What are your thoughts on BitCoin?

[El_Machinae]

I'm not sure about that, but that's not entirely what I meant either. It's not that there aren't any $10 equivalent bitcoins around (or whatever), it's that the grand total amount of all the bitcoins in the world are not enough for everyone to play.

There is a mechanism by which new bitcoins are created, but the process is inherently very slow.

But, if they're divisible, then the number of currency units would be enough for everyone to play, yeah?
I still think it's like gold, which is also very divisible

 

[Whomp]

I suppose the limited supply has its attraction ,like gold, in that they don't make anymore of it. Very different than fiat currencies. For instance, I could see why someone in Zimbabwe would prefer bitcoin to their own dollar. That said if I can't buy coffee with it what use does it have to me.

$470 million gone.... greatest heist ever.

 

[Antilogic]

I thought the point was that they were highly divisible, so you could split them up such that there were more "little bits" than we would every need.

I'm not sure about that, but that's not entirely what I meant either. It's not that there aren't any $10 equivalent bitcoins around (or whatever), it's that the grand total amount of all the bitcoins in the world are not enough for everyone to play.

There is a mechanism by which new bitcoins are created, but the process is inherently very slow.

But, if they're divisible, then the number of currency units would be enough for everyone to play, yeah?
I still think it's like gold, which is also very divisible

The entire world doesn't need more than 1 dollar or pound or euro or what-have-you. We can just divide those cents up into millicents and microcents! Then nanocents, I tell ya!

 

[Crezth]

The entire world doesn't need more than 1 dollar or pound or euro or what-have-you. We can just divide those cents up into millicents and microcents! Then nanocents, I tell ya!

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everyone go home

 

[bhsup]

Goodbye bitcoin, hail dogecoin!

 

[Antilogic]

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everyone go home

Hang on, this plan seems totes perfect but I'm still figuring out how I can divide a penny into 1,000,000,000 equal portions.

Goodbye bitcoin, hail dogecoin!

Is dogecoin any more or less serious or does it exist solely to troll bitcoin?

 

[bhsup]

Dunno, but wiki says "By January 2014, the trading volume of Dogecoin surpassed that of Bitcoin and all other crypto-currencies combined." Also, "Unlike some other cryptocurrencies, there is no limit to how many Dogecoins can be produced. According to the schedule, approximately 98 billion coins will have been released by January 2015, when block 600,000 is mined. Thereafter, approximately 5.2 billion more coins will be produced per year, in perpetuity."

Plus, it is friggin' Doge! DOGE! That's just too awesome.

Spoiler :

I'm still not getting any, mind you. It may be awesome Doge, but it is still also a stupid internet currency.

 

[Thedrin]

Are newly mined Dogecoins split equally between those who already own Dogecoins in proportion to the amount that they own, or is that a really terrible idea for a currency? (Or is there something I'm not understanding about them?)

 

[Kaitzilla]

I suppose the limited supply has its attraction ,like gold, in that they don't make anymore of it. Very different than fiat currencies. For instance, I could see why someone in Zimbabwe would prefer bitcoin to their own dollar. That said if I can't buy coffee with it what use does it have to me.

$470 million gone.... greatest heist ever.

There seems to be a lot more evidence now that Mt. Gox did indeed lose $450 million.
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/japan-minister-calls-bitcoin-collapse-expected-22713601

The Mt. Gox bitcoin exchange in Tokyo filed for bankruptcy protection Friday and its chief executive said 850,000 bitcoins, worth several hundred million dollars, are unaccounted for.

The exchange's CEO Mark Karpeles appeared before Japanese TV news cameras, bowing deeply. He said a weakness in the exchange's systems was behind a massive loss of the virtual currency involving 750,000 bitcoins from users and 100,000 of the company's own bitcoins. That would amount to about $425 million at recent prices.

