What is BitCoin

[WarDog]

http://www.infowarhorse.com/bitcoin

[FrankRep]

BitCoin will not replace the dollar.

[IDefendThePlatform]

Just bought a few bitcoins myself. Looking forward to seeing where it goes.

If more people "liked" it on facebook, you could actually advertise to its users.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Bitcoin/133067610063481

[Carehn]

what is it backed by and who [as in WHO] do you by these bitcoins from in the 1st place. If they are not backed by something then someone somewhere is making a killing 'printing' these bitcoins "out of thin are''.

[FreedomProsperityPeace]

What is with the bitcoin obsession?
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?289898-What-is-with-the-bitcoin-obsession

[farrar]

what is it backed by and who [as in WHO] do you by these bitcoins from in the 1st place. If they are not backed by something then someone somewhere is making a killing 'printing' these bitcoins "out of thin are''.

They act like a commodity. You do not back bitcoins with something. you can back something with bitcoins. If you want to be hypothetical, You can say bitcoins are backed by the services people provide for them.

Bitcoins are not "printed" by some individual and being "sold for cash. Bitcoins have been set to approach 21million coins with a cecrease in production roughly every 4 years:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/5/54/Total_bitcoins_over_time.png/740px-Total_bitcoins_over_time.png
What is important to note however, is that bitcoins can be divided up to .00000001.

Bitcoins are introduced into the economy through blocks. Blocks are (at current) a set of 50 bitcoins. Basically all the computers which are connected to the bitcoin system work together to crunch an extensive mathematic equation. Which ever computer solves that last portion of the equation first, receives the whole block. It may have changed, but I believe the average is one block every 10 minutes. So, roughly every ten minutes some lucky sap gets 50 bitcoins. That time is not exact however, it may be one in an hour, or 2 in 10 minutes. The bitcoin system is programed to accommodate increase or decreases in computational power, if coins start producing far to rapidly.

Interestingly enough, some people have developed services that allow computers to work together as a single unit in order to corner a sizable share of the networks computational power. These are called mining pools. By joining a mining pool, what might have otherwise been a chance to solve a block once every 3 months, becomes an opportunity to reap a smaller reward for your contribution. So if a mining pool gets large enough that it statistically solves a block once an hour, and your computer contributed so solving 1% of the block, then you would recieve 1% of the block (afte any fees that the service provider might have procured (which is usually around 1-2 bit oins out of the 50).

I wouldn't just take my word for it though. There is plenty of material out there written by people much more fluent on bitcoin.

[Sentient Void]

The nature of BitCoin seems to me to be ponzi / pyramid schemish in it's economic nature.

I am *highly* skeptical of BitCoin, and think it is doomed to fail, and will not be accepted as a currency by the marketplace.

[FSP-Rebel]

FTL discusses the bitcoin for the first few segments on this show: http://hw.libsyn.com/p/5/c/d/5cd5fb83eb4e7ae5/FTL2011-05-18.mp3?sid=990549ef892a166bc13cb1af1e6d9d23&l_sid=20913&l_eid=&l_mid=2580862. They basically talk about who started it, explained how it operates (which is really confusing imo), and the apparent benefits of it. What I got from it is that it is a completely anonymous currency that can't be taxed and there is no central hub pushing the currency, unlike the Liberty Dollar. So, unless the feds were to target the users it's pretty safe. Though, I'm still a little foggy on the whole concept.

[ClayTrainor]

I'm considering putting a little money into it, just to see what happens.

[Kludge]

Bitcoins are not "printed" by some individual and being "sold for cash. Bitcoins have been set to approach 21million coins with a cecrease in production roughly every 4 years:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/5/54/Total_bitcoins_over_time.png/740px-Total_bitcoins_over_time.png
What is important to note however, is that bitcoins can be divided up to .00000001.
Actually, they become ~50% more difficult to mine every week at the current pace.

I've used BTC in more transactions in the past week than I have used USD.

