Bitcoins

[Alexx]

I was in the deep web and noticed all of their services are accepting bitcoin.
My question is how do people mine these bitcoins.. how does this system work. and have you had any experience with them?

[GAMEchief]

Don't bother mining them. It's retarded and literally costs money. Also the longer they are mined, the harder they are to mine, so jumping on this bandwagon years down the line would be futile of you.

I don't know what you mean by how the system works.

[Alexx]

Why did you try mining them already? I'm looking at this stuff but it all looks too technical.. i see a lot of people making tons of profit of them literally doing nothing..
like where is the value of these coming from?

[GAMEchief]

I haven't done it, because it's dumb and expensive. Bitcoins are generated by solving a very complicated, randomly generated mathematical equation. Whoever solves it first gets the newly created Bitcoins. Each time the equation is solved, the next one generated is even more complex. I don't know how long it takes them to be solved nowadays, but with everyone generating them, it still takes at least days. Maybe weeks now. I haven't kept up with Bitcoins.

The equations are so complex, they have to be solved with a GPU. Are you familiar with Folding@HOME? Think that. Your computer randomly does upper-level mathematics at random until it finds a solution that matches the equally complicated generated one.

So what people have done is made farms, where you essentially buy a bunch of powerful ass computers (multi-GPU servers, etc.) and run them 24/7. And for those who can't afford to drop a few grand on the computers rent the space from Bitcoin farms, which are people who buy said servers and then rent them out to others for a monthly fee. God damn, the money in that, right? So if someone you rented the server out to cracks it, their account gets the Bitcoins generated.

The value is entirely artificial. Same as any economy. Same as where the value in LGG comes from. Or Gaia gold. Or Runescape gold. It's convenient for its context. In case of Bitcoins, the anonymity. People want anonymous money. They buy X money for $Y, send X money to another person, and that other person sells X money for $Y. Thus person A gave $Y to person B with no paper trail. That's why it's used in "the deep web."

But ultimately the fact that the receiver can sell it at all entirely depends on every other user of Bitcoins. If no one is willing to buy them for cash (e.g. I never will), then you can buy as much dirt for as much money as you want, but you're just wasting it if you can't sell it for the same price.

If Bitcoins are a fad, people are paying into an economic bubble. I fear that's very likely the case, so I want nothing to do with it. It doesn't benefit me anyway. I'm not dumb enough to order drugs online or hire a hitman or whatever else dumb crap people use Bitcoins for that USD can't do. The less people using the currency, the less it's worth, as there are less people to sell to, and then the bubble bursts. The question is will as many people always use it, or are people "testing it out" because it's "what to do."

[Alexx]

haha do you actually believe the hitman things? I think its bullshit to be honest.
I was just interested in buying some DMT and a fake ID online.. but all of it looks sketchy as fuck to be honest.
There seems to be no guarantee that I'll even get the products and even then you can't chargeback on a bitcoin.

[GAMEchief]

I mean, hitmen exist. If you can hire them with USD, I am sure you can hire them with anonymous currency. :/

I doubt the majority of them pull through and do it. Take the money and run. The downside to anonymous currency.

[Ebisu]

It's not dumb, I actually use Bitcoins, and so far I'm earning good profit... it basically depends on your method.

[GAMEchief]

There are a billion ways to invest and get good ROIs. Bitcoins is not one of them.

[Souleater]

The only person I know to have made any real money from Bitcoins is Torian, and that was years ago when he was buying bit coins for less than a dollar and then sold a fuck ton of them once the value hit $8 per coin. There was something in the UG about it if I remember correctly.

But I agree with Charles on this one. Like with any digital currency with no major turn around or earning method, it's hard for it to be taken very seriously. There are bitminers out there that are stand-alone GPU's that cost upwards of $30k for it to solve 30 gigahashes per second. If the value of bitcoins does keep increasing and it was actually worth the $30k to have a GPU that was able to do that, then I would take it more seriously. But considering the fact that there is no 100% promise of actually receiving the bitcoins (unless part of a pool; with very little to show for it) once the hash is solved.

Its a bubble. And bubbles always pop.

[mykillmygil]

Speaking of hiring hitmen with bitcoin, Supposedly thats what the founder of the Silk Road did to try and get rid of one of his employees. Didn't work haha. The idea of bitcoins to me is pretty crazy though. Anonymous money with no paper trail sounds like a nice idea, if your up to no good haha. :p Isn't the conversion rate from bitcoin to usd pretty high right now? Like 1 bitcoin is like $190.

[Souleater]

The current conversion is actually 1 bitcoin to 194.50$USD. But trust when this is said, everything has a paper trail.

[Drakonid]

Its a bubble. And bubbles always pop.

Bitcoins in less than 10 words.

[mykillmygil]

The current conversion is actually 1 bitcoin to 194.50$USD. But trust when this is said, everything has a paper trail.

True that. Pretty much everything done over the internet creates a papertrail of some sort. IP addresses, saved histories, transactions, logins, etc. But that is why underground activities don't always go through the internet, but other networks.

[yumexxxchan]

whoa, I was wondering what this system was. Sounds too complex to be worth the time...

