Ya know, it seems pretty easy to mine this shit.

We should start a Bitcoin pool.

BrobyDDark said
Ya know, it seems pretty easy to mine this shit.We should start a Bitcoin pool.

http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/12/casascius/

mdk said
http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/12/casascius/

Completely unrelated. However it is a pretty funny story. Who knew you could get arrested for printing your own money- OH WAIT.

Seeing a topic related to cryptocurrencies makes me think less of the community as a whole.

Seriously this thread can fuck itself

Bitcoin is not a bad idea, it just happens to not be very well thought out. The same way thieves who brag about their ill-gotten swag on facebook don't think things through.

There's a limit to how many Bitcoins there can possibly be, and the closer the number of bitcoins gets to the limit, the harder it is "Mine" more of them. Mining, by the way, is how you get more Bitcoins, and it involves solving a computationally difficult mathematical problem. Each Bitcoin is a unique solution to the problem, and there is a finite amount of them, which is where the limit on Bitcoins comes from. The more Bitcoins out there, the lower the chance of finding a unique solution, and hence, you require more power to find Bitcoins.

So, because there can only be so many Bitcoins in the market, it's value goes up over time, which encourages hoarding over spending them. Its not regulated by any government, so it's value can jump and down wildly, resting on the whims of international governments, ironically enough. I wouldn't recommend investing in it.

Which brings us to dogecoin. dogecoin is basically the same thing as Bitcoin, except it's newer, so buying into it doesn't seem like such a bad idea. However, the fact that it's the 6th most valuable cryptocurrency out there should give you an idea as to just how awful cryptocurrencies are.

CidTheKid said
Bitcoin is not a bad idea, it just happens to not be very well thought out. The same way thieves who brag about their ill-gotten swag on facebook don't think things through.There's a limit to how many Bitcoins there can possibly be, and the closer the number of bitcoins gets to the limit, the harder it is "Mine" more of them. Mining, by the way, is how you get more Bitcoins, and it involves solving a computationally difficult mathematical problem. Each Bitcoin is a unique solution to the problem, and there is a finite amount of them, which is where the limit on Bitcoins comes from. The more Bitcoins out there, the lower the chance of finding a unique solution, and hence, you require more power to find Bitcoins.So, because there can only be so many Bitcoins in the market, it's value goes up over time, which encourages hoarding over spending them. Its not regulated by any government, so it's value can jump and down wildly, resting on the whims of international governments, ironically enough. I wouldn't recommend investing in it.Which brings us to dogecoin. dogecoin is basically the same thing as Bitcoin, except it's newer, so buying into it doesn't seem like such a bad idea. However, the fact that it's the 6th most valuable cryptocurrency out there should give you an idea as to just how awful cryptocurrencies are.

Dogecoin can fuck itself. If a Meme is being engrained into the society so bad that it gets a currency, then it needs to die.

Economists have studied how and why nations fail economically for centuries now and we KNOW how to keep a nation afloat. We posses the economic knowledge of how to succeed financially long-term. A non-government affiliated bank is the only way to do so if your primary interest is longevity. Sad, but true. These people study economy for a reason and they're much more knowledgeable about the subject than some conspiracy kook who thinks the Fed is run by Israel.

The whole reason the Federal Reserve exists in the first place is because the U.S. economy already failed once because everyone decided to print their own currency (those same people, if they had access to the internet back then, would have been the people who today produce BitCoin/DogeCoin/CumCoin/etc. algorithms.)

When President Abraham Lincoln assumed office he understood the importance of money for the war effort. With this in mind Lincoln appointed Salmon P. Chase as Secretary of the Treasury. As Secretary, Chase alone was authorized to act on all matters pertaining to the country’s finances. Chase, like almost everyone at the time, underestimated the duration and cost of the war.[2] Within a few months it was clear that the costs of the war would run far beyond the government's limited income from tariffs and excises.
The Lincoln Administration sought loans from major banks, mostly in New York City. These banks quickly ran out of money to lend and, in turn, went to European banks for more. The European banks demanded very high interest rates of 24 to 36 percent. Lincoln refused to borrow on such terms and called for other solutions.[3]

The amount of Demand Notes issued was far insufficient to meet the war expenses of the government, but even so was not supportable.
The solution came from Colonel "Dick" Taylor, an Illinois businessman serving as a volunteer officer. Taylor met with Lincoln in January 1862, and suggested issuing unbacked paper money. Taylor said "Just get Congress to pass a bill authorizing the printing of full legal tender treasury notes... and pay your soldiers with them and go ahead and win your war with them also. If you make them full legal tender... they will have the full sanction of the government and be just as good as any money; as Congress is given the express right by the Constitution."[3]
Issuing unbacked paper money was not an idea Lincoln really liked, but soon there was mounting pressure in Congress to do something. The government could either print its own money or go into deep perpetual debt to foreign creditors. So the President was quick to endorse Taylor's proposal.[4] On February 25, 1862, Congress passed the first Legal Tender Act, which authorized the issuance of $150 million in United States Notes.[5]
The Notes were printed with green ink, but on only one side. Despite this difference, they were called "greenbacks" by the public, being considered equivalent to the Demand Notes already known as such. These Note were issued by the United States to pay for labor and goods.[3][6]
As the government issued hundreds of millions in greenbacks, the value of the greenback against gold declined. But though the decline was substantial, it was nothing like the collapse of the Continental dollar.
In 1862, the greenback declined against gold until by December gold was at a 29% premium. By spring of 1863 the greenback declined further, to 152 against 100 dollars in gold. However, after the Union victory at Gettysburg the geenback recovered to 131 dollars to 100 in gold. In 1864 it declined again as Grant was making little progress against Lee who held strong in Richmond throughout most of the war. The Greenback's low point came in July of that year: 258 greenbacks equal to 100 gold. When the war ended in April 1865 the greenback made another remarkable recovery to 150.[7]

Government-backed fiat currency can't work unless you tax the fuck out of everyone, which in turn will devalue your currency, creating a negative loop.
Government issues backed-currency/not-back-by-gold -> Money enters circulation and people lose faith in government -> Money is devalued -> More currency must be issued to increase cash flow and artificially lower the price of currency closer to that of gold standard -> Money loses value and people lose more faith -> Money is devalued -> More currency must be issued to increase cash flow and artificially lower the price of currency closer to that of gold standard -> etc.

