Friend found some bitcoins he'd forgotten about lol

[rbk]

I don't get the limited supply? Bitcoins limited to 21,000,000, So? There's thousands of cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin has hard forked three times through inner squabbling, Bitcoincash, erthrium..... so the "Brand" for now is 21,000,000, other than its limiting protocols it's no more special than other cyrtos!!! It's not like Bitcoin has unique properties that no other crypto has or another new crypto can't copy exactly. There's even instructions on how to create your own crypto currency out there now. Has someone else mentioned Bitcoin was first and that gives the brand advantage, it's not better, it's a brand.

Very true on the forks and add the ability of exchanges selling cfds to shard them into the 1/1000000 to sell more, thats now you can buy $200 worth of a $19000 asset. Although your off base with all other cryptos being takeoffs from bitcoin, like ethereum/ether. Some are, but most are newly written code like ether on the ethereum network with ether being the native currency on the network; developers can create their own apps and tokens (crypto) within the network. The big picture being interoperability within the network, say if a car dealership, DMV and insurance were all on the network you’d be able to buy a car, transfer funds, register and insure it securely from your phone or desktop. The concept of the ethereum network has huge potential but almost all applications are being developed by scammers and useless neish companies selling pot and porn tokens raising big money and disappearing. The possibilities of ethereum and ether are big but will take someone developing the next Facebook, Google or Uber and by the time that might happen, something else might just beat them to it. Also very true that anyone can just write/make their own crypto currency; the big problem as with any inovation is finding a genuine use-case that actually requires it, and solves a real world problem. With 1600 different cryptos and counting chances are that even a few will disrupt some existing market or make an entirely new one altogether.

[daletournier]

Originally Posted by rbk

Very true on the forks and add the ability of exchanges selling cfds to shard them into the 1/1000000 to sell more, thats now you can buy $200 worth of a $19000 asset. Although your off base with all other cryptos being takeoffs from bitcoin, like ethereum/ether. Some are, but most are newly written code like ether on the ethereum network with ether being the native currency on the network; developers can create their own apps and tokens (crypto) within the network. The big picture being interoperability within the network, say if a car dealership, DMV and insurance were all on the network you’d be able to buy a car, transfer funds, register and insure it securely from your phone or desktop. The concept of the ethereum network has huge potential but almost all applications are being developed by scammers and useless neish companies selling pot and porn tokens raising big money and disappearing. The possibilities of ethereum and ether are big but will take someone developing the next Facebook, Google or Uber and by the time that might happen, something else might just beat them to it. Also very true that anyone can just write/make their own crypto currency; the big problem as with any inovation is finding a genuine use-case that actually requires it, and solves a real world problem. With 1600 different cryptos and counting chances are that even a few will disrupt some existing market or make an entirely new one altogether.

I agree and have some smart contract understanding, that wasn't really my point, I wasn't saying "all cryptos are a copy of bitcoin, my point was that bitcoin can be copied totally dismissing the" limited "factor.

Also what you said about solving" real world problems "I agree! But Bitcoin dosent do this, blockchain or Hashgraph technology is the technology that solves real world problems.

The next question to ask is how serious are the problems that need to be solved? All things evolve and it now looks like our recording of data in a more transparent way is part of record keeping evolution, BUT crypto evangelists IMHO make more of this than is nessacary, until cryptocurrencies came out most people I know that now have cryptos never knew their was a problem... Lol. These people now talk about reserve banks destroying our currencies etc but had never actually noticed this until it suited their agenda of speculation!!.

I'm all for this new technology, but cryptos are a bubbling froth on top of this problem solving technology (at the moment), Bitcoin has vary minimal uses as a currency until its converted back into the Fiat paper it's apparently replacing!! Its limited, very!!

[james247]

Originally Posted by clownfishsydney

Does he live in Nigeria?

