Bitcoin & Bitcoin Mining

[The Passenger]

I cannot see Litecoin ever trading at more than 1/4 of Bitcoin values, no matter how many things go in its favour (other than Bitcoin collapsing, but even then, if Bitcoin collapses then why wouldn't Litecoin either follow suit or even precipitate the fall?).

Well we ought to have some fun with this. In a week or so I will invest $x (I'm thinking maybe $500) in Litecoin, you ought to invest the same amount in any other cryptocurrency of your choice. We will follow results in this thread or one made specifically for the purpose. We can nominate high/low sell thresholds if we like (although I'm keen to hang on to mine for the full twelve months so I don't end up sweating the markets like a mate of mine seems to).

Let's put some cryptomoney where our mouths are brah

I'm keen on the crypto's but just gotta knock off a bit of my credit card first. Although at this rate bitcoins could pay for my credit card? seriously risky strategy. Probably not a road I will go down.

Right now I am kicking myself I didn't buy about $1k worth of bitcoins when they were worth $2.50 in November/Dec 2011. I had just finished uni and did not have a jatz cracker to my name but me and a mate were sure they would go up and were gonna get in on them, but alas we didn't. Did not envision this sort of price rise though. We were thinking maybe to $8-$10.

Oooo well. I still have 1.5 bitcoins that i bought at ~$100 each. here's to hoping they just explode. The miracle play.

Caeser is probably right though in looking to the next generation cryptocurrencies. Typically in technology it's about the 3rd or 4th generation of an idea that really takes it to a new level. He's also right there is no real reason that litecoin would explode. It's the exact same principle as bitcoin but releases a different amount of coins so that eventually there will be a lot more. I'm interested in reading about this peercoin. You need to identify one with a point of difference, not just a complete copycat.

 

[BotsMaster]

What are bitcoins

Clearly you have no idea.

 

[Smiling Buddha]

I'm keen on the crypto's but just gotta knock off a bit of my credit card first. Although at this rate bitcoins could pay for my credit card? seriously risky strategy. Probably not a road I will go down.

Yeah I wouldn't do that, personally. What's the credit card debt from if you don't mind me asking?

Right now I am kicking myself I didn't buy about $1k worth of bitcoins when they were worth $2.50 in November/Dec 2011.

I think just about every person with an internet connection is kicking themselves.

Caeser is probably right though in looking to the next generation cryptocurrencies. Typically in technology it's about the 3rd or 4th generation of an idea that really takes it to a new level.

Bit/Litecoins are not simply 'technology'. They are finite currencies.

He's also right there is no real reason that litecoin would explode.

What are the reasons for Bitcoin exploding?

 

[Smiling Buddha]

I'm hardly Nelson Rockefeller.

I reckon you have already saved up at least a 20% deposit for a nice place not too far from Sydney's north shore. Now just to wait for the right lady. A working lady. Not one who will expect to be kept. But one who will leave behind her career (for a while at least) when the time is right, because the children will need a full-time mum for a few years at least. Maybe a mid-tier firm girl who will happily do 'less stressful' work at a smaller firm when the kids are a bit older.

Fine, $50. But only because it's you who's asking.

Well this is a pleasant surprise. I suggest we broaden our competition base to liven the game up even further. Since you got in first you get dibs on Bitcoin if you want it...

Im semi interested...
I'm half familiar with bitcoin but not so much litecoin and other cryptocurrency plus I bet on anything so why not internet currency

...and Judds a Blue gets whatever he wants outside of Litecoin and whatever Caesar chooses.

I also propose that each CryptoCurrency Challenge Thread constestant be allowed to nominate a high price sell threshold. I won't be exercising this option; even if Litecoin increase 100-fold I will sit on my $5,000 until 12 months from the Challenge's start date, which is TBC pending interest from other posters.

The aim is to increase a $50 into as high an amount as possible, within 12 months, by backing a single CryptoCurrency. Who else is in?

 

[The Passenger]

Yeah I wouldn't do that, personally. What's the credit card debt from if you don't mind me asking?

boozing, nights out, terrible budgeting through august and september. pretty sure i cash advanced for some gear at some point - i typically only keep about $200 in my bank account and the rest stays nicely locked away with mr rabobank. the debt it's not out of control, just wanna hit a couple of $500-$1k payments into it before i go buying things.

I think just about every person with an internet connection is kicking themselves.

yeah but very few people with an internet connection knew about bitcoins in november 2011. i was very aware of them and didn't jump on board, despite having every intention to do so.

