life coins into this and save it for some years. Or maybe 10-50 every month while it's on the rise, just like you would stuff it into the sock under your pillow

[milkanannan]

Monero's had quite the run. Not surprising at all given its now the face for anonymous crypto. Wish I had bought it before this jump! Probably still a good buy considering its opening up for trade on that large Korean market today. It's currently at $133 USD. Let's see where it goes this coming week!

[milkanannan]

I had an eventful few weeks. NEO shot back up from $20 USD, which was nice, but I'm riding this one a bit more longterm. Hoping it gets back to its previous $50 USD high. Just need a positive word from the Chinese gov.

I bought some Ethereum for the first time. Prices haven't been this low in a while, so I thought it might be an opportunity to experiment with different coins.

Because I use Bittrex (and exchange that operates in BTC and not USD), I've been analysing growth of alts in BTC prices to sort of hedge against movements in BTC. Sucks when you make a gain in an alt only to find out that BTC made that same gain and you would have been better off just leaving your funds in BTC.

[CaptainD]

I kept hold of some HTML5coin, and it seems to be resurfacing - currently at 2 sats (even selling at that would still be nice) but I have hopes that it will touch 10 sats again at some points.  Lots of activity / apparent activity by the devs.

REALLY wish I'd kept hold of some DigiBytes!! (DGB)  375 sats currently.

Diamonds (DMD) is still doing very nicely indeed, active community and dev, V3 coming in a couple of days which introduces MasterNodes and should push the price up even further.

[selmiak]

bitcoin is going down over the last days and especially heavy today.
Probably because the JP morgan boss called it unreal or so in the press. mean, but this happens every time one of these financial institution people that are scared of the value of code shoot at btc.
the question is how long will it go down? 1 day? 3 days? or even longer? I think once it reached some value people will invest again as they see it is cheap now. So you have to find that moment before it rises again or just buy some now before it rises again. Who knows

[milkanannan]

Yeah, and I think a major driver was one of the exchanges in China announcing it will close end of the month to comply with Chinese regulations. Lots of people nervous about this too. Anyway it's a great time to buy

Not sure how low it will go. Here is a cool table of historical corrections:

[CaptainD]

Diamond V3 wallet should be released today including Master Nodes and taking away stake age weighting.  Pretty sure it's not hit its ceiling yet.  I've got mine held on an exchange until the new wallet launches, seriously thinking about selling some if it hits 0.002BTC.

[CaptainD]

What on earth is going on with DOGE?!?!?  Is is just getting ready for a huge pump by some whales?

Shame I never invested in some Myriad or BitBean when they were dirt cheap... oh well at least I made a good return on DMD.

[milkanannan]

I think part of Doge's problem is it doesn't do anything new. It's sort of like a Bitcoin clone with a dog's head.

Lol you really like those random coins. Bitbean? I'd never even think to buy that. I'm sure there are those that make some randomly incredible gains, but with my luck I'd never successfully pick them out.

Bought 0.1 BTC more NEO last night. My guess is the moment China figures out its crypto game plane that sucka's going to jump back up to its earlier high.

[selmiak]

bitcoin is on some plateau, it could go down from there (if at all, a max of 500 down, no more) or more and more people buy in and it goes through the roof again *yawn*
It seem the ~3000$ value is some magic value the curve dances around, just becaise people want to buy below 3k, some get nervous and buy for close to 3k but above and thus it rises again and the less than 3k bidders get nothing, maybe it goes down below the 3k but my estimation is a rise, but if it goes below 3k, then not by much....

also ether (ETH) has dropped a lot in value but is on the rise again, maybe the rise continues.

Have any of you converted their pre-fork BTC to BCC already? Can you just sell this then???

[milkanannan]

I've got pre-fork BTC on a paper wallet. No idea how to extract the BCC. If I scan it into Mycelium wallet I worry the BCC will just evaporate into thin air.

Yes, if you manage to get the BCC out then you can sell it at market price on any exchange that lists it.

