Bitcoins

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Harvey16 said:
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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That was a bad explanation on my part.

The information on which wallets have which bitcoins is what is stored in the blackchain (the big open ledger of everything bitcoin does - everybody has a copy of this). To access your coins you need access to your wallet. The wallet is what is stored on your pc.

If you lose your wallet or the password to it, your knackered. Because the wallets are completely anonymous, you could never prove that the lost wallet is yours.
 
hypersonic said:
That was a bad explanation on my part.

The information on which wallets have which bitcoins is what is stored in the blackchain (the big open ledger of everything bitcoin does - everybody has a copy of this). To access your coins you need access to your wallet. The wallet is what is stored on your pc.

If you lose your wallet or the password to it, your knackered. Because the wallets are completely anonymous, you could never prove that the lost wallet is yours.
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That makes more sense

just been looking at the miming software and there aren't many offering bitcoin miming and its expensive when you can
 
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!
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Slightly simpler lol. Thank you
 
Harvey16 said:
That makes more sense

just been looking at the miming software and there aren't many offering bitcoin miming and its expensive when you can
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You need supercomputers to do the mining these days. Even a high end PC will struggle.
You'd probably spend more on power.
 
Thurston said:
Buying bitcoins immediately marks you out as someone who uses the internet to buy drugs, guns or partake in white slavery.
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Says a poster on the SMB, where the standard reply to mentioning a 6yo girl is "pics", and no amount of hideous deformity makes a female a wadn't.

hypersonic said:
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.
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Just wait until the NSA gets enough qubits to take SHA256 apart.
 
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Gloster Mackem said:
You need supercomputers to do the mining these days. Even a high end PC will struggle.
You'd probably spend more on power.
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The latest ASICs are just breaking even after roughly 200 days (at current energy prices, bitcoin values and block difficulty figures). After that it's all profit. There are however three problems. Energy prices and difficulty ratings will almost certainly go up and erode that profitability; the noise the machines kicks out is apparently like having a bunch of hoovers being left on all of the time and the heat the machine kicks out is roughly on par with a small halogen heater.

If you wanted to run these machines at home (say in the garage to reduce the noise & heat issues) you could only really get away with two before you started overloading your electricity circuits. Therefore all the big money made from bitcoins is done in big warehouses with dedicated power & cooling setups.

Billy Rocket said:
Just wait until the NSA gets enough qubits to take SHA256 apart.
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The day quantum computing becomes a reality is the day the world falls apart tbf. It's not far off either.
 
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PhilSAFC said:
Last I checked they were but obviously not anymore. Still think it's a tough investment opportunity when they are 2k a pop like.
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Don't think you need to buy whole ones. Uni students use them to order all sorts of drugs online and doubt they'd be doing that if they needed to spend 1.6k to get a couple scores of imported green or LSD.

May be wrong like
 
Titus said:
Don't think you need to buy whole ones. Uni students use them to order all sorts of drugs online and doubt they'd be doing that if they needed to spend 1.6k to get a couple scores of imported green or LSD.

May be wrong like
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Good point.

Anyone remember that story of a few years ago. A lad bought a few when they first came out. Saw on the news one day about how they had exploded in value. When he checked his account his were worth a couple of million quid. How ever he'd chucked out the hard drive with his encryption key on. Spent ages at the tip looking for it to no avail. Wonder if he's still there.
 
Titus said:
Don't think you need to buy whole ones. Uni students use them to order all sorts of drugs online and doubt they'd be doing that if they needed to spend 1.6k to get a couple scores of imported green or LSD.

May be wrong like
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I think someone posted the name of the smallest value earlier in the thread, but anyway, the values are:

Unit Value in BTC
Bitcoin 1
miliBTC 0.001
microBTC 0.000001
Satoshi 0.00000001
 
Thurston said:
Buying bitcoins immediately marks you out as someone who uses the internet to buy drugs, guns or partake in white slavery.
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A good few years ago I tried to buy some however you needed to give a copy your ID in order to do it. Considering what I was planning on using them for I abandoned the idea.

Im sure I read somewhere that if you'd got a £100 worth in 2010 they'd be worth millions now. That would have worked out at an expensive night out once I'd spent mine on silk road
 
The Continuing Story said:
A good few years ago I tried to buy some however you needed to give a copy your ID in order to do it. Considering what I was planning on using them for I abandoned the idea.

Im sure I read somewhere that if you'd got a £100 worth in 2010 they'd be worth millions now. That would have worked out at an expensive night out once I'd spent mine on silk road
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I bought mine off bit bargain when I was using SR. Nice and easy to use.
 
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