Is bitcoin frowned upon here?

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Kendrak said:
I'm with filter..... what is bitcoin?
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Bitcoin is a digital currency which removes "the middle man"

http://www.bitcoin.org/

Google recently released the code as well:

http://www.cio.com.au/article/380396/google_releases_open_source_bitcoin_client/

The client generates "coins" via IDLE CPU cycles that are added to the pool, which the creators (?) are limiting to a total of 21 million bitcoins for circulation.

I can only assume from the picture that the OP is showing that he is running the client and generating coins.
 
so.... someone is magically pulling these out of their ass and they are currently valued at $.75?
and the end result of all bitcoin cash will be 21 million?
 
I don't understand what the hell you do with bitcoins

Why do I want to waste CPU cycles on bitcoin instead of WCG?
 
abudhu said:
Yeah...don't ask me. I just saw a post on Reddit for it today. I am just as confused as to how they are Valuing the true worth of a BitCoin.
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unless i can turn bitcoins into real cash there worthless
 
IIRC, unless you have incredibly cheap/free power, you will use more in energy costs than you will make.
 
To me this sounds a lot like taking the kids to Chuck E Cheese where I can turn $30 into "Chuck E Money" aka tokens, which they can then go earn tickets with to buy cheap crap at the counter that would have cost me about $2....except you don't even get to play the games in the mean time.
 
I'm really confused, its a distributed currency, ok, I get that... but the "mining" by using CPU cycles... what is it doing?? I looked through the Wiki and FAQ's and I can't figure that part out... it could be doing nuclear research for North Korea for all we know...
 
the mining makes the currency. not sure where it goes. maybe you own it? and the value is based on demand. and true, there might be a demand if enough places accept it.
 
Yeah Flecom, I'm betting that they're selling the service to companies that need large chunks of information gone through just like F@H and WCG, except it's for profit and not scientific research. Basically "Here big company, pay us $50,000 to run these numbers for you....and we'll pay the people doing it off in beads and trinkets."

Quite similar to folding, but for commercial benefit instead of public benefit. While there's nothing inherently "wrong" with that it seems a bit scummy to me.
 
the cpu cycles are what encrypting the virtual money from what I understand, you're creating the monies - like printing bills.
But problem 1) I doubt much ppl will use the currency, and 2) in a few years as cpu technology grows the bitcoins will be worth less and less?
 
jiminator said:
the mining makes the currency. not sure where it goes. maybe you own it? and the value is based on demand. and true, there might be a demand if enough places accept it.
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I am not talking about the "bitcoins" I am talking about the actual work being done by the client... the "mining" this thing could be emailing your passwords to china for all anyone knows

Oldie said:
Yeah Flecom, I'm betting that they're selling the service to companies that need large chunks of information gone through just like F@H and WCG, except it's for profit and not scientific research. Basically "Here big company, pay us $50,000 to run these numbers for you....and we'll pay the people doing it off in beads and trinkets."

Quite similar to folding, but for commercial benefit instead of public benefit. While there's nothing inherently "wrong" with that it seems a bit scummy to me.
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ding ding ding, that was what I was thinking
 
That pretty much sums up how I feel about this type of stuff. I don't understand how in the world it would make financial sense with electric rates going up, and then why anyone would trust this type of stuff. I want to know exactly what my computer is going used for, because I don't want to be the one who'se door gets knocked down by the FBI because some scummy DC project was using a computer to encrypt child porn or illegal financial info.

At least with F@H or BOINC type stuff, you know exactly what is going on and you know that you can trust whatever your computer is being used for.

FLECOM said:
I am not talking about the "bitcoins" I am talking about the actual work being done by the client... the "mining" this thing could be emailing your passwords to china for all anyone knows



ding ding ding, that was what I was thinking
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404 - File not found said:
the cpu cycles are what encrypting the virtual money from what I understand, you're creating the monies - like printing bills.
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This is correct. There's no distributed computing going on. The software client is generating encrypted currency, i.e., creating the "coins" (which you then own) and slowly growing the overall money supply. Instead of a central bank creating the money, it's created by the end users. The currency generation process is designed to be slow to prevent inflation.

It reminds me of Liberty Dollars and other alternative currency schemes. This seems more like a research project being implemented to see if the research holds true in the real world (like how hard is it to counterfeit, etc.). The Bitcoin Wikipedia article is more informative than the main site.
 
honelsty it says that the avg processor would take a month to do 50 coins wtf kind of encryption are they doing if it takes my computer a month to do only 50?
 
the problem with this stuff is that.... once someone cracks the system... it all becomes worthless.

And yeah, no doubt the creator is smart, and open source helps, but there are a lot of smart motivated people out there.
 