[CaptainD]

I only had BTC on exchanges and they credited the BCC automatically.  I'm not sure how you perform the action yourself - or if there is a time limit on doing so.

[milkanannan]

I guess the time limit would be until the next fork? No idea. I wish I'd left my Bitcoin on the exchange then too!

[CaptainD]

I wish I'd left my Bitcoin on the exchange then too!

I actually thought I might be making a huge mistake but in the end just went with it.

[milkanannan]

You should see China right now - everyone using their phones to transfer RMB (Chinese currency) via QR codes connected to 'WeChat' (the popular Whatsapp-like app there). It's the norm for transacting now. Witnessing that has made it clear to me that turning on a similar transaction model for crypto in China can happen overnight. It's really up to the government to decide what they're going to do, what coin they're going to roll with. Very interesting times! This next year is going to be exciting.

[selmiak]

what would happen if the gov would force the chinese population to use a state coin? Will people be scared of total state co(i)ntrol and get more btc or will they be scare to not be able to access all their btc anymore and buy lots of statecoins? That would make btc fall quite heavy I suppose. But can the state really enfore a cryptocurrency on people? What will people do that don't have electronic devices just because they cannot afford them but still need to handle money to survive? Can they block access to bitcoin wallets?

[milkanannan]

Well I guess we survived Shitcoin Gold. Bitcoin sure does seem to be gaining a lot of backing these days. I'm hoping China will announce its plans regarding crypto. Should sense everything back into a profitable tizzy.

[milkanannan]

$6500+

[CaptainD]

What on earth is going on with Dogecoin?  I bought some at 18 sat as I just can't believe it won't get a huge pump at some stage... am starting to seriously wonder if it will actually go all the way down to 1 sat before it starts coming up again!

[selmiak]

wow! such doge! much coin!


bitcoin is creepy atm. I guess now is the time to sell and not to buy and when everyone gets it and sells there will be a decrease shortly after. or following that trend btc goes to 10k in one day and 100k in 2h afterwards

[milkanannan]

Two things happened: (1) China reentered the ring and (2) futures can be bought on BTC now in the US.

BUT

There is a hard fork coming. November 16. Let's see what happens before/after. Hoping for a major correction and another buying opportunity...

[selmiak]

you want to mine bitcoins but don't want a new computer for this? Just use your old phones
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/3kvdv9/samsung-upcycling-galaxy-s5-bitcoin-mining-rig

[CaptainD]

you want to mine bitcoins but don't want a new computer for this? Just use your old phones
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/3kvdv9/samsung-upcycling-galaxy-s5-bitcoin-mining-rig

Haha what a funky idea.

[milkanannan]

you want to mine bitcoins but don't want a new computer for this? Just use your old phones
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/3kvdv9/samsung-upcycling-galaxy-s5-bitcoin-mining-rig

Nice!

[milkanannan]

Guys ~ any predictions for post-fork BTC prices? We've dropped to 7050 USD now; I'm guessing some of this is nerves over the upcoming fork (Nov 16), so perhaps will drop further and create a good buying opportunity. Post-fork...no idea really but I'm guessing the new Bitcoin will just keep steaming ahead after the fork dust settles. Could totally see 10K by end of year.

[CaptainD]

Well... hmm... the last fork did the price no harm at all!

On the other hand... I'm not sure I can see BTC continuing to rise at this rate.  I would expect it to level out at some point at least for a while, slight dip, some of the alts have a brief resurgence and then they drop, BTC goes up again...

Then again it's possible that the whales have found a sustainable way of profiting from keeping BTC on a generally upwards trend.  I think $10K is definitely possible early in 2018.

[CaptainD]

Wow BTC has broken through $8K!!  Maybe we will see $10K before the end of 2017 after all...

[milkanannan]

$8140 as I'm writing this, and yes I could totally see it get that high before year out. Tonight's excitement for me though: what is the NEO news Dahongfei and his team alluded to three days ago? They left a cryptic message indicating a major news release tonight, so I'm hoping something cool to come our way in the next few hours!