I believe he's likely a North Korean. What goes up does come down. What did they say about the bell boy share portfolio

[crankysailor]

Originally Posted by daletournier

I don't get the limited supply? Bitcoins limited to 21,000,000, So? There's thousands of cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin has hard forked three times through inner squabbling, Bitcoincash, erthrium..... so the "Brand" for now is 21,000,000, other than its limiting protocols it's no more special than other cyrtos!!! It's not like Bitcoin has unique properties that no other crypto has or another new crypto can't copy exactly. There's even instructions on how to create your own crypto currency out there now. Has someone else mentioned Bitcoin was first and that gives the brand advantage, it's not better, it's a brand.

Don't just believe, think about this. Also it's limited for now, these digital marks are created by man, it's only limited by man's choosing, man changes his mind quite alot. The Usd debt ceiling limit is a example. Now, Gold is truly limited regardless if man desires more, it's unique properties can't be duplicated, can you say that about Bitcoin?

If course it can go to a million, once again think tulips!

A fictional and speculative currency that only exists digitally, with no physical representation to back it up, where its value fluctuates as rapidly as the internet’s goodwill.

Such chaotic anarchy created by sheer insatiable greed.

Pretty well sums it up.

No man, it doesn't work like that.. bitcoins are limited "by design". It is an intrinsic part of the algorithm. Sure, as you point out, anyone could start their own crypto (they have) or fork bitcoin etc.. but first you need to get enough traction for people to accept it. This is no different than me printing monopoly money and trying to get people to accept it.

The real power of bitcoin is precisely that.. that well.. for better or worse... thanks to the dark side or not.. to greed or not.. well.. it became "accepted" by a large amount of people to make it a viable albeit highly volatile financial asset. But if you think about it, the only difference between crypto currencies and the US dollar is.. that crypto currency can not be printed at will and it is not controlled by a private bank. Sorry but that sounds to me like a much more egalitarian currency than anything else we have right now.

The power of currencies has always lied with the willingness of people to accept it as legal tender. Even gold.. it has no intrinsic value. It is simply agreed upon that it is valuable just cause it is shiny and reasonably rare. That is not that different than bitcoin (except that bitcoin is safer, you can transfer it over the internet and it is a helluva lot harder for some president to make it illegal to own and force you to sell it to the government at a fixed price.. *cough* Nixon *cough*

But yeah.. as I said.. most folks don't "get it".. people are just jumping on the speculation wagon to make a quick buck. I don't think anyone really can know which way it will go. But Pandora's box has been opened and I don't think the world is simply going to "forget" there is an alternative..

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

... Which gangster was it, Babyface Nelson maybe? Who was asked why he robbed banks and replied "Because that's where the money is!"...

Miss-attributed to William Francis "Willie" Sutton, Jr. ("Willie the Actor" and "Slick Willie")

Sutton is famous for two things:
His fascinating career as an illegal withdrawals specialist (bank robber, that is)
and for a pithy rejoinder supposedly uttered in response to an interviewer’s query about why he robbed banks.
While lore would have it that the bank robber replied “Because that’s where the money is” to that common question, Sutton denied ever having said it. “The credit belongs to some enterprising reporter who apparently felt a need to fill out his copy,” wrote Sutton in his autobiography. “I can’t even remember where I first read it. It just seemed to appear one day, and then it was everywhere.”
However, he also said:
Why did I rob banks?
Because I enjoyed it. I loved it. I was more alive when I was inside a bank, robbing it, than at any other time in my life. I enjoyed everything about it so much that one or two weeks later I'd be out looking for the next job. But to me the money was the chips, that's all.

[daletournier]

Its not an alternative! I wonder what percentage of people are actually using it for transactions? People arent buying it because its a currency, thats just crazy talk.
I understand your whole decentralized argument, im more invested than you could possibly know as I believe we have some serious monetary issues in play that most likely will end badly, i trully believe we will have some sort of monetary reset and cryptos may possibility be part of that reset, i do get it.