[Isonyx]

whoa, I was wondering what this system was. Sounds too complex to be worth the time...

It's not really that it's super complex.
You don't really need to know that much about the systems or the mathematics behind it for simply bartering with Bitcoins.
But trying to mine them is a dead end right now. Years ago when Bitcoin was a bit newer, mining was a lot more profitable.
The price of Bitcoins has skyrocketed and imo the whole system will become more and more of a mess in a bit.
Maybe look into investing in Litecoins.

[Gojira]

I love the idea of crypto-currency but with bitcoins skyrocketing seems extremely painful to even try to make it work

[MattSmith]

This is hilarious. For those who are unaware, I work in the crypto industry these days and my life revolves around it. Was browsing the forum and saw this. Ha, "when bitcoin hit $8".. We get that price swing all the time.

[Pakinglalat]

Well I just wanted to leave here that the bitcoin right now is about to go $2000 already

[bmlkiddo]

Well I just wanted to leave here that the bitcoin right now is about to go $2000 already

I just cashed out at 2,300 per coin. I bought 5 when they were 415 lol

The price hike is because of a lot of countries changing their stances on the bitcoin as more of currency than an asset.

[MattSmith]

Now bitcoin is over $4k, hodl is life

[Cyanoxide]

I kind of wish I invested back when when I first heard about it but even now I'm still sceptical about it. It just seems so volatile.

[definitelyalolicon]

Just kinda learnt about bitcoins some time earlier. Got interested and did my research. In conclusion, even with my high-end computer ready to mine... the electricity and internet bill just gonna cost me more than how much I could actually mine. third world country problem~~ sigh

[MattSmith]

I kind of wish I invested back when when I first heard about it but even now I'm still sceptical about it. It just seems so volatile.

The market is currently volatile, I agree. And it will remain that way until it gains a much higher market cap, the more money in the space the more it will stabilize because big hands wont be able to do as much damage. Large hands often manipulate the markets to their financial benefit at the moment, and to prevent that there has to be more money on the order books of the exchanges. Not a huge deal though, I think any price you buy at under $150k bitcoin is a good price. My price point may seem stupid, but keep in mind what I've already stated about the current market cap being so low, some large US companies are bigger than all of Bitcoin's market cap right now.. A single company.. As adoption takes place more and more in other countries that need the technology, as the US really doesnt NEED IT, and more investors dump their pockets into it. We'll continue to see spike after spike, both up and down in the price until eventually in the 6 figure range per Bitcoin.

Thats my two cents on my investment strategy.

That being said, do NOT invest anything you cannot afford to throw away! Pay your bills! Make sure you can eat! This is NOT a get rich quick scheme, this is investing in a very new and risky industry.

If anyone is interested in the tech side of bitcoin though I'd much rather speak about that, thats where i spend most of my time. The investment is just a neat cherry on the top of the cool ass tech.

Just kinda learnt about bitcoins some time earlier. Got interested and did my research. In conclusion, even with my high-end computer ready to mine... the electricity and internet bill just gonna cost me more than how much I could actually mine. third world country problem~~ sigh

Don't get into mining, mining bitcoin at this point is useless if you're not setting up an operation that produces its own electricity or you can produce the asics yourself with your own chip engineers. Buy and wait if you're looking to invest, thats all it takes. Buy bitcoin, HOLD YOUR PRIVATE KEYS! (OTHERWISE YOU WILL NOT HAVE YOUR BITCOIN FOR LONG, IT WILL BE STOLEN.) , and wait some years! BEFORE INVESTING THOUGH, READ MY QUOTE ABOVE PLEASE. Do not invest anything you cannot afford to throw away! There is no guarantee with any investment. Invest only if you believe in bitcoin and the tech that solves the problems it does, not because you expect to get rich quick. Seems most people looking to get into it recently are just into that, at least in first world countries. Outside of the US, there are lots of places using it because their dollar is worth nothing and its much easier to trade goods rather than trading between many different currencies they hold in the same area.


Note: I have bias in this industry, its been my main focus for years now. Should be warned on my statements above.

[Cyanoxide]

The market is currently volatile, I agree. And it will remain that way until it gains a much higher market cap, the more money in the space the more it will stabilize because big hands wont be able to do as much damage. Large hands often manipulate the markets to their financial benefit at the moment, and to prevent that there has to be more money on the order books of the exchanges. Not a huge deal though, I think any price you buy at under $150k bitcoin is a good price. My price point may seem stupid, but keep in mind what I've already stated about the current market cap being so low, some large US companies are bigger than all of Bitcoin's market cap right now.. A single company.. As adoption takes place more and more in other countries that need the technology, as the US really doesnt NEED IT, and more investors dump their pockets into it. We'll continue to see spike after spike, both up and down in the price until eventually in the 6 figure range per Bitcoin.

Thanks for the insight.

I remember back when I was considering it originally, it was worth about £600 (If I had to guess that was probably about $1000 USD back then) and they seized some bank or something in China and it dropped down to £300 because of it. I was pretty convinced at the time that it was way too risky. Obviously based on it's value now I was completely wrong but I think I still feel the same way about it despite that.

I don't think it's for me but I can definitely see the appeal of it.