Bitcoins

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Scimmy said:
I have just attempted to understand Bitcoins by reading the Wikipedia page and I am completely overwhelmed with jargon. Almost every stage of the article references concepts and processes of which I have no understanding or experience.

Can anyone explain it it idiots' terms? Is the attraction of bitcoin purely that it is untaxable?
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At a very basic level, bitcoin is a currency that has a finite / controlled supply. All transactions are recorded on a public ledger that anyone in the world can see.It uses a high level encryption so that it cannot be hacked - although this isn't necessary correct.
Some people believe this is the best way to rid society of government intervention (creating money through quantitative easing), which reduces the wealth of the masses, but makes the few incredibly wealthy. This however hasn't worked out exactly because a silly amount of the bitcoins in circulation are held by just a few wallets. It has made the founders extremely wealthy.

Although all bitcoin transactions are on a public ledger, it is not possible to see who is paying who. Bitcoins move between 'wallets' which are stored on computers, usb drives etc.
Anybody can download a wallet. Or 100 wallets. And at no point do you have to tell anyone who you are. If you do it with a VPN and hide your IP address, it becomes very hard to find out who is sending the bitcoins and who is receiving. This is why is as become very popular in the black market (dark web).

The dark web has become very sophisticated with escrow accounts and coin washer/mixers (a way to launder and add more layers to the process).

It is a very clever idea and the technology used will be the basis of transactions in the future.
The Bank of England, UBS, JP Morgan, Microsoft are all researching and developing blockchain technologies. However I think bitcoin will become the VHS of the industry. Eventually it will be taken over.

Bitcoin is a digital token which is bought and sold through many exchanges. As with all tradeable instruments, it's price is determined by supply and demand.
China & Japan are ramping up demand which has sent the price flying. There have been a few positives in recent days for the currency but really the demand is coming from people not wanting to miss out on the gravy train.

See Ethereum, Litecoin, Ripple and about 100,000 other coins that use this technology and want to be the next big thing.

Coindesk and youbtube are your best bets for more info. Also I recommend this new scientist book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/End-Money-...495458729&sr=1-2&keywords=new+scientist+books
 


Gloster Mackem said:
At a very basic level, bitcoin is a currency that has a finite / controlled supply. All transactions are recorded on a public ledger that anyone in the world can see.It uses a high level encryption so that it cannot be hacked - although this isn't necessary correct.
Some people believe this is the best way to rid society of government intervention (creating money through quantitative easing), which reduces the wealth of the masses, but makes the few incredibly wealthy. This however hasn't worked out exactly because a silly amount of the bitcoins in circulation are held by just a few wallets. It has made the founders extremely wealthy.

Although all bitcoin transactions are on a public ledger, it is not possible to see who is paying who. Bitcoins move between 'wallets' which are stored on computers, usb drives etc.
Anybody can download a wallet. Or 100 wallets. And at no point do you have to tell anyone who you are. If you do it with a VPN and hide your IP address, it becomes very hard to find out who is sending the bitcoins and who is receiving. This is why is as become very popular in the black market (dark web).

The dark web has become very sophisticated with escrow accounts and coin washer/mixers (a way to launder and add more layers to the process).

It is a very clever idea and the technology used will be the basis of transactions in the future.
The Bank of England, UBS, JP Morgan, Microsoft are all researching and developing blockchain technologies. However I think bitcoin will become the VHS of the industry. Eventually it will be taken over.

Bitcoin is a digital token which is bought and sold through many exchanges. As with all tradeable instruments, it's price is determined by supply and demand.
China & Japan are ramping up demand which has sent the price flying. There have been a few positives in recent days for the currency but really the demand is coming from people not wanting to miss out on the gravy train.

See Ethereum, Litecoin, Ripple and about 100,000 other coins that use this technology and want to be the next big thing.

Coindesk and youbtube are your best bets for more info. Also I recommend this new scientist book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/End-Money-...495458729&sr=1-2&keywords=new+scientist+books
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Thanks very much for the trouble you have taken GM.
 
If it's unregulated and anonymous could the people who created it just decide one day to close it down leaving the coins worthless or does it not work like that?
 
Arthur80 said:
If it's unregulated and anonymous could the people who created it just decide one day to close it down leaving the coins worthless or does it not work like that?
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You can't close it - they made their money getting in early.

Everybody connected to the bitcoin network holds an entire history of every transaction made. There is no central control. For it to cease, everybody using it would have to stop using it at the same time.
 
Cult of Personality said:
Anyone have any of these?

Mate at work was telling me months ago about how he bought one for £50 some time back. Didn't really see the point in them.

Been looking at stuff to invest in etc so thought I'd take a look today and they're coming in at close to £2k.
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Bitcoin is up to around £1500 when it was around £300 three years ago.

I'm currently on the ETH (Ethereum) train and hoping for similar gains. Traded at £15 each early this year, up to £130 as of today.

Got a nominal litecoin holding purely hoping for a hype explosion.