The online exchange's unplugging earlier this week and accusations it had suffered a catastrophic theft have drawn renewed regulatory attention to a currency created in 2009 as a way to make transactions across borders without third parties such as banks.

It remains unclear if the missing bitcoins were stolen, voided by technological flaws or both.

"I am sorry for the troubles I have caused all the people," Karpeles, a Frenchman, said in Japanese at a Tokyo court.

Karpeles had not made a public appearance since rumors of the exchange's insolvency surfaced last month. He said in a web post Wednesday that he was working to resolve Mt. Gox's problems.

The loss is a giant setback to the currency's image because its boosters have promoted bitcoin's cryptography as protecting it from counterfeiting and theft.

Bitcoin proponents have insisted that Mt. Gox is an isolated case, caused by the company's technological failures, and the potential of virtual currencies remains great.

Then I had to listen to Fed Chairman Janet Yellen saying that the Fed couldn't regulate Bitcoin, it would be up to Congress to regulate Bitcoin.

 

[El_Machinae]

The entire world doesn't need more than 1 dollar or pound or euro or what-have-you. We can just divide those cents up into millicents and microcents! Then nanocents, I tell ya!

Well, outside of deflation, no, not really. And, remember, neither gold nor bitcoins are fixed at a certain level. Both grow in number over time due to (resource wasting) mining.

But, there's no specific reason some currencies have so many more zeros in their bills.

 

[Thedrin]

Well, outside of deflation, no, not really. And, remember, neither gold nor bitcoins are fixed at a certain level. Both grow in number over time due to (resource wasting) mining.

But, there's no specific reason some currencies have so many more zeros in their bills.

Except that the rate at which bitcoins are being produced will eventually fall below the rate at which they're being destroyed. I guess that's true for gold as well, though it'll take so long that it's not unreasonable to discount the affects.

 

[El_Machinae]

Oh! I didn't know they were being destroyed! Huh, it's more like trading in artifacts, then.

 

[Thedrin]

It's not part of the code that generates and monitors them, but as I understand it, if you destroy a hard drive that bitcoin wallet is stored on, you destory the bicoins contained within. The effect is proabably weak, but eventually the rate at which they're being created will be weaker.

 

[W|M]

 

[El_Machinae]

It's not part of the code that generates and monitors them, but as I understand it, if you destroy a hard drive that bitcoin wallet is stored on, you destory the bicoins contained within. The effect is proabably weak, but eventually the rate at which they're being created will be weaker.

Well, you're likely correct, if only because the rate at which they're created will go down.

 

[illram]

So if someone skimmed that $450 mil slowly over time, Office Space style, all they needed to do was then exchange the coin for cash elsewhere, right?

 

[Whomp]

So if someone skimmed that $450 mil slowly over time, Office Space style, all they needed to do was then exchange the coin for cash elsewhere, right?

1500 bitcoin a day? That's some good livin', no?

 

[Antilogic]

Well, outside of deflation, no, not really. And, remember, neither gold nor bitcoins are fixed at a certain level. Both grow in number over time due to (resource wasting) mining.

But, there's no specific reason some currencies have so many more zeros in their bills.

Outside of deflation, it's a matter of convenience. I'd rather have prices that can be reasonably printed on price tags and convenient denominations that are easy to say and read (i.e. you don't have to count off 10 to 12 zeroes).

It's not part of the code that generates and monitors them, but as I understand it, if you destroy a hard drive that bitcoin wallet is stored on, you destory the bicoins contained within. The effect is proabably weak, but eventually the rate at which they're being created will be weaker.

This is my understanding as well.

1500 bitcoin a day? That's some good livin', no?

Heh, not anymore.

 

[uppi]

Outside of deflation, it's a matter of convenience. I'd rather have prices that can be reasonably printed on price tags and convenient denominations that are easy to say and read (i.e. you don't have to count off 10 to 12 zeroes).

You could always use SI-prefixes and print everything in pBTC.

 

[Antilogic]

Or we could continue using dollars.