The whole "point" of BitCoin mining is to discover your own unique BitCoin "block". Each block contains 50 BitCoin, and can be exchanged for "real" US greenbacks at many exchange services for a fee. If you have free power, it's like printing money.

BitCoin is an anonymous electronic currency, which makes it ideal for buying and selling shady items, among other more legitimate uses.

As more blocks are discovered, the difficulty of mining increases tremendously, and this happens every few weeks or so. ATI GPUs excel at this type of computation, and as such, they are the premiere choice of enthusiasts who wish to mine BitCoin. It takes an ATI Radeon HD 5870 over two weeks (on average) to mine one block mining by yourself.

Because of the ever-increasing difficulty, and mathematical chance involved, many people now participate in what is called BitCoin mining pools. Essentially, everyone receives work from a central server and earns "shares" of the final outcome based upon how much information they can crunch at a time. When one member discovers a new BitCoin block, everyone gets a portion based upon how many shares they have.

Hope this helps! :D

Also, I would think this kind of activity should be frowned upon in the DC forum, as it is the opposite of FAH/WCG; you are attempting to receive personal gain instead of helping others.
 
So this is what happens when you let hyper-nerds go wild...........

Interesting concept, but I still don't really get it. Rather than try to get it, I think i'll just stick to good old F@H.
 
WOW - only responding to a couple of those before I head off to work.


Oldie said:
Quite similar to folding, but for commercial benefit instead of public benefit. While there's nothing inherently "wrong" with that it seems a bit scummy to me.
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And WCG/F@H/et al. have absolutely no commercial interests at any point along the way? Can you say that with 100% certainty? We're all just hired guns; I'm just getting paid for my cycles.

404 - File Not Found said:
But problem 1) I doubt much ppl will use the currency, and 2) in a few years as cpu technology grows the bitcoins will be worth less and less?
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No - the difficulty of the algorithm increases with the amount of computational power available in the bitcoin network. This, along with the fact that there will only ever be 21 million BTC, means that as long as there is demand they will always be worth something.

Filter said:
honelsty it says that the avg processor would take a month to do 50 coins wtf kind of encryption are they doing if it takes my computer a month to do only 50?
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CPUs are not the weapon of choice in this arena - just like F@H, GPUs are much better suited to this sort of computation than CPUs.

NobleX13 said:
Also, I would think this kind of activity should be frowned upon in the DC forum, as it is the opposite of FAH/WCG; you are attempting to receive personal gain instead of helping others.
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And how do you know what I am doing with my BTC or the money I receive from selling them off? How do you know exactly what the WCG data is that you are computing? I do like the fact that you understand the concept before rejecting it, which I can accept before those who dismiss it before even knowing what it is.
 
Point taken good sir; I have no interest in starting a flame war. You computer your way, and I shall compute mine.
 
Just doesn't make sense to me. Doesn't have any major benefit other than using CPU cycles to make currency that doesn't have any value other than what people are willing to say it's worth in a limited community.

Unless your electricity is free, what's the point?

If this ever catches on more, I almost guarantee someone will one day find a fatal flaw in the encryption algorithm, or speed up the encryption/decryption process to make gaining blocks almost trivial.
 
SazanEyes said:
This is correct. There's no distributed computing going on. The software client is generating encrypted currency, i.e., creating the "coins" (which you then own) and slowly growing the overall money supply. Instead of a central bank creating the money, it's created by the end users. The currency generation process is designed to be slow to prevent inflation.
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Yeah...or you can just buy a bunch of them instead...:rolleyes:

https://www.bitcoin4cash.com/buy.php

Seriously, this is a Grade A scam, I have zero doubt.
 
Oldie said:
Yeah...or you can just buy a bunch of them instead...:rolleyes:

https://www.bitcoin4cash.com/buy.php

Seriously, this is a Grade A scam, I have zero doubt.
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You are absolutely able to buy them at market value and resell them at market value. The market value moves like with any other good that has value. Buy low, sell high, make money. It is no scam.

I cannot speak toward exactly what each block represents and just what we're encrypting/decrypting, but the work that is done is real work and therefore it has value (in the form of 50 BTC per block). Right now, with pooled mining, I generate about 5 BTC per day, with a current market value of about $3.90. If the price of electricity goes higher, it will cease to be economical; but right now it's like printing money.
 
Next time I shut my rig down I'll put the kill-a-watt on it, just keep forgetting to.
 
jiminator said:
the problem with this stuff is that.... once someone cracks the system... it all becomes worthless.

And yeah, no doubt the creator is smart, and open source helps, but there are a lot of smart motivated people out there.
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There is no "cracking the system". The system is self-healing and outpaces any possible attacks, making it impossible to defeat. Read the technical paper.
 