[milkanannan]

$8600

[milkanannan]

Wow actually BTC has dipped again just tonight! ~2400 USD

I can't believe I typed this five months ago.

[CaptainD]

Wow actually BTC has dipped again just tonight! ~2400 USD

I can't believe I typed this five months ago.

It's insane isn't it?!?

[CaptainD]

Well.. there we are then.  Google tells me that today - 1 Bitcoin equals 10236.28 US Dollars

It's not even December yet!!!!!

[selmiak]

what do you think? buy? or keep calm until BTC can keep the 10K? It could go downhill very steep very quickly... maybe tomorrow... or maybe rather around january

[milkanannan]

For about 24 hours now it has been below 10K slightly. I'm just buying and not looking back. It seems like jumps of 1, 2 or 3k are very possible as barriers to entry are lowered and more and more mainstream financial firms show confidence. Sure there could be a correction, but this train isn't stopping in the long run.

NEO, on the other hand, is breaking my heart here. I hope this new push on app development on the platform produces something valuable, but it has just been a long slough.

[milkanannan]

So $19K+ last night. Um. Yeah.

[CaptainD]

Well, I'm a bit stuffed.  Bittrex have changed their terms so that you cannot withdraw anything unless you have a "verified account" (so much for decentralisation eh lads?!)  Their "Basic Verification" possibly works for a select few living in the States, though even then it doesn't seem guaranteed.  For "Enhanced Verification" you need to scan and send certain documents that I would rather not give out, especially considering it has also been reported that they have leaked information (https://cointelegraph.com/news/bittrex-leaks-user-passports-in-support-emails-says-russian-telegram-channel).

Sadly it is looking more and more like Bittrex has become an (extremely long-running) scam with what now looks like a clear exit strategy.  This would wipe out pretty much my entire crypto portfolio.

In addition to this my GoldPieces wallet has stopped working and no-one appears to know (or care) why - between these two things I will basically be as poor in the crypto world as I already am in the real world.  I would cry if I didn't laugh!

[milkanannan]

I'm full on giving paper-walleted crypto for Christmas this year. Litecoin and Monero mainly ho ho ho!

[Peder 🚀]

I liked the idea of cryptocurrencies, but right now get the feeling it's being looked at as something it's not :-/.
Also what merchants actually support payments with cryptocurrencies?

[tzachs]

Sadly it is looking more and more like Bittrex has become an (extremely long-running) scam with what now looks like a clear exit strategy.  This would wipe out pretty much my entire crypto portfolio.

Sorry to hear, that sucks. Our company is now starting to trade in cryptocurrencies and they brought an expert to teach us a little bit about it. According to him there are only 2 exchanges that are trustworthy: Gdax (including Coinbase) and Gemini. Those 2 are backed by big known institutions and at least your USD there is FDIC insured. All of the other exchanges are a little shady at best, or outright criminals at worst (Bitfinex).

[selmiak]

You can always store your crypto currency on your own wallet or in cold storage, you don't have to (and very much shouldn't) trust a startup internet company to handle your riches all the time.
Though I haven't found a monero wallet, only websites that offer wallets but I don't trust these for reasons mentioned by CaptainD a few posts above.

[CaptainD]

@manifest class - yeah, though the idea of a paper wallet for a digital currency has always baffled my internal logic processors!
@peder - true - is it a currency or is it a commodity?  If there were just a few cryptos around it would be easier I guess, but there are little hundreds or maybe thousands of the suckers.  Few places genuinely accept BTC, I know Humble Store does and there was talk of Steam doing so, but the majority of altcoins the only real value is trade, turn into one of the established big ctypros when you want to do something, and then choose from the small number of stores / use a processing site (potentially risky) or buy gift vouchers with them (giftoff or crytptodechange) - I favoured the last option personally.  You could try selling the crypto for fiat but again I always felt the risk was fairly high with that.
@tzachs - thanks for that, I may look into those.  Though I have not and will not put a penny of "real" money into this, it was great being able to buy gift vouchers with the crypto.  If Trex is truly out of line as it seems, it will cause even bigger shockwaves than the Crytpsy scandal.  I've heard of Coinbase of course although I have to admit that Gemini is not an exchange I really know of.  (I have little to no funds on a couple of other exchanges so I can't lose much more!!)
@selmiak - very true, but it's not like Bittrex is a new company - they've been around for ages and I've never had even the tiniest trouble with them before.  Sadly, it seems that this was either a VERY long-term scam, or simply that they've run into trouble and are covering their losses unethically.