Bit/Litecoins are not simply 'technology'. They are finite currencies.

well they are many things to many different people. if you read the bitcoin forums there is a fair undercurrent of dislike towards people who see cryptocurrencies as an investment opportunity to make money - they see it as a potential method of breaking free of the current economic models.

for me i sit somewhere in the middle. the technology intrigues me, the concept intrigue me and the potential is exciting. and if i can make a bit of money on the side - and god willing make the miracle play that means money never becomes an issue for me again, it would be great.

as an aside from a technological point of view, what bitcoins (and the rest) are is actually a protocol. so like Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (http - what is generally used to display websites) or bittorrents and many other things. that probably doesn't excite too many others though

What are the reasons for Bitcoin exploding?

first in i guess. silk road drove a bit of it but it didn't explain what happened to it in 2012. things went crazy around about march or april (from memory) when they went from about $6 to $50 in the space of about 2 weeks (a bit of guesswork here but i'm not too far off i don't think). at the time there was huge problems in cyprus and the theory was that was were a lot of the price spike was coming from.

interestingly enough silk road going down has been cited as a potential reason for the latest increase ($150 down to $100 upto $300 in a month) as it is giving the currency a bit more legitimacy for something other than buying drugs. and that about 8% (??) of the bitcoin market has been seized would help push the price up fractionally (less supply to meet demand)... i think it's a combination of things, and also the take down of silk road is truly the first time that bitcoin has hit the mainstream.

was having a look at peercoin. the value of them has gone up what looks to be ~1000% against the USD this year but it's hard to tell cause can I only find charts for it against Bitcoins... the technology behind peercoin seems very sound too, using a slightly different method to keep the integrity of it's blockchain.

at the moment though it looks like every crypto currency is based on bitcoin. it will be great if someone could expand on that and come up with a completely new protocol.

that being said, if i can scrounge together 1k over the next little while i'd be well keen to put them into a combo of bitcoins, litecoins, ppcoins.

EDIT: rereading this post reads like a three old. meh, i can't be ****ed on a friday night.

 

[The Passenger]

Jesus christ these things are going nuts at the moment. About 2 minutes ago just traded at an all time high of 367 USD. 400 is not of the question as early as this afternoon.

 

[Quivorir]

What are the other options other than lite coin and bit coin?

 

[Caesar]

I'll take Peercoins. Someone tag me in this thread when you decide on the buy date.

 

[Simple Jack]

Anybody else in the cryptocurrency game? Any hot tips on up-and-coming alternatives to big boy Bitcoin? Anybody know anybody who bought in low and is now sitting on a goldmine?

Mate of mine bought ~200 bitcoins @ $5AUD and 100 @ $10AUD. Still has them.

 

[The Passenger]

What are the other options other than lite coin and bit coin?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cryptocurrencies

There is plenty out there, but essentially they are all just off shoots of bitcoin, with their own little idiosyncrasies. having looked at the a chunk of the source code litecoin seems to me like an absolute direct copy of bitcoin, with just different equations for how quickly and how many coins they release upon mining.

Peercoins are quite interesting because they use a proof of stake method for checking the integrity of the blockchain. pretty much all the others use a proof of work. To see the difference - http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/9082/what-is-proof-of-stake

The biggest advantage of POS is less computational power. As computers get more powerful the difficulty in mining bitcoins needs to be increased, which in turn uses more power.

A bit more on 51% attacks - one of the concerns of cryptocurrency is someone could secure 51% of what is required to keep the integrity of the blockchain -with bitcoin it's 51% of the computational power, with peercoin it's 51% of the market value. If this happens, theoretically (and probably in practice, i've not looked at the theory v practice arguments) the person could do what they want with the blockchain.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1opwuo/why_the_high_cost_of_protecting_against_a_51/

On that list one of the piqued my interest was goldcoin and their "51% defence mechanism" but upon reading their paper it sounds like they don't fully understand what the issue is, nor how easy you could get around their system.

 

[Smiling Buddha]

Jesus christ these things are going nuts at the moment. About 2 minutes ago just traded at an all time high of 367 USD. 400 is not of the question as early as this afternoon.

Apparently some Chinese exchange is trading Bitcoins at the equivalent of $420 USD as we speak.

This shit is messed up.

 

[BALKAN]

I'll take Peercoins. Someone tag me in this thread when you decide on the buy date.

Caesar











u r ugly hahahaha

 

[Quivorir]

Where does one purchase coins from ?

 

[TheWoodenSlug]

Where does one purchase coins from ?

Just headbutt random bricks. Some will have coins in them.