Is Bitcoin man made? If the answer is yes then your limited numbers argument falls down, man always finds away to abuse a system. Lets say Bitcoin does stay at 21,000,000, so???? as said earlier it is one of many cryptos with more to come, what makes Bitcoin so special? other than being first. Whats stopping a cryto currency being created with the exact same protocols and algorithm as Bitcoin and being called Bitdollar, oh ,lets limit it to 10,000,000 Bitdollars!!!!! Why would Bitcoin be better?

My personal opinion is Bitcoin is being manipulated by a relatively small amount of big players that "pump and dump" , they are making a killing, its really the only way to explain yesterday (again) rest of the herd is made up of very unsophisticated "investors"that are emotionally driven.

To call something that can dive by 40% in 24hrs a currency or money is just a joke.

Heres the other hilarious thing, if bitcoin is a currency then the usd must be money because currently thats what Bitcoin represents. Its a digital note pretty much the same as what the dollar was to gold...lol. the difference being gold trully was limited ,the usd obviously isnt.

The stupid arguments i hear, eg. that fool Max Keiser saying the usd is hyperinflating against Bitcoin etc , the stories we tell ourselves in order to believe!!

If your so sure of Bitcoins future you should sell absolutely everything you own and "invest" the whole lot in Bitcoin.......would you do that? I'm not brave enough.

[jsc7]

Originally Posted by Suijin

No it’s more like 5-6 million, still a healthy haul for what was essentially an accidental investment.

As for when to bank your returns on a runaway market, the answer is “sooner than you think”. It’s like deciding when to reef. Because in a bubble-like market, if it collapses it goes quick and deciding when to get out is like catching a falling knife.

A sensible strategy is to bank half now and let the rest ride, then continue to bank increments depending on how the market evolves. You get a healthy profit locked in but are still in the game with reduced exposure.

There is absolutely no way of knowing where the bitcoin market is going, ergo it’s almost comical volatility. If you stay all in you need to be prepared to lose it all.

Well, it was not an investment. He said he got the coins "for a project", presumably a programming project, so it was purely fortuitous chance in his case. He probably mined them. Buying them in 2010 was difficult.

In my case, I am both a programmer and an amateur historian/economist. I immediately saw the value of the technology when it first appeared in 2009. Being able to transfer money anywhere in the world instantaneously is a pretty powerful capability. Ask the Knights Templar about that. I bought as many as I could in 2011 when the first kiosks and exchanges became available. That's the reason I am even on this forum at all. I can buy ANY boat I want now and I have plenty of time to sail it around the bay... or around the world because I don't work anymore.

Here's a tip: put your money in stuff you understand. Since I happen to be both an expert programmer and historical economist, bitcoin is something I understand. What worries me is when I see people who know nothing about programming or the banking system talking about bitcoins.

[daletournier]

Originally Posted by daletournier

Its not an alternative! I wonder what percentage of people are actually using it for transactions? People arent buying it because its a currency, thats just crazy talk.
I understand your whole decentralized argument, im more invested than you could possibly know as I believe we have some serious monetary issues in play that most likely will end badly, i trully believe we will have some sort of monetary reset and cryptos may possibility be part of that reset, i do get it.

Is Bitcoin man made? If the answer is yes then your limited numbers argument falls down, man always finds away to abuse a system. Lets say Bitcoin does stay at 21,000,000, so???? as said earlier it is one of many cryptos with more to come, what makes Bitcoin so special? other than being first. Whats stopping a cryto currency being created with the exact same protocols and algorithm as Bitcoin and being called Bitdollar, oh ,lets limit it to 10,000,000 Bitdollars!!!!! Why would Bitcoin be better?

My personal opinion is Bitcoin is being manipulated by a relatively small amount of big players that "pump and dump" , they are making a killing, its really the only way to explain yesterday (again) rest of the herd is made up of very unsophisticated "investors"that are emotionally driven.

To call something that can dive by 40% in 24hrs a currency or money is just a joke.

Heres the other hilarious thing, if bitcoin is a currency then the usd must be money because currently thats what Bitcoin represents. Its a digital note pretty much the same as what the dollar was to gold...lol. the difference being gold trully was limited ,the usd obviously isnt.

