Bitcoins

I really really despise the use of 'fiat money' to describe circulating currencies. It really says everything that is wrong with the mindset of goldbugs, libertarians and the like. I'd hate it to enter common usage.

what a wonderful world it would be if we were paying for everything like this

http://s.petrolicious.com/market/fiat/fiat-124-spider-5.jpg

In any case I'll start calling bitcoins "currency" only when the local grocery store, my dentist, the insurance company et al. atart accepting them as payment.

I want to say I've seen bitcoin popping up here and there as a payment option ...

As goes Overstock.com, so goes the nation

this site detailing the various crypto currencies is amazing
http://www.coinwarz.com/cryptocurrency

all in on Noirbits

if someone could explain these things to me simply, it'd be a big help. most of it is down to my dim/abstract understanding of how bitcoin even works

1. i don't understand the mt. gox heist. there was some sort of bug that allowed transactions to be spoofed or double-counted or something -- but isn't each 'coin' essentially a block of alphanumeric characters making everything traceable? i guess i don't get how that meshes with anonymity -- if there's an infinite paper trail, don't they know exactly who has the stolen loot? or at least, exactly where it went?

2. if the nature of the heist was that transactions were faked/doubled -- i thought that the whole point of this thing (how it mimicked gold) is that each chunk of BTC was irreproduceable, only "mineable" via computing the originating algorithm. IS that they heist? they made people think they'd received their goods when the "real" string went somewhere else?

3. what did the losing depositors at mt. gox actually lose, their BTC, or the USD they put in in exchange?

idk i'd like to be able to make fun of this accurately w/o doing a lot more homework.

I can't belive dogecoin is a real thing

I know someone who has sunk close to a thousand on Bitcoin stuff. Coins, mining boxes, etc. I'm pretty fiscally conservative so I think he's nuts, but it's interesting to watch. I guess nobody bought into MtGox that was paying any attention. It's a little heartbreaking to see him spend a lot of 'real money' to get this 'virtual money' but who knows maybe in 5 years he will be a millionaire.

My understanding of the Mt. Gox scandal is that they screwed up in the same way a disinterested cashier at a big box store gives refunds to people who return playstation boxes with bricks inside them with a fake receipt.

I do think the people who started mining early may have made out okay (although the 'best' way to get $$$ out would be to buy drugs, then sell the drugs for cash). mining is insanely unprofitable right now and I cannot see BTC holding much value five years from now.

ah, i see, thx philip

there was a service called "brainwallet" which allowed you to store your private key with a password, and some bot was able to hack into a bunch of these with a dictionary attack that included various Ayn Rand quotes and XKCD references. point is lolbitcoiners

a dictionary attack that included various Ayn Rand quotes and XKCD references

this is the greatest thing ever

I do think the people who started mining early may have made out okay...

― frogbs, Monday, March 3, 2014 10:55 AM (13 minutes ago)

50% of bitcoin wealth belongs to 0.1% of bitcoin owners.

Not one-percent, but one-tenth of a percent.

if there's an infinite paper trail, don't they know exactly who has the stolen loot? or at least, exactly where it went?

you may want to look up what a "bitcoin tumbler" is. I mean I'm guessing you don't care enough to do so but essentially it takes your coins and a bunch of other people's coins and distributes them randomly to a bunch of public addresses and then back again, so you can't know what coins belonged to who. It would be like if I had a service where people could send all their dirty money to me, then I'd throw it all up in the air and give everyone back the amount they sent me. Which means in theory one of these services could just steal all the money, but that hasn't happened yet.

Taking a crack at your questions, goole:

1. Yes, there is an infinite paper trail, but that trail only leads you to anonymous accounts. Linking those to people could be difficult, though I would speculate that someone with the resources of an FBI could probably do it, though not sure the FBI will get involved.

2. That's the bug that Gox is blaming, but I wouldn't be surprised if the flaw turned out to be something else. Only time will tell. I have a feeling the true story hasn't even started to come out yet.

3. I think only the BTC were stolen, but probably even those with USD claims can only hope for cents on the dollar at this point.

well Gox has more liabilities than assets, not even counting Bitcoins. don't forget that the DOJ is "holding" a lot of their money for them..

anyway as o.nate points out this may not even be a theft. apparently a ton of bitcoins sit in accounts that Gox once transferred cash to in 2011 to prove they were still solvent (after they got hacked the first time), and they still haven't moved, so there's a chance that they may have just lost the private key (!!).

I had an extra computer and free electricity last year and mining still made less monetary sense than parting out the computer on Ebay.

i mean that's really the despicable thing about all this, there's soooo much electricity being wasted on this to create essentially nothing

Hmm, apparently also $27 million in cash missing:

http://arstechnica.com/business/2014/03/mtgox-code-posted-by-hackers-as-company-files-for-bankruptcy-protection/

im wondering when the pr0n industry will come up with f***coins

t*tcoins. please.

fartcoins and totcoins

The Japanese government will set rules for trading bitcoins, defining the virtual tender not as a currency but as a commodity akin to gold.

Trading gains will be taxed, and companies will need to pay tax on revenue earned from Bitcoin transactions. But enforcement could prove difficult, as tax authorities will have to track down users.