[selmiak]

I was just checking the btc value and see this:



if I hadn't sold what I don't need already I'd panic. Though it is just some wrong display probably, but maybe a sign? Thought I'd share. Even though I know Photoshop and html there is no manipulation involved in that screenshot!


edit: refreshing the charts now this dent looks normal again. Was it a sign?

[selmiak]

back up at 16k â,¬

also an interesting writeup on wired

https://www.wired.com/story/bitcoin-global-warming/

Right now, the hash algorithm is useless work, intentionally. It's burned. How about making it do something useful? It's a P2P network doing collaborative computation. What about making it find signals from aliens, or figure out how to make proteins useful to medical science, or solve real-world crypto problems and prime factorization? And but no. “I'll tell you why that didn't happen, and it's perverse,” Sirer says. “Had bitcoin been mined by doing something useful, then there would be a correspondence between useful work and the number of bitcoins you get … That creates a mental anchor point in people's mind for how much a bitcoin should cost.”

...

The declining rewards put a cap on the total number of bitcoins that can ever be in the world. It's 21 million, and the current trend line leads to them being nearly all mined out around 2032.2 Once that happens, transaction fees will be the only reward built into the system. Some other cryptocurrencies, maybe more energy-efficient ones, will start looking more competitive. Right now, bitcoin looks increasingly like a tool for speculation rather than a viable, mainstream currency. And one scientific law that math, physics, and economics all share is this: Bubbles pop.

[selmiak]

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ebay-seriously-considering-accepting-bitcoin-164410989.html

https://steamcommunity.com/games/593110/announcements/detail/1464096684955433613

[milkanannan]

Wow last minute Christmas bargain shopping in crypto!

[Gord10]

I made the mistake of buying Bitcoin while it was at its peak, it was like $20K. I only bought the equivalent of $30, but I still feel silly for that.

I don't believe it will gain that much value in the future, but I still plan to buy some more BTC when I have money to play with. Regret of not buying BTC would be worse if BTC gets valued.

[milkanannan]

I don't believe it will gain that much value in the future

Hmm interesting perspective. Why do you feel this way?

[Stupot]

Has this not all been revealed as a massive scam yet?

[milkanannan]

Has this not all been revealed as a massive scam yet?

No, it hasn't.

[Khris]

It's not a scam in the legal sense. People like to label it as scam because it makes them sound woke.

I haven't bought any Bitcoin yet, and I'm not planning to, but I did run mining software as an experiment for a few weeks. I now have 0.005 BTC currently worth about 50â,¬, and the additional electric cost was about 45â,¬

[CaptainD]

Has this not all been revealed as a massive scam yet?

Probably, but only by:
1 - people who don't understand it
2 - people who have a vested interest in cryptocurrency failing
3 - people who hear that criminals have used it (which obviously they have) and conclude that cryptocurrency is for criminals.  Uh guys criminals use fiat currency too...  (I guess it's the supposed anonymity of crypto that's seen as helping criminals, and to an extent this may be true.)

Comments by a certain Bill Gates recently haven't helped things.

That doesn't mean there isn't a great deal of scamming done within the cryptocurrency community of course, because there are a lot of fraudsters around.  But the concept of a digital currency in itself is not a scam.  There still seems to be some uncertainty whether crypto should truly be viewed as a currency rather than a commodity.  People often think it's just "Bitcoin" but there's a dizzying number of other coins out there - of course some of these ARE scams (especially the ones with massive ICO / pre-mine).

Like most things it's far more complex and interesting than most people will ever realise!  (I only really understand the basics myself but find the concept rather fascinating.)