 

[Smiling Buddha]

For those with some spare time on your hands, I recommend:

http://bitcoinity.org/markets
To watch the price swings live.

https://btc-e.com/exchange/ltc_usd
To read the trollbox on the right-hand side of the screen (and keep tabs on LTC).

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=57.0
To read the thoughts of the amateur cryptocurrency speculators (or, as I think of them, mug punters).

I've spent a fair bit of the last 48 hours following the market and it is pretty clear to me that the whole thing is being gamed by anonymous (lower case) interests who are more or less playing the chumps on those bitcoin forums for suckers. And those suckers can't get enough of it.

I am confident that the BTC/USD rate will get to >$1000 eventually, maybe even within the year, but I am even more confident that it will plunge to <$200 either side of the peak. The whole thing is not only being gamed, but liable to be being gamed, due to:

*low liquidity of the markets
*complete lack of inherent value represented by each coin (or sub-coin)
*number of chumps only interested in the currency because they think they can get rich quick

If and when the manipulators decide it is time, they could plunge the price back to $15 within an hour if they so wished. And why wouldn't they?

The y-axis is in Yuan, and this chart hasn't been updated to include the current bounce. The blue/grey line represents a theoretical representation of a typical stock-price boom and bust; the green and red 'candles' represent price changes over the past few weeks. Ominous is an understatement.

 

[The Passenger]

If and when the manipulators decide it is time, they could plunge the price back to $15 within an hour if they so wished. And why wouldn't they?

You may be right but don't really see what they would have to gain from that? Aside from the opportunity to sell of all stock and rebuy again at a lower price but any massive drop in value would be hard to regain the value of the currency so fairly high chance of defeating the purpose in the first place.

Ominous is an understatement.

Bitcoin investment has always been a roller coaster ride and for some time to come all crypto's will bounce around like yo yo's. Not the least stressful way to invest.

Where does one purchase coins from ?

you can trade using an exchange like mtgox.com or btc-e.com. There are plenty of others around - Vircucrex probably one of the most reputable. Any exchange should be thoroughly researched as there are plenty of dodgy ones around. I use localbitcoins.com and haven't had a problem. Can pay cash into a bank account if you wish which is good for anonymity. Need to research who you trade with, a bit like e bay.

 

[Smiling Buddha]

You may be right but don't really see what they would have to gain from that? Aside from the opportunity to sell of all stock and rebuy again at a lower price

You've just answered your own question there, haven't you?

 

[The Passenger]

You've just answered your own question there, haven't you?

yeah but as said a massive hit the price of bitcoins would more than likely destroy any confidence in the currency. It would be hard to bounce back.

They have taken some vicious hits before, but dropping 90-95% would be the biggest (i think).

There was a massive drop in the early to mid of last year from memory. Not sure on how much though.

 

[Smiling Buddha]

Yep and it is for that reason that I think you and all of the other 'investors' are being taken for a ride.

The dudes with money will just keep going through cycles of pump-and-dump, taking the vast majority of the money that comes into the system with them over time.

You'll read plenty of stories on the forums from pissant speculators 'making money' but what you won't read is the stories of the chumps who buy high and sell low, of which there necessarily must be and are many.

Good on the peeps who got in years ago when the price was in single digits and have cashed out and made a motza. But I feel sorry for those who bought after the currency got mainstream attention and now spend their days pondering whether or not to sell. It will end in tears.

 

[The Passenger]

Anything this speculative needs to abide by the rule of not risking what you can't afford to lose.

That really should hold strong in any investment, but more so here than anything else cause you genuinely run a fair risk of losing the entire investment. Even from something as stupid as losing the USB stick you may be storing the coins on.

 

[J_Moore]

Can't it be a bit difficult to actually cash out a significant bitcoin investment?

 

[Smiling Buddha]

Can't it be a bit difficult to actually cash out a significant bitcoin investment?

Yes, due to the low liquidity on the exchanges.

Which is exactly why the smart man would gradually decrease his holdings.

I wonder if that is what we are seeing right now.

 

[The Passenger]

Can't it be a bit difficult to actually cash out a significant bitcoin investment?

I was having a few problems with mtgox so moved all my bitcoins to localbitcoins and just got people to cash out directly into my bank account. worked well.

 

[The Passenger]

$400 US mark gets traded for the first time

 

[Smiling Buddha]

Hitting ATHs on Gox.

Have we missed the boat? Or is a crash a comin?

Fascinating stuff.

If you are bored at home right now, just watch the charts at bitcoinity.

http://bitcoinity.org/markets/mtgox/USD