bitcoin anyone

[reagor 1]

im curious if anyone here has dealt with bitcoins, either buying things or accepting bitcoins as a currency

i have about 1.5btc in a mtgox account and am wondering what to do with them, if i cash out ill lose 40% so i might as well spend em as btc

 

what is njgf's stance on the newfangled cryptocurrency
 

[Recon Racoon 49]

Wait for the price to inflate, then sell. 1.5 BTC's are pretty much worthless, and little to no legit retailers accept them.

[johnp 45]

Bitcoins are great for buying drugs and sex slaves, but as raccoon said you are going to have trouble buying anything "legit" with them.

[n4p226r 105]

How do you get them and buy things with them?

[reagor 1]

i mined  them back when they were worth $5-8 each...now theyre worth about $110 each...you can buy them at mtgox.com, and spend them at various online marketplaces...some ebay sellers accept bitcoins and obviously you can mail order drugs from silk road...i was looking for legit merchants that accepted them

[johnp 45]

How do you get them and buy things with them?

 

 

You can either buy bitcoins straight up like you would gold, or you can mine them, which takes some work and equipment.

 

If you aren't a big computer user/nerd; I don't see the point in bitcoins.

[greatgunstatenj 32]

Bitcoin is old news and you can't mine them without ASIC technology. You can cash them out legitimately now but then you would have to pay tax on them. There are a ton of "legit", ie legal things you can buy with bitcoin.

 

If you are interested in mining for the sake of making money, look into litecoin. It's the next digital currency and may take off just like bitcoin did. It's a better algorithm and at this time can be mined using regular computer equipment and a video card with a good GPU.

[AlDente67 563]

What does this "mining" process involve?

[RubberBullets 65]

What does this "mining" process involve?

 

It involves the use of your computer to calculate complex mathematical equations within the bitcoin system. (Bitcoin Algorithms) Bitcoin mining computer systems have become so complex, that the initial outlay and cost to operate negate the paltry number of bitcoins you receive in exchange (for the entry level user) There are a number of data mining farms in operation that do make money, as well as joint efforts where multiple users work together and split the profits. Again, all a little late in the game to try mining.

[reagor 1]

checkout gyft.com i used it to cash out most of my coins for amazon or cabellas gift cards...dont take the 40%hit for cash on mtgox

[alowerlevel 77]

I know less than nothing about bitcoins, but I came across this website last night while looking for ammo, http://bitmunitions.com/  Not sure if its legit or what though

[Teufelhunden 6]

Just sell them on ebay. Check the completed listings, you will actually get more than the current value.

[greatgunstatenj 32]

So bitcoin is hovering around $1k. Other crypto-currencies are also gaining tons of traction. Greenspan thinks it's a bubble because it's not backed by anything (hilarious considering his hand in destroying the USD). Has anyone here gotten more involved? Anyone trading or selling coins?

[Banka871 0]

Looking back the last few weeks I missed the boat. When they came out I kind of scoffed at them. Silly me.

 

 

However, the bubble WILL burst. Whether its tomorrow or at 10k/btc is anyone's guess. Really no way to forecast it.

[Howard 538]

Can someone offer a bitcoin 101 primer.  I have no clue what these are other than you solve some match problems to create them.  I read a large article in the WSJ a few weeks ago about them and came away know just about what I knew before I read it - almost nothing.

[seamusSU 0]

I know less than nothing about bitcoins, but I came across this website last night while looking for ammo, http://bitmunitions.com/  Not sure if its legit or what though

I would be very leery of any site that just popped up in the past 6 months offering ammo for such good prices ( $0.20/rd of 9mm). When it seems too good to be true, it probably is. Doubly so when they only accept an anonymous, unregulated currency like bitcoin.

[greatgunstatenj 32]

Howard... I'm no expert but basically it is a crypto-currency. One of many. Here is a list of a bunch of them and the current price, market cap, and change. http://coinmarketcap.com/

 

A crypto-currency is a currency based on cryptography. Basically, someone sets up an algorithm that uses some sort of hashing for creating currency and validating transactions. There are different ways currencies achieve this and they use different algorithms. A central tenet is decentralization, as in peer-to-peer. However, this isn't absolute. There is a new currency that may come out, which will probably be popular that won't be decentralized. 

 

There are two ways to get Bitcoins. You can buy them or mine for them. Mining for them includes running a hashing program on your computer. Because of the way Bitcoin is setup the difficulty level of mining increases as more and more are mined. For example, in the early days if you were hashing at 1Gh/s you may have gotten a coin every few days. Now 1Gh/s may only get you .001 of that per day. Also, most people don't mine on their own. They join pools because the extra horsepower helps you solve blocks and get coins. Then you share the coins. The reason this is advantageous is because if you are mining on your own and working the same blocks as someone else or a pool of people and they solve it first, you did all that work for nothing. So even though being in a pool means shared dividends there is a lot better chance of solving blocks than on your own. To mine on your own these days you would need massive amounts of hashing power.

 

The problem with mining is that it basically requires special equipment these days, ASIC technology. It's expensive to set a mining rig up and they typically eat a ton of electricity. That is why the key is to get in early if you are mining. If you are buying, it's still great to get in early but more importantly to just be in before the bubble so to speak. People are really bullish on BTC right now and some have claimed it could go well over $50k. Right now it is hovering between $800-1200. It will probably be pretty volatile over the next few years.

 

One thing that draws a lot of people in is that there is no government control over most of these currencies. Also, if you don't use an registered exchange you could make a ton of tax free money. Let's say I bought 10 bitcoins back at $10. Now they are worth $1000 and I want to make some cash. I go on a site like localbitcoins.com and find a private buyer. We meet, he pays me cash, I transfer some of my bitcoins to his wallet. It's basically anonymous. I may have just made $990 tax free.

 

If you are mining you use a program called a bitcoin client. You will probably join a bitcoin pool to mine. When you get coins they register into your account with that pool. You then can setup payouts. You can send those payouts to your own wallet or to a site like blockchain.local or btc-e. The latter is a site that lets you trade different crypto-currencies. 

 

There are legitimate concerns about security and what not. People get ripped on face to face transactions. If your wallet gets hacked or the site you use gets hacked your bitcoins could be stolen without a trace. Also if you have a wallet on a smartphone or PC it MUST be backed up! 

 

There are a lot of really informative sites out there if you want to learn more. The basics are pretty easy though once you grasp the concept. As far as I know this site is the holy grail for serious miners https://bitcointalk.org/

[Malice4you 627]

I'm fairly certain that both IEEE and Wired magazines have done in depth stories on Bitcoins and similar currencies.  I've been skeptical about the viability of Bitcoins for anything legal, so I never got into mining...seems like I shoulda after all...

[Mikeythumbs 1]

There was just an article about how some guy in England who lost 7.5 million in BC. He mined them a while ago and he forgot that he had them on the drive and trashed it.

[ECsandstar 28]

Bitcoins are dumb.