[Gord10]

I don't believe it will gain that much value in the future

Hmm interesting perspective. Why do you feel this way?

I'm no expert, my beliefs are only beliefs.
1. Today, everyone is in the Bitcoin stock market. I see people who are not familiar with digital world try to gain profit by cryptocurrency. I have suspicions about market being able to make so much people rich.
2. If Bitcoin would be accepted in major online markets, it would be great for us. But I don't think cryptocurrencies will be accepted as payment method in close future. Instead of that, some countries like China tries to ban it.

[milkanannan]

We need another WannaCry to make crypto popular again. Great time to buy right now, if you've kept the faith.

[Stupot]

Hasn't this ship sailed? Everyone seems to have quietened right down about crypto and none of them are driving Ferrari's yet.

[Danvzare]

Hasn't this ship sailed? Everyone seems to have quietened right down about crypto and none of them are driving Ferrari's yet.

Doesn't that make now the best time to buy then?
So then we can sell when it's popular again!
...
Or we could just get into the stock market. 
I honestly don't know much about crypto currency.

[Blondbraid]

An argument I haven't seen brought up here yet is the fact that they are horrible for the environment,
because bitcoin mining takes up huge amounts of computer energy and wastes huge amounts of electricity on a planet already starting to see horrific changes
to nature due to over consumption and using energy from dirty fuels, and that's a big reason I hope it doesn't become commonplace.

[CaptainD]

I haven't really kept up with it much, although with a combination of being patient and not expecting too much, I've still done pretty well out of it despite the price dumping dramatically compared to what it was.  I use it to get gift vouchers for stuff, it's been incredibly useful at a time in my life where money going out regularly exceeds what comes in unless I'm extraordinarily careful.

@Blondbraid - yeah the environmental impact is definitely a massive concern.  Since the last halving I'm pretty sure Bitcoin mining is not profitable to 99.99% of the world's population; I have a feeling it's close to impossible to mine Etherium profitably these days too.  It's not something I've every tried doing so I've not followed it much, but I've read the odd thing about it.  I don't know how much longer the "Proof Of Work" model is likely to be popular  I would hope that we will see the end of these gigantic "mining farms" but I guess it's a case of if someone can profit from it, they will do it whatever the environmental / social or other cost.

[selmiak]

afaik ethereum is switching to Proof of Stake soon to cut down on energy consumption. There are no plans like that for bitcoin afaik.

[Khris]

lol

Crypto exchange says it can't repay $190 million to clients after founder dies with only password

[milkanannan]

lol

Crypto exchange says it can't repay $190 million to clients after founder dies with only password

(laugh)lol that's so awesome

[selmiak]

So did he fake his death to get away with the virtual savings of lots of people? 

[Mandle]

So did he fake his death to get away with the virtual savings of lots of people? 

Either way, he is in heaven... Oh, wait...

[Mandarinas45]

It's dying. It might be used for storage and transaction log, but I dont see it as a viable currency anymore.

[milkanannan]

It's interesting to look at market cap: https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin-marketcap.html

It's a litmus test of interest in cryptocurrency in general, and we can see here that it is very much leaning towards pre-2017 boom levels. I buy chunks of BTC and some alts here and there in general anticipation of the whole scene coming back someday. Anyone else doing the same?

[selmiak]

seems like it stays at some value for some time, fluctuates a bit and then drops further. It is better to buy at the lowest price, but who knows when the bottom is reached?

[Jack]

Now you'll see a select few sites and gurus telling you what a great time it is to buy bitcoin. They'll get more and more hysterical as time goes on. "At these basement prices you'd have to be INSANE not to buy the dip."

The truth is an alternative currency would've been great to have with what's about to happen with the world debt bazaar, if the design of it weren't so incredibly stupid.

By the way, I have this great currency based on burning tires you might be interested in. The pollution is a concern, but it's self-regulating.

[milkanannan]

Now you'll see a select few sites and gurus telling you what a great time it is to buy bitcoin. They'll get more and more hysterical as time goes on. "At these basement prices you'd have to be INSANE not to buy the dip."