The stupid arguments i hear, eg. that fool Max Keiser saying the usd is hyperinflating against Bitcoin etc , the stories we tell ourselves in order to believe!!

If your so sure of Bitcoins future you should sell absolutely everything you own and "invest" the whole lot in Bitcoin.......would you do that? I'm not brave enough.

Originally Posted by jsc7

Well, it was not an investment. He said he got the coins "for a project", presumably a programming project, so it was purely fortuitous chance in his case. He probably mined them. Buying them in 2010 was difficult.

In my case, I am both a programmer and an amateur historian/economist. I immediately saw the value of the technology when it first appeared in 2009. Being able to transfer money anywhere in the world instantaneously is a pretty powerful capability. Ask the Knights Templar about that. I bought as many as I could in 2011 when the first kiosks and exchanges became available. That's the reason I am even on this forum at all. I can buy ANY boat I want now and I have plenty of time to sail it around the bay... or around the world because I don't work anymore. [emoji2]

Awesome, well done.

[daletournier]

Jsc7,you have the runs on the board so to speak. Youve done well in Cryptos. Whats your personal opinion regarding Bitcoins future?

[crankysailor]

Originally Posted by daletournier

To call something that can dive by 40% in 24hrs a currency or money is just a joke.

Well.. the german mark during the Weimarer Republik? The Argentinian peso in the 90s? The Venezuelan bolivar right now.. currencies have been known to evaporate over night. So the volatility argument doesn’t exclude it from being a currency.

But you are right, it is not a currency. It is simply a virtual asset priced against the US dollar.

And it is a flaky asset at that. Bitcoin has a serious scalability problem. It takes weeks to sync the complete block chain from scratch. It uses more energy than Ireland and it supports 3 or 4 transactions per second worldwide max. IMHO that is what makes it a dangerous bubble. It is going to stop working at some time in the near future. But it has showed us what’s possible. Other improved systems are in the works.. some exciting ideas are in the pipe thanks to it. So bitcoin might just be the first step on a new way to see the world. Or maybe just a fad that won’t go anywhere.. who knows.

Originally Posted by daletournier

If your so sure of Bitcoins future you should sell absolutely everything you own and "invest" the whole lot in Bitcoin.......would you do that? I'm not brave enough.

Hell no. You nuts? But I a bullyish enough to risk 1% of my net worth. Something I can afford to lose :-)

[jsc7]

Originally Posted by daletournier

Jsc7,you have the runs on the board so to speak. Youve done well in Cryptos. Whats your personal opinion regarding Bitcoins future?

I suggest calling it "virtual currency". The term "cryptocurrency" is a misnomer because Bitcoin does not use cryptography. It uses hashing and it is true that cryptographers do use hashing, every program does. Nearly every kind of computer program uses hashing in one form or another. There is nothing "cryptographic" about hashing. The problem with the word "cryptocurrency" is that cryptography is often legally controlled because many countries consider it a "munition". The enemies of bitcoin like to use the word "cryptocurrency" because it helps justify trying to control it or ban it with laws (which many countries have tried and failed to do). If you want to help Bitcoin call it "virtual currency" not "cryptocurrency".

I had always thought the bankers of the world would make a concerted effort to make Bitcoin illegal as soon as they realized the threat it poses to fiat currencies, like the dollar and the euro. However, this has not happened yet. In fact, some banks are even promoting virtual currency (!!!), albeit using the euphemism "blockchain". They just don't seem to realize yet that VCs are an existential threat to the way they do business and make profits.

There are basically two risks to Bitcoin: (1) that the SHA256 hash gets cracked and (2) that every country in the world, including Japan acts to ban VCs and make running VC nodes illegal. So far neither has happened. As long as these two things don't happen, Bitcoin will continue to grow. It's like email or the internet. At first nobody used it, but once adoption reaches critical mass, it is just a question of time before it becomes easy enough for your grandmother to use it. As far as the value is concerned: let's be clear here: being able to make an irrevocable transfer of money to anyone anywhere in the world within 10 minutes without needing anyone else's help or approval is a VALUABLE capability.

