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03-11-2014, 09:10 PM
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#926 | | Hacked RS to become a mod
Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Sunny Hong Kong
Posts: 52,343
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| Quote:
Originally Posted by $_$  I think that's oversimplifying it a little bit, don't you think? If I wanted to send my friend some money, first I'd have to find a place/website that I trusted enough to create a wallet and deposit my money. Like others have mentioned, with Gox going down in the fashion it did, it really does make people (especially people that is not as in-tune with everything that's going on) wary of whom to trust with their money. I tried signing up for the largest Chinese bitcoin exchange the other day so that I can deposit some money and they required a ridiculous amount of personal information and identification documentation, not to mention the time that it would take in order for the application to process. The process alone turned me away from the whole thing. Does other exchanges require information from you in this fashion? On top of that, after I finished depositing that money, transfer it to him, buddy will need to convert it to fiat again in order to use it unless he's gonna use it on something obscure. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure these exchanges charge you money for conversion and probably withdrawl of your money too, albeit probably lesser than western union. But my point is in it's current state the argument that sending money using BTC is somehow more convenient or faster than transferring money in a more traditional way isn't a good argument.... Buddy in Thailand might have to trek to western union but he's got cash on hand, ready to use. But if he has bitcoins, he's got to to convert, wait for convert, go to ATM and then withdrawl his fiat... | A lot of what you said can be attributed to simply not knowing the options. That is because it is literally brand new.
When you installed web browsers back in the Windows 95 days, you didn't know what you were getting. Was Netscape good? Probably, a lot of people use it. But who knows for sure? And what about those browsers that came on floppy disks with magazines? Those were filled with adware... You wouldn't have known either way, because Netscape hadn't built up a reputation yet
The remittance example isn't the best "this is what you can do today" but more of "this is what it will be like when bitcoin is more adopted, but can still be done today perfectly easy as a proof of concept". Yes you can send $100 to anyone in the world instantly for basically free, but they have to find somewhere to spend that. Right now it means selling it for cash, but hopefully in the future that will change. Right now it's a bit of a pain to buy with bitcoin.. Just like it was a pain to send email and browse the web when they were brand new. I try to spend with bitcoin as much as I can. When I buy something with it, I simply deposit the same amount to my local exchange, and buy some BTC at the current rate. Others can do this too, once you have an exchange set up, or you can go to the bitcoin atm.
The most beneficial people to this will be emerging economies. Everyone here in Canada loves their Fiat, which is backed by a strong government and economy. That's all well and good, but how about you open your eyes a bit and think of the rest of the world? There aren't many countries that are like Canada. Look at all of Africa for instance. What happens to their fiat when the government decides to just keep printing billions and billions of dollars? You get inflation at a rate of 89,700,000,000,000,000,000,000% (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation_in_Zimbabwe) 
These are the people who need bitcoin more than anything. They can't count on their shitty governments. People think fiat has intrinsic value for some reason.. well the intrinsic value of these currencies is basically the paper you are holding in your hand. Maybe it's good for starting fires or using as TP.
Outside africa you have these european countries falling apart. Cyprus was screwed over so bad by banking russian mobsters that they had to literally take money from their peoples' bank accounts. Ukraine will be another good example, along with countries run by shitty governments in South America.
So yeah, things are all peachy in Canada, but there is more to the world than you and the people in your country. For once, the PEOPLE will have their own currency, instead of counting on basically faith.
As for wallets, it's not that hard to just ask your local bitcoin geek for suggestions. If you are dealing with bitcoin in smallish amounts (under a few thousand USD) then I would say use blockchain. They are leading the industry in technology and trust. Otherwise I wouldn't trust putting my money somewhere that isn't backed up by insurance. That would be just dumb. Luckily, you don't have to do that (and the people who lost their money on sketchy services should have known this, the info is out there).
For larger amounts I would use multibit, and keep a backup of the encrypted data on as many backups as you find convenient. Dropbox, google, usb sticks, hard drives, etc. Also if you have Android you can use bitcoin wallet for buying and selling things on the go.. keep a couple hundred in there for going to restaurants, etc. Blockchain has an app as well that you can use with your account. Apple bans anything to do with bitcoin (which in itself is sketchy as all fuck) but there is a solution in the works using html5 so it will be browser based, and there is nothing they can do to ban it.
If you are storing savings, I would recommend cold storage (printed on paper, or on an offline device, and stored somewhere safe).
None of these can be stolen by anyone without your private key, or lost by a poorly run company. Unless you physically give it to someone and tell them your key, it's safer than anything.
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03-11-2014, 09:37 PM
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#927 | | RS controls my life!
Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: D
Posts: 767
Thanked 97 Times in 52 Posts
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Skinnypupp should be the bitcoin mod!
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03-11-2014, 10:48 PM
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#928 | | Even when im right, revscene.net is still right!
Join Date: May 2004 Location: vancouver
Posts: 1,311
Thanked 79 Times in 18 Posts
| Quote:
Originally Posted by Carl Johnson Mt Gox might be just one exchange but it definitely did exposed the institutional weakness with bitcoin and the communities around it. | And what is this weakness you're speaking of? People losing money with the Gox debacle had more to do with Gox's incompetence and the people's failure to recognize said incompetence than it does with Bitcoin itself. It's been known for long time that Gox carried a systemic risk and this latest incident wasn't the first time something's gone wrong within Gox. Is it Bitcoin's fault that the people who used Gox failed their due diligence to keep their money off a centralized exchange like Bitcoin 101 suggested? That's like getting a speeding ticket and turning around and suing your car manufacturer for making your car too fast.
If anything, I think this Gox incident will be good for Bitcoin and will help it grow. Once you weed out the bad apples and let the free market learn its lessons, it'll be hard pressed to repeat these type of operations again. Quote:
Originally Posted by Carl Johnson However the important part with bitcoin is the volatility. If I send my friend some US dollar, that friend can be assured that the value of the US dollar will not change very much at all day-to-day or week-to-week. The same thing can't be said for bitcoin because ultimately you still have to convert it back real currency to make purchases. | I only gave you that example because you said Fiat is so much more superior due to its transparency and ease of use. True, volatility is a concern right now. And again, I'll bring you back to the argument that Bitcoin has only been in the mainstream's attention for a bit over a year. Of course it's going to be volatile, but, as the market grows, this volatility will get smaller and smaller and the example I made earlier about the remittance advantage will come full circle. Quote:
Originally Posted by Carl Johnson What is the future road map for bitcoin? Unless you have Google, Amazon, or someone who can throw their weight behind this, I can't see this thing take off in a major way. Currently, bitcoin is just a niche for the enthusiasts. | I'm glad you asked because the road map is vast and complex.
Bitcoin, as the mainstream understands it, is just a currency. However, the more complex iceberg that's underneath, which is what people in the know are actually more excited about, is the Bitcoin protocol and network.
For example, with the protocol, Bitcoin has the ability to implement an escrow service directly into its transactions by requiring third-party keys in order to execute a certain transaction. You can also turn transactions into a trust by setting certain transactions to unlock for a specific person only after a certain amount of time has passed. For the network, people are leveraging off of it and building interesting applications such as notary services, uncensored domains, and secure messaging services.
And this is only the very beginning of what's possible. Like I mentioned before about Netflix, nobody really knows how far this rabbit hole will go. However, by leveraging the protocol and network, the possibilities are basically endless for programmers and entrepreneurs to play with and build things that weren't possible before.
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03-11-2014, 11:04 PM
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#929 | | Even when im right, revscene.net is still right!
Join Date: May 2004 Location: vancouver
Posts: 1,311
Thanked 79 Times in 18 Posts
| Quote:
Originally Posted by $_$ I think that's oversimplifying it a little bit, don't you think? If I wanted to send my friend some money, first I'd have to find a place/website that I trusted enough to create a wallet and deposit my money. Like others have mentioned, with Gox going down in the fashion it did, it really does make people (especially people that is not as in-tune with everything that's going on) wary of whom to trust with their money. I tried signing up for the largest Chinese bitcoin exchange the other day so that I can deposit some money and they required a ridiculous amount of personal information and identification documentation, not to mention the time that it would take in order for the application to process. The process alone turned me away from the whole thing. Does other exchanges require information from you in this fashion? On top of that, after I finished depositing that money, transfer it to him, buddy will need to convert it to fiat again in order to use it unless he's gonna use it on something obscure. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure these exchanges charge you money for conversion and probably withdrawl of your money too, albeit probably lesser than western union. But my point is in it's current state the argument that sending money using BTC is somehow more convenient or faster than transferring money in a more traditional way isn't a good argument.... Buddy in Thailand might have to trek to western union but he's got cash on hand, ready to use. But if he has bitcoins, he's got to to convert, wait for convert, go to ATM and then withdrawl his fiat... | I think you need to look at what I say in context. Carl mentioned that Fiat is far superior because of its ease of use and transparency. If you're talking strictly about ease of use and transparency, without mucking around with volatility and widespread adoption, Bitcoin is superior.
Now, if you want to start talking about volatility and ease of purchase, I can understand how it's a barrier to many.