Shlomo said:
I don't understand what the hell you do with bitcoins
Why do I want to waste CPU cycles on bitcoin instead of WCG?
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The problem is that if you're doing something illegal, chances are you'll probably eventually be caught because it's hard to hide "tainted" money. With schemes like this, you can in theory buy and sell all the IEDs you like without fear of taxation or government interference.

The biggest beneficiaries of currencies like this would probably be 3rd world government officials who need to make large amounts of money "disappear". It's the kind of thing that, if successful, will inevitably be outlawed, and for very good reason. I'm not too interested in using my computer to help people kill each other or steal from each other, personally.
 
thefreeaccount said:
The problem is that if you're doing something illegal, chances are you'll probably eventually be caught because it's hard to hide "tainted" money. With schemes like this, you can in theory buy and sell all the IEDs you like without fear of taxation or government interference.

The biggest beneficiaries of currencies like this would probably be 3rd world government officials who need to make large amounts of money "disappear". It's the kind of thing that, if successful, will inevitably be outlawed, and for very good reason. I'm not too interested in using my computer to help people kill each other or steal from each other, personally.
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You heard it here, folks: Bitcoin supports bomb-makers. Also, one of the top fears of people who make IEDs is taxation.
 
buzzbomb said:
It is no scam.
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Until there's transparency of what exactly all those computational cycles are doing, you definitely can't classify it as "no scam".

the work that is done is real work
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Without knowing what's being done, how can you say it's "real work"? For all you know, you might have turned your computer into a DDoS zombie or it might be taking part in brute force hacking some government servers somewhere.

One thing's for certain. Creating a decentralized global currency is not the end game of this program. Someone somewhere is looking to make a shit ton of money off the unsuspecting drones that run this thing.
 
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Parja said:
Until there's transparency of what exactly all those computational cycles are doing, you definitely can't classify it as "no scam".
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Until you can offer me incontrovertible proof that the F@H/WCG work units you are doing are what they say they are, this argument is logically invalid. Pretty pictures of proteins spinning around do not count, and neither do happy stories about clean water for the third world. How can you be so skeptical of bitcoin yet so accepting of F@H/WCG? It's a glaring double-standard.


Parja said:
Without knowing what's being done, how can you say it's "real work"? For all you know, you might have turned your computer into a DDoS zombie or it might be taking part in brute force hacking some government servers somewhere.
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It would appear that no matter what proof I offer, someone will shoot it down and say that bitcoin is somehow (and sensationally) evil. Running SHA256 hashes is now a terrorist activity, you guys kill me. :D


Parja said:
One thing's for certain. Creating a decentralized global currency is not the end game of this program. Someone somewhere is looking to make a shit ton of money off the unsuspecting drones that run this thing.
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Life is not based on a Tom Clancy novel. Think for yourself: wouldn't it be nice to have a currency that some bureaucrat/banker can't devalue on a whim? USD are not based on gold anymore - and for that matter, what gives gold its value? We could get into things like what makes "work" have "value", fiat money, etc. but you know where wikipedia lives.
 
thefreeaccount said:
The problem is that if you're doing something illegal, chances are you'll probably eventually be caught because it's hard to hide "tainted" money. With schemes like this, you can in theory buy and sell all the IEDs you like without fear of taxation or government interference.
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Any monetary system can be used for nefarious gains. Sure, a mob boss/rogue government/Kyle could fire up a warehouse full of 5970-equipped rigs bought with ill-gotten gains and double the current computational power in the bitcoin network - but that still wouldn't devalue or otherwise deface my bitcoins. But going with the "Tom Clancy"-novel line of thinking, someone could find a much easier/faster/clandestine way to launder a pile of cash and not get caught - without touching the nefarious and maligned bitcoin OR any IEDs! :D


thefreeaccount said:
The biggest beneficiaries of currencies like this would probably be 3rd world government officials who need to make large amounts of money "disappear". It's the kind of thing that, if successful, will inevitably be outlawed, and for very good reason. I'm not too interested in using my computer to help people kill each other or steal from each other, personally.
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What about private, law-abiding citizens who don't feel it's their own government's job to babysit them and watch/legislate their every move? What options do they have?
 
From https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Blocks:

Data is permanently recorded in the Bitcoin network through blocks. Each block contains all recent transactions, a nonce (random number), and the hash of the previous block. A block is "solved" (published and considered valid by peers) when the SHA-256 hash of the entire block is below the current target. This is very unlikely to occur after being hashed only once, so the nonce must be incremented and the block re-hashed millions of times until it does.
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The code to the bitcoin clients are open-source and free to review by anyone. If someone who has some programming knowledge cares enough to look at the source and verify that it is not, in fact, somehow powering Kim Jong Il's personal ICBM launcher, I will send that person 20 BTC once they join the party. :)
 
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