Now the question you should be asking yourself is, what does faith have anything to do with strength of the dollar? Everything. Employers pay employees based on 2 things: minimum wage laws + what they believe the employee is worth. If this amount stays at X value for long enough, X becomes the standard. Once X becomes the standard, any factors which impact federal treasury directly impact your salary and this X standard, causing the value to go up or down (usually it stays static or decreases by .000003% over time.)

I'm always amazed some people think they could come up with better long-term solutions than economists.
There's only one "Good" economic system and that's a Barter System. But that's not realistic unless you're interested in giving me your daughter's virginity for 5 goats and 2 turnips.

BrobyDDark said
Dogecoin can fuck itself. If a Meme is being engrained into the society so bad that it gets a currency, then it needs to die.

Mostly a shitty meme too.

Azarthes said
Seeing a topic related to cryptocurrencies makes me think less of the community as a whole. Seriously this thread can fuck itself

i couldn't hear you over the sound of my rocket ship taking off

#tothemoon

I saw a statistic somewhere or other claiming that $17 million is spent daily in electricity bills in order to mine $4 million worth of Bitcoins, because of the ridiculous amount of computing power needed to crack the algorithms at this point. Not sure about the accuracy of the data, but it's food for thought.

Halo said
I saw a statistic somewhere or other claiming that $17 million is spent daily in electricity bills in order to mine $4 million worth of Bitcoins, because of the ridiculous amount of computing power needed to crack the algorithms at this point. Not sure about the accuracy of the data, but it's food for thought.

I was actually going to say that when I saw that this thread was bumped.

"Doesn't it cost as much or even more in electricity to mine bitcoin than they are worth?"

BrobyDDArk said Dogecoin can fuck itself. If a Meme is being engrained into the society so bad that it gets a currency, then it needs to die.

Says the guy with the 60s Spiderman avatar...this must be moved to the Irony thread.

Awson said
I was actually going to say that when I saw that this thread was bumped."Doesn't it cost as much or even more in electricity to mine bitcoin than they are worth?"

I know exceedingly little about these sorts of things, but it seems to me Bitcoin was only profitable for those who bought in early, when it was much easier to mine them. Nowadays... very much not worth it. I think the Bitcoin craze will peter out before long, because of that.
(Never fear, Captain State-the-Obvious is here!)

Awson said
I was actually going to say that when I saw that this thread was bumped."Doesn't it cost as much or even more in electricity to mine bitcoin than they are worth?"

Not to mention the amount of computational power spent is rather... ludicrous

So it's only valuable because people decide it is and choose to go along with the notion that it has value

This is also entirely true of every single existing currency. The only difference is that powerful governments have beneift in there being a stable currency, and will try to keep it that way. If everybody decided the little pieces of paper and tiny bits of metal we use for money weren't worth squat, that would be true.

As for bitcoin and dogecoin: Bitcoin may eventually develop into a full-blown currency. Dogecoin was always meant as a joke. Bitcoin uses an algorithm which gets harder and harder to crack as more bitcoins are mined. Therefore, less and less 'new' bitcoins will be created, until eventually it is so slow that the value of bitcoins will stabilize. Dogecoin uses an algorithm which has a non-changing deifficulty to crack. that means that it's value is hardly able to increase at all, because it does not get any scarcer as more Dogecoins are created. Dogecoin is and will remain a joke, and only really useful on the dogecoin reddit, where you can actually tip people in Dogecoin. Nonetheless, the Dogecoin DOES have a value, and as such the Dogecoin reddit community gathered $30k in donations to get Jamaican bob sleighing team to the Olympics this year.

There are times I love that I go to college to learn about this bullshit :P.

Oh hey it's Vogel.

Halo said
I saw a statistic somewhere or other claiming that $17 million is spent daily in electricity bills in order to mine $4 million worth of Bitcoins, because of the ridiculous amount of computing power needed to crack the algorithms at this point. Not sure about the accuracy of the data, but it's food for thought.

This is, firstly, because Bitcoin has become incredibly difficult to mine. More importantly, bitcoin is incredibly volatile. That 17-4 ratio you cite could very well be accurate (I'm drunk and can't be assed asses the veracity of the statement), but the people who invest in the hardware believe that bitcoin might at one point become valuable enough to warrant the expenditures.

Keep in mind that the average doesn't apply to people running ASICs. These dedicated bitcoin miners have a much lower ratio of value mined to expense. These people likely believe that bitcoin will grow in value, that is, that the future price of bitcoin will outweigh the current price to generate.

RPGcoin anyone?

Blitzkrieg said
RPGcoin anyone?

I'm game.

It works perfectly with the whole Tabletop Underground Gambling idea Herzi and I had.

I mean what?

Blitzkrieg said
RPGcoin anyone?

Yes.