Cryptocurrencies

What cryptocurrencies do you use/own?

  • Bitcoin (XBT)

    Votes: 30 27.8%

  • Ether (ETH)

    Votes: 16 14.8%

  • Litecoin (LTC)

    Votes: 15 13.9%

  • Peercoin (PPC)

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Dash (DASH)

    Votes: 3 2.8%

  • Dogecoin (XDG)

    Votes: 4 3.7%

  • Blackcoin (BLK)

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Zcash (ZEC)

    Votes: 3 2.8%

  • Other

    Votes: 14 13.0%

  • None

    Votes: 69 63.9%
  • Total voters
    108
Moltuae said:
Remember that gold is also in finite supply.
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Moltuae said:
I think you misunderstand the reason for the limited supply though. The Bitcoin blockchain was designed that way intentionally (to mimic gold) -- not all cryptocurrencies are in finite supply. A finite supply (of anything) has the exact the opposite effect; it tends to cause an increase in value, not a drop.
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But Bitcoin doesn't have the other half of the equation. Fractional Reserve Banking. Having an economy based ONLY on Gold reduces the growth of the economy to the Middle Ages. Only the people with Gold can do anything. Most people think that the function of banks is to loan money. It is not. The function of banks is to CREATE money. When a bank loans you money they don't grab a stack of gold off their pile and hand it to you. They printed up notes and handed those to you. All of the Gold stays in the bank. In fact, the banks print up far more notes than they ever had in gold on hand. Of course, now days we don't deal in Gold and Banks don't print money. But they still do create money and it simply exists only on computerized ledgers. The idea that Bitcoin is somehow different than regular money in that respect is laughable. 95% of all the money that exists is digital. It always has been.
 
Moltuae said:
Remember that gold is also in finite supply.
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There is a finite supply of most everything in the world. Water, Air, etc.

But when you are talking about cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin the finite amount is rather small and once that very small amount is depleted there is no more. The amount of gold in the known world is unknown, but we know that there can only be a maximum of 20999999.9769 Bitcoins ever. That's a big difference
 
Mercenary Roadie said:
The amount of gold in the known world is unknown, but we know that there can only be a maximum of 20999999.9769 Bitcoins ever. That's a big difference
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21 million whole Bitcoins, yep. And, largely due to reward halving, that figure won't be reached for more than 120 years.

Not that it should be an issue (to our descendants) when the last Bitcoin is mined. Bitcoin, like all cryptocurrencies is divisible. If we're dealing in uBTC, for example, there's 21,000 billion of those available. In that way it's no different to gold. By some estimates there's approximately 171,300 tonnes of gold in the world but most people don't trade gold by the tonne, or even whole bullions.

Gold does not hold its value because the global quantity is "unknown", it holds its value because it's in limited supply. It's the predictable rarity of such metals that makes them 'precious'. Discovering substantial new reserves only devalues the existing stock. An ideal precious metal would have a known, fixed supply, like Bitcoin. The limited supply is an intentional feature of Bitcoin, for that very reason. It's not a flaw and it's not a limitation of cryptocurrencies. In fact not all cryptocurrencies have such finite supply.


nlinecomputers said:
But Bitcoin doesn't have the other half of the equation. Fractional Reserve Banking. Having an economy based ONLY on Gold reduces the growth of the economy to the Middle Ages. Only the people with Gold can do anything. Most people think that the function of banks is to loan money. It is not. The function of banks is to CREATE money. When a bank loans you money they don't grab a stack of gold off their pile and hand it to you. They printed up notes and handed those to you. All of the Gold stays in the bank. In fact, the banks print up far more notes than they ever had in gold on hand. Of course, now days we don't deal in Gold and Banks don't print money. But they still do create money and it simply exists only on computerized ledgers. The idea that Bitcoin is somehow different than regular money in that respect is laughable. 95% of all the money that exists is digital. It always has been.
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What you're describing is not a function that defines currency but the way in which currency is used and manipulated by governments to take or redistribute wealth. Without such control, governments would have to use more transparent taxation methods. Meddling with currency ultimately leads to inflation and instability, as we have seen time and time again. What you have earned and what you are owned should ideally be predictable and constant, not something that can be eroded away to prop up the economy, that's what taxation is for. Fractional Reserve Banking is part of the problem, not part of the solution. Making wealth out of nothing does not create a free cash resource; it creates debt that ultimately has to be repaid.

So let's suppose we take a typical capitalistic economic model and allow the government to control all the usual variables such as taxation and spending but we make currency a constant, thereby removing inflation/deflation from the equation. Could you please explain to me why you believe that would stem growth or send our economy back to the Middle Ages?