[StuM]

Originally Posted by jsc7

As far as the value is concerned: let's be clear here: being able to make an irrevocable transfer of money to anyone anywhere in the world within 10 minutes without needing anyone else's help or approval is a VALUABLE capability.

Without anyone else's help? How many people running how many "mines" are involved in recording that transaction in a block?

And what percentage of transactions are currently being finalised in 10 minutes?

[ValiantV]

I've made a "bet" with several folks already: if Bitcoin holds it's value or increases over the next ten years, I'll buy you a beer. If Bitcoin is worth next to nothing - or gone - I buy you a beer.

Check back with me in 2027.

Frankly, the country already HAS a "Fiat" currency - the "Federal Reserve Note". There is no need for another one devised by some bored gamer that nobody even really knows who he is or was anyway. That the originator(s) of Bitcoin aren't even a government with the power to declare something worthless is worth something makes it even less desirable than the US "dollar".

The biggest proponents of Bitcoin are people who own it. They have to be. Ponzi scheme rely upon convincing new dupes that it has value.

I've gotten virtually all of my assets OUT of FRNs - why would I even consider investing in something that could be worthless tomorrow?!

[ValiantV]

Originally Posted by ValiantV

I've made a "bet" with several folks already: if Bitcoin holds it's value or increases over the next ten years, I'll buy you a beer. If Bitcoin is worth next to nothing - or gone - I buy you a beer.

Check back with me in 2027.

Wouldn't THAT be a good bet.

I mistyped. If Bitcoin is worth next to nothing or gone, you buy ME a beer.

[alansmith]

Wow...some very interesting reading today. Thanks Guys.

Fiat currencies. American dollar has been used as the standard by OPEC that all petroleum products are bought in. Many countries, rightly so, are seriously in doubt as to the manic behavior of the American gov't to turn on the printing press and dilute the value of its worth. We have all seen the efforts of China and Russia to dump the dollar.

I am sure there are some CF folks on here that are aware that China and Russia now have done an end run around OPEC. China now buys oil from Russia directly and uses RMB for exchange of service for fees. Scary implications. USA fracking oil has turned the OPEC formula on it's head.

I am just a normal guy. I see big troubles ahead for the dollar. I do not begin to understand how a countrie's currency can withstand the assault of "virtual currency"

I don't like our tax structure. Does anyone get excited about giving 20-30% of your hard earned money to the gov? But our gov't needs taxes to operate. How will we retire if social security that we paid into all of our working lives collapses with the loss of tax revenues. That ain't their money. It is my money that they extracted from me for 40 years. What about Medicare programs? How about disability programs for injured or crippled? How about defense of our country? There are thousands of items that are connected to taxation. "Virtual currency" has things in it that are wonderful. But there are some very dark features to it also. Who controls it? Who makes sure it is safe and stable? How will nations be able to operate if cryptocurrencies avoid tax?

Here is another thing i don't understand. Let's say i buy a car from Joe Blow in Arizona at a "Virtual Currency" like Bitcoin for 16,000 equivalent dollars at 12:43 pm 12/23/17. The microsecond that money is transacted his car is now registered in my name and possibly even recorded in both states as sold and bought. Now Joe Blow has entry on his computer of a 16,000 credit. A week later Joe Blow is thinking about buying a boat in San Juan with his 16,000 credit. But Bitcoin is now worth half of what it was a week ago. Has his currency floated with the value or does it stay at 16,000? Is it worth 16,000 now or is it worth only 8,000 now? Or conversely...what if Bitcoin had a run up of 50% over the week? Further more....if a "virtual currency" has severe fluctuations who would survive the chaos of delivering goods and not knowing where the price would be at when they were going to cash in their chips? I am fascinated.

You guys who know this stuff...educate me. Cause i really need help understanding this stuff.