Everything on these is a long term hold. Could be worth a relative fortune in a couple of years, or at worst ive lost a few hundred quid.
 
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Gloster Mackem said:
At a very basic level, bitcoin is a currency that has a finite / controlled supply. All transactions are recorded on a public ledger that anyone in the world can see.It uses a high level encryption so that it cannot be hacked - although this isn't necessary correct.
Some people believe this is the best way to rid society of government intervention (creating money through quantitative easing), which reduces the wealth of the masses, but makes the few incredibly wealthy. This however hasn't worked out exactly because a silly amount of the bitcoins in circulation are held by just a few wallets. It has made the founders extremely wealthy.

Although all bitcoin transactions are on a public ledger, it is not possible to see who is paying who. Bitcoins move between 'wallets' which are stored on computers, usb drives etc.
Anybody can download a wallet. Or 100 wallets. And at no point do you have to tell anyone who you are. If you do it with a VPN and hide your IP address, it becomes very hard to find out who is sending the bitcoins and who is receiving. This is why is as become very popular in the black market (dark web).

The dark web has become very sophisticated with escrow accounts and coin washer/mixers (a way to launder and add more layers to the process).

It is a very clever idea and the technology used will be the basis of transactions in the future.
The Bank of England, UBS, JP Morgan, Microsoft are all researching and developing blockchain technologies. However I think bitcoin will become the VHS of the industry. Eventually it will be taken over.

Bitcoin is a digital token which is bought and sold through many exchanges. As with all tradeable instruments, it's price is determined by supply and demand.
China & Japan are ramping up demand which has sent the price flying. There have been a few positives in recent days for the currency but really the demand is coming from people not wanting to miss out on the gravy train.

See Ethereum, Litecoin, Ripple and about 100,000 other coins that use this technology and want to be the next big thing.

Coindesk and youbtube are your best bets for more info. Also I recommend this new scientist book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/End-Money-...495458729&sr=1-2&keywords=new+scientist+books
Click to expand...

Thanks for This! Care to do a morons guide summary to "mining" please? Don't get that at all...
 
I remember people banging on about these when they were going for next to nowt per coin but I never bothered getting any.

I had about 2 and a half grand in a savings account at the time as well.

Jesus Christ I could have been rich as fuck.
 
Roger Mellie said:
Thanks for This! Care to do a morons guide summary to "mining" please? Don't get that at all...
Click to expand...

Mining is a weird entity and difficult to explain without going into technicalities. However, here's my attempt.

Mining is actually the process of adding potential transactions to the blockchain (the bitcoin ledger) - the coins received for mining go to whomever manages to complete a number of steps that confirm the legitimacy of the transactions being processed. The steps are designed to be hard to complete and are based around the idea of 'hashing'. A hash turns a large piece of data into a small amount of text & can be repeated to produce the same text provided the original data has not changed.

1. A 'block' of unprocessed transactions is created by a miner.
2. The software takes the 'hash' of the last completed block in the chain and adds it to the new block
3. The software generates a random number and adds it to the new block
4. The new block is 'hashed'
5. The hash created is checked to see if it's valid
6a. If valid the miner is paid
6b. If not valid the miner goes back to step 3

The process is supposed to take the whole bitcoin community roughly 10 minutes per block. The software automatically adjusts the check at step 5 to ensure that each block takes around 10 minutes to find a valid hash.

If your lucky enough to find a valid hash I think you get 25 bitcoins; however the difficulty in finding them means that most people work for teams that share their earnings about.
 
NeilP said:
Who do you pay to get them, and how do you get your real money when you sell them?
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You get your hands on bitcoins by either mining them (see my post above) or buying them from some one who mined them.

First you need to install the bitcoin software to make yourself a wallet. Then, if your buying coins, you just head off to one of the many sites setup to put buyers in contact with sellers. You enter how many you want to buy and your wallet address; pay the relevant amount and the transaction is made.

Selling is basically the same but your offering coins for someone else to buy.

A big point of note is that bitcoins are like money only digital.

If you are using the standard bitcoin software on your own pc, your bitcoins are literally on your pc. If you format the pc or delete your wallet, your coins are gone. You can use online wallets but then your trusting your coins to someone else.

So make sure your backed up!
 
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hypersonic said:
You get your hands on bitcoins by either mining them (see my post above) or buying them from some one who mined them.

First you need to install the bitcoin software to make yourself a wallet. Then, if your buying coins, you just head off to one of the many sites setup to put buyers in contact with sellers. You enter how many you want to buy and your wallet address; pay the relevant amount and the transaction is made.

Selling is basically the same but your offering coins for someone else to buy.

A big point of note is that bitcoins are like money only digital.

If you are using the standard bitcoin software on your own pc, your bitcoins are literally on your pc. If you format the pc or delete your wallet, your coins are gone. You can use online wallets but then your trusting your coins to someone else.

So make sure your backed up!
Click to expand...

So if they are on your own PC how can they be sold and transferred? I am trying to get my head around this
 
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