Some relevant recommended reading:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2016/12/20/bitcoin-and-the-cashless-future/

http://qz.com/848797/gold-and-bitco...cme-group-are-launching-gold-on-a-blockchain/
 
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And yet without FRB, you wouldn't have a home,a car, or your business. And again, government has nothing to do with it. Banks loaned money long before governments got involved. Government was brought in to prevent bank failures. Yet bank failures, cause deflation, which is bad for banking but good for consumers.
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
When these first came out...the very first thing that went through my mind..."It's something that will be exploited for mostly bad purposes". So there's that!
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You'd certainly be forgiven for thinking that. The same thing crossed my mind too when I first heard of it. It's also how the mainstream media/tabloids like to portray it ... bad news is good business. Go looking for cryptocurrency news, amongst the science and technology media, and you'll find a very different picture. Just look at the recent Ebola vaccine news, for example. A new vaccine that is proving to be 100% effective and yet it doesn't get half the mainstream media coverage some of the outbreaks of the virus did. I'm finding there are still people who haven't heard the news almost a week later. Good news is just not sensational enough for the tabloid press.

However, wherever and whenever there's an opportunity for crime, there will be criminals .... and cryptocurrency is no exception. The internet itself is probably used for criminal activity in approximately the same proportions, and it too faced similar hurdles and misrepresentations in the early days. We have to improve the technology and fight the crime, not give in to it. If car crime suddenly increases, you develop new or better security; you don't stop using cars.

This is a good read if you're interested in the criminal aspect of cryptocurrency:
http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-cops-criminals/

New twist, old problem

Any technology worth adopting is adopted early by criminals. But, law enforcement has a long history of adapting in order to pursue criminals or terrorists who use "new school" technology to commit "old school" crimes.

They’ve done it over and over again.

From pagers to burner cellphones to email to online chat to mobile devices to PayPal, just to name a few examples, law enforcement consistently has had to evolve as new technology designed for legitimate purposes is used to facilitate criminal activity.
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This video is a bit old now, but Andreas sums up Bitcoin very well I think and answers most of the questions here:

 
Moltuae said:
It's also how the mainstream media/tabloids like to portray it ... bad news is good business. Go looking for cryptocurrency news, amongst the science and technology media, and you'll find a very different picture. Just look at the recent Ebola vaccine news, for example. A new vaccine that is proving to be 100% effective and yet it doesn't get half the mainstream media coverage some of the outbreaks of the virus did./
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I agree about the media...over-hype and negative slanted spins is how they make money!
I formed my views way before the media was starting to get into it, the earliest of early days (don't forget I'm old!)
But I'll give it another whirl...I know there are some innocent hopefuls out there that want to see "the good" that can come from it.
I'm sure a few generations down the road something like this will be mainstream, but with the world currently still broken up politically...I don't see it sticking. Look at Euros'.
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
(don't forget I'm old!)
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I'm not far behind you my friend. I'm 46.

So I've seen a fair few things come and go too. Cryptocurrency is a fascinating tech though. Mark my words, it's definitely here to stay.

EDIT: Just to add, if it does interest you, I'd highly recommend starting with some videos by the computer security expert Andreas Antonopoulos. He explains well, without any of the BS, and in a way that I think (like me) you'll probably find you can relate. In particular, watch this one and I'm sure you'll be intrigued to know more:

 
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Bitcoin is something that the geek in me was intruiged with but that has faded over time, I just don't think it's mature enough yet. Blockchain, and the transparency it could potentially provide, is something that does appeal though.
 
Since we appear have a very limited interest in cryptocurrencies on these forums, I'll confine any minor news/info to this thread.

For anyone interested, here's a good article that was posted to Nasdaq's site yesterday that makes some good points:



Bitcoin: Why It Now Belongs in Every Portfolio
Link: http://www.nasdaq.com/article/bitcoin-why-it-now-belongs-in-every-portfolio-cm734833

The scenarios projected above are, of course, not cast in stone. Bitcoin faces several risks going forward. These include:

  •  The emergence of a much better digital currency that steals its market lead.
  •  An undetected bug in the system.
  •  A hard fork (what happens when some nodes in the network start running a Bitcoin software upgrade that is incompatible with previous versions) causing the Bitcoin payment network to split in two.
  •  A sustained attack by an organization with substantial financial resources, such as a government.
How serious a risk do these challenges pose? Let us examine them.

A better currency is possible, but experience shows that disruptive protocols—such as SMTP for email and TCP/IP for internet—have proven to be very resilient once adopted by a critical mass of the population.

As with any software application, the discovery of bugs may destabilize the system, but the open-source nature of Bitcoin allows for many eyeballs to help track problems, and many brains to help figure out a solution.

A hard fork creates competition between two versions of Bitcoin, and after a period of fear and doubt, eventually the value will flow to the version deemed most useful by its users—not a long term threat in other words.

An organized attack on the network is possible but expensive, and there are many potential defense mechanisms: miners can refuse suspicious transactions or raise fees, vulnerabilities in the code can be fixed, and so forth. From the perspective of the government, approaching the robust, decentralized Bitcoin network with an outright ban is nigh impossible. Therefore taxation, regulation and acceptance seems the more likely outcome.