Some examples of things you can readily buy with BTC:
*Silver @ spot
*Anything from Newegg and Amazon (when using the appropriate BTC community service)
*Drugs
*Computer games and components
*Plenty of online services (programming, advertising, server security evaluation, etc)
*Charities like EFF accept Bitcoins

I'm quite pleased with my investment in BTC. Even if it is just a novelty currency, there's an excellent community always with interesting new schemes, services, and products to offer.

[Sentient Void]

BitCoin will eventually collapse, and anyone holding BitCoin will get fucked and lose all of their money. The first ones who got in, including the originators who mined the first BitCoins and held them, will make a killing on this.

I'm calling it. Time will tell.

[ClayTrainor]

Where's the best place to buy bitcoins?

[Kludge]

Where's the best place to buy bitcoins?
Mt Gox is pretty easy. https://mtgox.com/users/addFunds

Paypal has banned Bitcoin transactions, so they use a service called Dwolla now, which functions in the same way and has a flat low $.25 fee (I think). You do need to verify a bank account with Dwolla before proceeding.

Alternately, you could try selling something @ http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?board=26.0 - sometimes you can find someone who'll exchange Paypal $ for BTC there still. Plenty of risk going that route if the person isn't reputable.

[Kludge]

Related note: I've been lobbying J-Lo to accept BTC as donations on RPFs. If others show interest to him, he may bump research of BTC up on his priority list ;)

[Elwar]

The value of bitcoins are that they are anonymous and can be transported anywhere in the world.

They're good now, just imagine if the Chinese got a hold of it...

I'll be putting up a few web stores soon and I'll try to include bitcoins for payment.

I wish there were an easy way to pay with them at stores, I'd set my wife's boutique up to accept them.

[Dreamofunity]

A few of my friends have gotten pretty big into BitCoin. It's all I've heard about for the last few weeks.

I'm curious, Kludge, what do you think of my friends new mining set?

http://imageshack.us/m/191/6500/24273610100487633091257.jpg

[Kludge]

I think he needs to wear socks :p

5830s are probably the best way to go ATM. I bought 5850s back before the only brand in stock cost $200+. 5830s are relatively underpriced for their performance right now -- only ~20-25% lower hash rate than 5850s while cost is now something like 40% less. I'm unfamiliar with the motherboard, but the PSU looks appropriate. Looks like a really cost-efficient set of components.

If he's running Windows, he'll want to get some 75-ohm resistors and set up dummy plugs on the "slave" gfx cards. Otherwise, he'll have to run them in Crossfire to mine with them all at once which causes a very minor (but ultimately significant) decrease in hash rate. Linux doesn't have that problem, but it can pain in the ass in so many other ways.

[Dreamofunity]

He had mentioned something about LinuxCoin, and thus not needing a hard drive, but I have no idea what that is. BitCoin is interesting, but not something I could see myself really getting into (mostly due to monetary concerns and lacking the initial capital).

Either way, I really enjoy your posts on the subject, very informed. Hope BitCoin treats you well.

[KingRobbStark]

This is interesting. But I'm going to do some research before I commit. Hell, you might even get some competition.

[smartguy911]

I just installed the program and see the following -

980 khash/sec
Generating
3 Connections
126490 blocks
1 transaction
0.02 balance

I am rich. I am probably wasting more money on energy by having graphic card running on full power all the time. I am guessing that's investment at my end.

[Kludge]

I just installed the program and see the following -

980 khash/sec
Generating
3 Connections
126490 blocks
1 transaction
0.02 balance

I am rich. I am probably wasting more money on energy by having graphic card running on full power all the time. I am guessing that's investment at my end.

You seem to be posting stats from the official BTC client which doesn't utilize your GPU, just CPU, which is why you're seeing a very, very low hash rate.

[steve005]

buy silver, quit wasting your time and money on this rip off crap, and yes I FULLY understand it

[low preference guy]

BitCoin will not replace the dollar.

do you have an argument? without one, your post is worthless.

[Napoleon's Shadow]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYTqvYqXRbY

[specialK]

What I got from it is that it is a completely anonymous currency that can't be taxed .

It is income and is therefore taxable, just as goods or services gained from a barter system is taxable as income. The fact that it is anonymous does not make it nontaxable, just more difficult to catch tax evaders - for now.