The truth is an alternative currency would've been great to have with what's about to happen with the world debt bazaar, if the design of it weren't so incredibly stupid.

By the way, I have this great currency based on burning tires you might be interested in. The pollution is a concern, but it's self-regulating.

But Jack isn't Bitcoin sort of banking on energy in the world becoming greener with time? I get your point - at the moment you've got millions of computers using tons of energy to keep BTC alive. However, we can assume that at some point in the future (maybe decades or a century from now), this same energy is going to be generated from much more sustainable sources?

[milkanannan]

seems like it stays at some value for some time, fluctuates a bit and then drops further. It is better to buy at the lowest price, but who knows when the bottom is reached?

Yeah it is impossible to know. However, if you look at market cap, there are generally two year intervals between peak popularity and trough. The overarching popularity of Bitcoin keeps increasing, but the highs and lows relative to the period seem to oscillate around a two year iteration.

[selmiak]

I get your mathematical point of view, it all scales up. But then, afaik lots of people with lots of money invested at the end of 2017 to make the value rise only to sell their BTC shortly before the bubble did burst or shortly after. Lots of people did buy in shortly before the bubble burst to get their piece of the cake but actually lost hell of a lot of money. You need the same amount of "way too late"-people buying in again, and even more of them to make it scale in these mathematical proportions. But people and financial markets are chaos and not logical principles, thus the word risk investment. Though it would be awesome if that theory of amplified oscillation would be true, but for that it would need some resonating body to oscillate with, you know, some good press for it to get more mainstream adaption and people to buy in (again...). Maybe read some financial publications, these people might write some selffulfilling prophetic hype about it... or not...
My estimation is BTC will resonate around the 3k or 2k for the next few years and then either slowly rise or even fade into obscurity as better crypto currencies arrive, maybe even ether gets more mainstream adaption... Or bitcoincash... or or or

of course you could invest some 100k yourself and suddenly market cap seems interesting again as there will sure be a rise in value as demand increses for a short time. But then, send me some of your 100k and I'll invest it in better things.

[milkanannan]

Cool insight. Yeah I'm not saying sell the farm over this. But I'll maintain that profiting from the oscillating interest is likely to carry on into the foreseeable future. For example, I first heard about Bitcoin in 2013, which is 6 years after its launch. I watched at the sidelines while the price rose (I think $2K high or something) and then fell into obscurity and everyone said what you're saying now "there is no pattern to its growth" etc. But then WannaCry happened and everyone got excited again. I put money in and watched it go up 4x and then nose dive, and I'm sure there are plenty that watched the whole thing happen just like I did in 2013. The next build up and drop will rope these spectators in and the process repeats. Also, this same process happened several times even before I heard of Bitcoin in 2013 (if you map the Google trend searches for 'Bitcoin' with market cap and price charts you can see it's this constant oscillating in value as more and more people attempt to research BTC).

Anyway, you're right ~ there's definitely an irrational exuberance to it all. I highly doubt the majority of the money in BTC has any real idea of how BTC works. But I think the waves of interest and disinterest are far from over, and BTC is the only project with the branding and media attention to attract n00b capital, so from a purely speculative standpoint it is a likely bet that a few bucks in BTC will net something in the next few years.

[selmiak]

not the press crypto needs to rise again:
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612974/once-hailed-as-unhackable-blockchains-are-now-getting-hacked/

I like crypto, but this is alarming. When people lose interest and miners stop mining some obscure crypto currency the rest of the people that are just using, investing or holding that currency are at risk.
As the article states, you'd need $260,000 per hour to attack the bitcoin blockchain with the 51% attack (at the moment), but this was ethereum classic, that is still widely used.

Though BTC did rise from $3550 to $3900 since the 18th. But in the next 5 days is will fall again?!

[milkanannan]

Very cool article. Thanks for sharing.