In any case, it seems exceedingly clear that the technology of the digital currencies is here to stay. Bitcoin does not appear to be a fad or bubble, nor merely a one-off hedge against gold. With a risk-reward proposition this attractive, holding a small percentage of bitcoins in one’s portfolio as a speculation on increased adoption may be one of the wisest investment decisions of our age
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EDIT:
Another article posted on Nasdaq a short while ago:
Growing The Market: A Bitcoin Shopping Guide
Link: http://www.nasdaq.com/article/growing-the-market-a-bitcoin-shopping-guide-cm735382
 
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Thought this was funny and somewhat ironic:


Federal Reserve Staffer Fined for Mining Bitcoins at Work
Article link: http://www.coindesk.com/federal-reserve-staffer-mining-bitcoins/


On a related note, I may be installing some Antminer S9s at a customer's premises soon (with their permission!). They recently installed a large ORC generator, along with several large solar panel arrays, which are able generate all of the site's electrical energy needs and more.

I'm told that due to some crazy bureaucracy, rather than getting paid to push any excess electricity they make back into the National Grid, they actually get penalised instead if they produce too much electricity, so they're considering converting some of that electricity back into profit by mining cryptocurrency. While the Antminer S9s are quite expensive at around £2K (inc PSU), they are capable of generating about 0.5BTC per month each (about £380 at today's prices) so ROI should be fairly quick.

If there's any interest here, I'll report back if/when the first Antminer S9 purchase goes ahead and post some photos and setup screenshots.
 
I've expected to see exactly that in some places in the US with "regulatory capture" issues where the power companies are able to put in big fees for anyone wanting to sell solar back into the grid. If you have your choice of paying $100/month in fees to be able to sell $20 in excess electricity or of doing something to use that power up, using that power gets a lot more attractive.

Oh my, just occurred to me, I could easily see power storage systems (e.g. the Tesla PowerWall) having replaceable integrated mining modules and being set to accept current until the battery is charged, then automatically shift it over to compute-intensive tasks. I wonder if there are patents on that?
 
fencepost said:
Oh my, just occurred to me, I could easily see power storage systems (e.g. the Tesla PowerWall) having replaceable integrated mining modules and being set to accept current until the battery is charged, then automatically shift it over to compute-intensive tasks. I wonder if there are patents on that?
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That's a interesting thought. I think there's some incredible business/profit making opportunities when you start to think about it. One that occurred to me is miner-heaters ........ The vast majority of the energy consumed by ASIC miners is converted into heat. If you're in a colder climate, especially if you're already using electrical energy to generate heat, why not use a heater that pays for itself ( ... and then some!). An Antminer S9 probably puts out the same heat as a 1KW electric fan heater.
 
Another item of note, from Indiana here: http://www.pv-tech.org/news/45750 basically by 2027 solar owners selling to the grid would have a "sell all/buy all" system, in which ALL of their production would have to be sold to the grid at wholesale prices and ALL of their consumption would have to be purchased at retail prices.

Depending on how the law was written, that could end up completely killing solar in the state (desirable for the utilities) or ensuring that any solar systems installed would be set up to be incapable of sending power to the grid (so they'd need local storage and something like bitcoin mining to use up any excess power generated) but able to draw from the grid in case of need.
 
It's a crazy situation. It's similar in the UK I believe. Contributions to the grid, from renewable energy sources, should be encouraged and rewarded, not penalised. In an ideal world, Instead of relying on a relatively small number of power stations, all power drawn from the grid would come from a network of millions of business and homes, producing excess renewal energy. Of course that wouldn't be good for the power companies who seem to have politics and bureaucracy on their side. It will be an interesting twist if this resistance to change leads to a growth in cryptocurrencies, enabling people to get paid for the electrical power they produce.
 
Markverhyden said:
Looks like some BC ETF's may be coming online on this side of the pond.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/laurash...l-the-sec-approve-a-bitcoin-etf/#1cc8f3183d84
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Yeah, I've been following that. It's been a few years coming but we're quickly approaching the SEC's deadline (March 11th) now. There's no guarantee that the 'Winklevii' will get their ETF approved but, if it does go through, the impact on Bitcoin's price could be huge. More coverage/info here:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/irrational-exuberance-for-bitcoin-etfs-1486350601
https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/will-the-sec-approve-a-bitcoin-etf/

For anyone who doesn't already own any Bitcoin, especially if you were already considering buying a little .... I think NOW may be the right time!

In addition to the possible ETF and numerous other economic crises around the world that are driving people to Bitcoin and pushing the price up, more recently there was the announcement of Trump's plans to finance the American/Mexican wall. Apparently he intends to use remittances (the money Mexicans living in America usually send home to their families living in Mexico) to fund the building of the wall between the nations, either by blocking or heavily taxing those remittance payments. Of course sending remittance payments internationally is something cryptocurrencies do particularly well!

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/will-trumps-new-policies-boost-usmexico-bitcoin-remittances/


Incidentally, going back to cryptocurrencies in general, I now think the one to watch is Creditbit (not in the poll). It improves upon Bitcoin significantly and development is VERY active, with a lot happening in the coming months. It has a very low price presently meaning that a tiny investment could amount to a lot if the price gets anywhere near that of Bitcoin's.

https://www.creditbit.org/
http://www.newsbtc.com/2017/01/20/creditbits-roadmap-credit-2-0/

Of course it may fail miserably but at about $0.35 per CRBIT (at time of writing), it may be worth a small flutter.
 
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