Volatility is an issue, but it's much less an issue with remittance. If you want to change it back to Fiat, just tell your friend to go exchange it the second he receives the Bitcoins. From the time you send it and the time he receives it, the price isn't going to change much. And that's talking about today. In five years, if Bitcoin continues to grow, it isn't even going to be worth mentioning. The remittance business is a multi-billion dollar business that could be taken care of entirely with Bitcoin.
As for purchasing Bitcoin, there are options for people in North America to get Bitcoins without providing identity. Just go on craigslist or Localbitcoins.com and you can meet up with some dude at Starbucks and transact in real time.
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03-13-2014, 05:49 PM
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#930 | | Hacked RS to become a mod
Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Sunny Hong Kong
Posts: 52,343
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| Quote:
Originally Posted by Presto I think I'm going to discontinue mining LTC. The difficulty has gone up to where I'm getting 0.4 LTC a day with 2x 7950, and a 7850. Less than a year ago, that was pulling in 3 LTC/day. Also, the contractor cheaped out and combined both bedrooms' power outlets to one circuit. So, with the addition of the Antminer, I'm tripping the breaker once a day.
The Antminer is nice. Once it gets going, you just let it sit there and mine. I mention 'once it gets going'. That's because on some boot-ups, it'll produce some HW errors, or an FPGA would go offline. My Antminer is overclocked to 375mhz (from 350), and produces zero HW errors on a good boot. I tried 400mhz, and HW errors spilled out like mad. Various forum posts I've read believe that there's an acceptable amount of HW errors. The mining pool is reporting 191GH/s AVG for the last 24 hours. | So what's your actual mining payout like per week?
Difficulty went up today, but "only" 11.5%
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03-13-2014, 08:18 PM
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#931 | | Hacked RS to become a mod
Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Sunny Hong Kong
Posts: 52,343
Thanked 23,816 Times in 8,190 Posts
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03-14-2014, 08:29 AM
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#932 | | Zombie Mod
Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Langley
Posts: 9,883
Thanked 5,170 Times in 1,552 Posts
| Quote:
Originally Posted by SkinnyPupp So what's your actual mining payout like per week?
Difficulty went up today, but "only" 11.5% | I'm at .11 BTC after a week. LOL, the 11.5% probably cancels out the overclock.
__________________
Romans 10:9 | |
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03-14-2014, 01:19 PM
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#933 | | Even when im right, revscene.net is still right!
Join Date: May 2002 Location: vancouver
Posts: 2,179
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lol i have 180ghs and it mined me 0.04 in 7 days.
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03-14-2014, 02:58 PM
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#934 | | Zombie Mod
Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Langley
Posts: 9,883
Thanked 5,170 Times in 1,552 Posts
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^^
Ouch. I guess you're using the Antminer? Is it overclocked? What's the pool reporting for your speed? Unless it crashes, I get a solid 190+ GH/s average as reported by the pool.
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Romans 10:9 | |
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03-14-2014, 04:10 PM
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#935 | | Hacked RS to become a mod
Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Sunny Hong Kong
Posts: 52,343
Thanked 23,816 Times in 8,190 Posts
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Yeah you have to keep an eye on your income at the pool vs what your actual hashrate is. Some pools are way better than others. So if you're nowhere near your expected income, switch pools
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03-14-2014, 06:57 PM
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#936 | | I want to be a person and not an icon.
Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: Mugello
Posts: 4,179
Thanked 5,286 Times in 892 Posts
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Just bought a 780TI for gaming... maybe I should overclock and mine
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03-14-2014, 08:49 PM
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#937 | | WOAH! i think Vtec just kicked in!
Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: richmond
Posts: 1,657
Thanked 1,830 Times in 233 Posts
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skinny how much bt u have?
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03-14-2014, 08:50 PM
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#938 | | Hacked RS to become a mod
Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Sunny Hong Kong
Posts: 52,343
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| Quote:
Originally Posted by StevenDuang Just bought a 780TI for gaming... maybe I should overclock and mine | Not good for mining Quote:
Originally Posted by nsmb skinny how much bt u have? | Not really any of your business
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03-14-2014, 08:53 PM
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#939 | | WOAH! i think Vtec just kicked in!
Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: richmond
Posts: 1,657
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ok then lol.. i was more curious to how much u have mined, since the thread opened.. not invested with cash
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03-14-2014, 08:56 PM
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#940 | | Hacked RS to become a mod
Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Sunny Hong Kong
Posts: 52,343
Thanked 23,816 Times in 8,190 Posts
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That would be like telling everyone your bank account balance or stock profile  | |
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03-15-2014, 08:38 AM
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#941 | | RS controls my life!
Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 759
Thanked 780 Times in 194 Posts
| Making Money
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03-15-2014, 08:56 AM
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#942 | | Hacked RS to become a mod
Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Sunny Hong Kong
Posts: 52,343
Thanked 23,816 Times in 8,190 Posts
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That comic makes no sense whatsoever
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03-15-2014, 08:23 PM
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#943 | | My homepage has been set to RS
Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Vancouver
Posts: 2,362
Thanked 743 Times in 363 Posts
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many interpretations can be drawn from that comic
some possible perceptions that I can see people deriving:
-bitcoin can be used for illegal activities
-people fear what they dont understand.
__________________ Quote:
[23-07, 02:03] shawn79 i find that at vietnamese place they cut ur hair like they cut grass
[23-07, 02:03] shawn79 do u go to vietnamese places for haircuts
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03-15-2014, 09:31 PM
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#944 | | Hacked RS to become a mod
Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Sunny Hong Kong
Posts: 52,343
Thanked 23,816 Times in 8,190 Posts
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I think I get what they're trying to say... I think....
In any case whoever wrote it has no idea at all about it
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03-15-2014, 11:54 PM
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#945 | | I keep RS good
Join Date: May 2001 Location: Cosmos
Posts: 28,661
Thanked 5,539 Times in 1,502 Posts
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what they're trying to say is, anyone can go out and create a currency.
but no one will trust it unless it's backed by a trusted governing authority.
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03-16-2014, 12:55 AM
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#946 | | Hacked RS to become a mod
Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Sunny Hong Kong
Posts: 52,343
Thanked 23,816 Times in 8,190 Posts
| Quote:
Originally Posted by Ulic Qel-Droma what they're trying to say is, anyone can go out and create a currency.
but no one will trust it unless it's backed by a trusted governing authority. | Then why would he be arrested for offering his currency?
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03-16-2014, 02:23 AM
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#947 | | I keep RS good
Join Date: May 2001 Location: Cosmos
Posts: 28,661
Thanked 5,539 Times in 1,502 Posts
| Quote:
Originally Posted by SkinnyPupp Then why would he be arrested for offering his currency? | I'm guessing some people think it's a form of fraud.
although... I think there's no such thing as attempted fraud... LOL. so really there has been no fraud.
the comic is obviously drawn by a nay sayer of bitcoin.
most merchants only accept legal tender... if you try to pay them with "fake" currencies, you can get arrested. that's my best guess.
or i guess if you're there and you keep trying to barter with something else other than legal tender, they'll call the cops on you.
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03-16-2014, 02:56 AM
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#948 | | Hacked RS to become a mod
Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Sunny Hong Kong
Posts: 52,343
Thanked 23,816 Times in 8,190 Posts
| Quote:
Originally Posted by Ulic Qel-Droma I'm guessing some people think it's a form of fraud.
although... I think there's no such thing as attempted fraud... LOL. so really there has been no fraud.
the comic is obviously drawn by a nay sayer of bitcoin.
most merchants only accept legal tender... if you try to pay them with "fake" currencies, you can get arrested. that's my best guess.
or i guess if you're there and you keep trying to barter with something else other than legal tender, they'll call the cops on you. | Exactly, it's a horribly written comic. I don't have a problem with 'naysayers' but at least know wtf you're 'naysaying' against  | |
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03-16-2014, 03:43 AM
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#949 | | Wanna have a threesome?
Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Squamish
Posts: 4,889
Thanked 5,054 Times in 1,657 Posts
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I think it's trying to say, altcoins are to bitcoin what counterfeit currencies are to legal currencies. The website appears to be pro-bitcoin so I don't think it's criticising it. It's certainly very poorly written and confusing.
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03-16-2014, 04:38 AM
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#950 | | Hacked RS to become a mod
Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Sunny Hong Kong
Posts: 52,343
Thanked 23,816 Times in 8,190 Posts
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Yeah hardcore bitcon geeks love to shit on altcoins... IMO most alts are useless, but there are some that make sense. There is one that combines cryptocurrency with distributed folding for medical purposes... There is also Litecoin of course, but as soon as ASICs show up, forget it. There's another scrypt based coin that is supposed to be truly ASIC proof (Litecoin could be if they wanted it to) so that may be where the GPU miners go once the difficulty becomes too much for them to be worth it. In that case, now would be a good time to start mining that coin 
Or there could be cryptocurrency's "Facebook" where bitcoin is the "Myspace". I don't see it that way though, since it can be adapted to suit any changes needed. And the analogy doesn't really work since cryptocurrencies are products like websites.. they are more like the internet itself. A protocol for products to use.
There are plenty of alts worth shitting on, like all the pump and dump coins based on stupid memes, etc
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