2 days til Snoopcoin
https://becausepool.com/dogg/

Smart move by the Japanese government. Establishes the legal norm and allows penalties for non-payment of the tax. Difficulty of enforcement is not the main issue imo.

sounds like this is just going to give them the ability to prosecute people

http://static.adzrk.net/Advertisers/5af77cf0094d4303bb308b955dd05992.jpg

http://www.pokernews.com/news/2013/12/bitcoin-guide-3-17102.htm
http://www.pokernews.com/news/2013/12/bitcoin-guide-2-17049.htm

anybody on ilx play poker with bitcoins? seems like the most reasonable way to use this stuff: as magical play money

on the other hand

Despite the collapse of the biggest Bitcoin exchange, Tokyo-based Mt. Gox, which cost its customers $500 million in cryptocurrency deposits, the U.K. authorities are about to endorse the virtual currency. Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs announced that it would not charge the 20 percent value-added tax on Bitcoin trades or even on traders' margins. This means the U.K. is prepared to treat Bitcoin as money in the framework of an EU law that exempts payments and transfers of "negotiable instruments" from tax. Thanks to the ruling, London may soon become the capital of the Bitcoin world and the decentralized currency may yet rebuild its reputation after the recent scandals.

looks like Poloniex (another BTC exchange) got hacked, it never ends

is that separate from the flexcoin exchange? that one was hit also

http://i62.tinypic.com/209ojzn.png

this UK thing still doesn't explain why anyone would actually want to use bitcoins

haha read iXcoin those as ilxcoin for a sec

http://coinmarketcap.com/

bitbugs remind me of the anti vaccination crowd, so fixated on a fear with a remote possibility of happening (autism/collapse of dollar) when their solution is much more likely to fuck them over (polio/pertussis/MMR/bitcoin exchange collpase and or theft)

though I guess that's true of a lot of human nature

So far it seems that Bitcoin offers unproven, speculative benefits for legitimate users and numerous, well-established advantages for hackers and criminals.

truth bomb:

Bitcoin, at the moment, is in a slump, with a community that has become its own parody … The Bitcoin masses, judging by their behavior on forums, have no actual interest in science, technology or even objective reality when it interferes with their market position. They believe that holding a Bitcoin somehow makes them an active participant in a bold new future, even as they passively get fleeced in the bolder current present.

cross posted from other thread:

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/03/doomsday-cult-of-bitcoin.html

"...Mt. Gox, a former Magic: The Gathering card exchange that morphed into Bitcoin’s largest trading floor..."

I did not know this.

mind was blown when i realized mt gox was an acronym for magic the gathering online xchange

I have no idea how realistic this is, but it's interesting to think about. Definitely there are lots of suggestive loose ends.

Peter R’s Theory on the Collapse of Mt. Gox
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=497289.0

I love how some "journalists" think it's actual "news" or "reporting" when they just recycle a bunch of old "doom & gloom" related Bitcoin stories and act as though their uneducated opinion actually counts for something. Bitcoin is about the future... and this reporter is living in the past. Why not report on any of the numerous good things Bitcoin is doing and actually make a contribution to society rather than dumbing it down. Just say'n... Although I have much more I'd like to say, I'll stop right there because it's obviously pointless with some people and I have better things to do than get in a "Comments" shouting match. If you're genuinely happy & satisfied with the way things are in this economy & have no hopes or ambition to change the future (or at least "report" on it)... then that's fine by me. I'll be sure to wave every once in awhile when I look back and see you in my rear view mirror....

kudos

I'll be sure to wave every once in awhile when I look back and see you in my rear view mirror....

Your like 30 and your spending you're time complaining about video games on a forum full of other 30 yr olds and sprinkled with the occasional gay teen. Guess what I'm gonna be doing when I'm 30. Let's just say first I'll get up out of a 5000$ bed in my waterside mansion on the east coast of japan, awoken by the light of the rising sun that glorious island is nicknamed after. I'll gently lift myself out of bed so as not to stir my beautiful eastern european pale skin dark hair small boobs wife and go to my huge walk in closet. I'll come back out moments later wearing a really expensive italian suit. Strolling down the corridor I come into a room with glass cases full of the trophies of my achievements. I proudly look at all of them and then move into the next room, it's the room with a wall-sized HD display and walls upon walls of DVDs, mostly Anime but with a few Western classics throuwn in there. Jealous yet? Next I move into the kitchen and have my servant make me a breakfast, its usually pancakes with chocolate chips and whipped cream, but today... lets go healthy. Just a few slices of apple, Servant. Thank you. How delicious. Now I'm strolling into the living room about to make for the door so I can go out and enjoy my day at Comiket, but in the corner there I see something. I walk over by the 5000 dollar gaming rig, its turned off for now but later tonight I'll be playing Prostitute Farm Online, max settings and DirectX12. I begin to turn and make for the door again but then i stop and look at the black monitor screen (no less than 40 inches, btw). I just laugh. And laugh and laugh. I'm laughing because the guy who was 30 when I was a 17 year old pathetic yix poster is still a yix poster, meanwhile, I'm living the literal dream. All because I shoot for the top. Deal with it, bitch. YCS.

"Your like 30 and your spending you're time complaining"

Hat trick!

Plz tell me that's a parody.

lol I was hoping the opposite, tell me thats for real!!!