It's really hard not to draw parallels to the crap early days of other internet based services. I remember in the 90s figuring out really obvious ways to hack into my friends' geocities accounts or even things like gaming early pay per click services. I appreciate your skepticism, and I'm trying not to be stupidly optimistic, but as the article reports: each hack did indeed have a fix. Maybe some of the fixes weren't pretty (i.e. forking ETH and telling everyone to be cool with it  ), but in the end the technology gets incrementally better. 51% takeovers of some of the less popular tokens are going to be extremely painful, extremely costly lessons, but the machinery of cryptocurrency will carry on in a slightly more specific form, and at some point a small handful of winning projects (or maybe just one project) will emerge.

One thing that gave me a laugh in the article is the rise of these new auditing technologies for crypto. I mean, crypto nerds used to espouse how projects like Bitcoin would pull humanity completely away from traditional banking and now you need a blockchain based auditing service. 

[milkanannan]

Here we go again, guys and girls. Almost $8900 USD about an hour ago!

[milkanannan]

To what degree do you guys think Libra has influenced this recent price surge?

[milkanannan]

Wow like $100B USD pulled out of BTC and price has dropped to $5300 per Bitcoin. Guess it is clear that the world still sees Bitcoin as speculative and not a true store of value.

[KyriakosCH]

One should be always wary of Bogdanoff 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61Q6wWu5ziY

[Jack]

Bogdanoff? Interesting.

Can you give me a quick rundown?

[KyriakosCH]

I don't know much about the real Bodganoff(s). Apparently they are twins, who had heavy plastic surgery and are very rich.
But in the meme (as in the video above) they have absolute control of bitcoin.

[milkanannan]

$17K+ now. Probably on account of the mess over US transfer of power? Perhaps we will see a huge dive in the not too distant future as things settle down.

[milkanannan]

Perhaps we will see a huge dive in the not too distant future as things settle down.

$30K+
So I was a bit wrong.
I'll let myself out.

[milkanannan]

$50K+ thanks to Elon and Bitcoin ETFs~

[milkanannan]

Finally starting to dip a bit... $52K now, down from ~$60K

[Joseph DiPerla]

I actually recently have become interested in Cryptocurrency. I tried mining Bitcoin with online services. I made literally $60,000 with no way to withdraw it when I send them the so-called payment to withdraw and it is just in limbo. I dont know if Coinbase is horrible or the service I used is horrible. Both received rave reviews.

Regardless.. I started purchasing Doge. I own about 100 quantities of Dogecoin and made about $20 off that with fluctuations of course.

Today I decided to try a new tactic.. I tried to get in early on a cryptocurrency hoping that I could play the waiting game and make some decent change. I bought 1,000,000 shares of Shiba Inu coin on crypto.com at a cost of 0.000010 each. So I paid just under $10 for 1,000,000 shares. Hey, if it amounts to nothing, I hardly lost anything. If it makes small gains.. I make another $20. Or maybe life will go my way for once and I can be a billionaire by the end of the year. Either way...

[TheFrighter]

What do you think about NFT (non-fungible token)? Could be considered a form of cryptocurrency?

_

[KyriakosCH]

I actually recently have become interested in Cryptocurrency. I tried mining Bitcoin with online services. I made literally $60,000 with no way to withdraw it when I send them the so-called payment to withdraw and it is just in limbo. I dont know if Coinbase is horrible or the service I used is horrible. Both received rave reviews.

Regardless.. I started purchasing Doge. I own about 100 quantities of Dogecoin and made about $20 off that with fluctuations of course.

Today I decided to try a new tactic.. I tried to get in early on a cryptocurrency hoping that I could play the waiting game and make some decent change. I bought 1,000,000 shares of Shiba Inu coin on crypto.com at a cost of 0.000010 each. So I paid just under $10 for 1,000,000 shares. Hey, if it amounts to nothing, I hardly lost anything. If it makes small gains.. I make another $20. Or maybe life will go my way for once and I can be a billionaire by the end of the year. Either way...

Why are there more than one bitcoins? Any particular reason for one to be worth more than another (do fewer online services accept those obscure bitcoin types? ).