Bitcoins

[Cognizant]

Have you heard of them or tried mining for them?

My dad annoys the hell out of me with it (basically he goes onto my computer and turns it on whenever I'm not around and get's upset when I turn it off on MY computer), but it's neat I guess.

[Elysium]

I've heard of them, but haven't really looked into them any. There's a kid in my grade who mines them, I think. They're worth a lot, aren't they?

[Cognizant]

I've heard of them, but haven't really looked into them any. There's a kid in my grade who mines them, I think. They're worth a lot, aren't they?

I guess so; my dad went to the extent of buying me a brand new graphics card just so that he can get more of them :P

[Sugaree]

The market is going to collapse soon. Just wait and watch. People who are stockpiling and acting like it won't affect them are gonna be in for a big surprise once it comes down.

[Joseph69]

I've been using Bitcoins for a few months and I've tried mining for them, too.

My computer uses an additional 100 watts of electricity when mining, so if I run my computer mining Bitcoin 24/7 it costs about 34p per week (or £1.37 per month) in electricity costs. I've made 0.00467330 Bitcoins which right now equals £1.50 and I've been mining for 2 months.

So I can earn £1.50 every 2 months with Bitcoin mining, but it will cost me £2.74 in electricity to do so. That's a small loss.

Some computers can earn more Bitcoin for less electricity usage, but for me Bitcoin mining LOSES me money.

Bitcoin mining used to be highly profitable when Bitcoin first started, but now it generally makes a loss for a lot of people without serious equipment.

Personally, I think rather than trying to use computing power for Bitcoin mining you should use it for [email protected] (http://folding.stanford.edu/)

[gothicsanctum]

sold all my bitcoins during the summer for quite a lovely sum of money
I started mining earlier, when it was easier to get into & more profitable
once my radeon-powered gaming PC couldn't mine at a profitable rate, i just sat on them till i sold them all.

[CharlieHorse]

It's a genius idea, but it's too unstable, and not a practical currency.

[TheMatrix]

From the very beginning, Bitcoin has struck me as unreliable, unstable, and untrustworthy.
Nobody is really held accountable for it, which is rather unnerving for doing business.

And once you have your beloved bitcoins- what are you going to do with them? As far as I know, almost nobody accepts them(for good reason, I suppose).
And exchanging them for tangible currency makes no sense- who in their right mind would exchange their money for some bits of information that have no guarantee of keeping the same value? Stocks can at least be sold(and IIRC, you can sue the company for bad decisions), but with bitcoins, once the value plummets, it's gone.
The old saying goes, a fool and his money are soon parted. And how right it is.

[Human]

Yeah it's very unstable at the moment, people are speculating too much which is why they have such high rises and crashes. They're useful for making anonymous purchases, mainly drugs (I don't have a problem with that actually), and other things like that.

[Infidelitas]

I quite honestly don't see the point of them.

[IVIodern]

They're useful for making anonymous purchases, mainly drugs (I don't have a problem with that actually), and other things like that.
>mainly drugs
That's a very objective statement, complete useless unless you have figures to back it up.

Roughly, the total amount of BTC is worth $8,000,000,000 (8 billion $)

The amount of BTC seized(in $$$) from Silk Road (the largest of all drug markets) is worth about $30m.

Doing the math, 1% of all BTC is about $80,000,000

My personal estimate is that only about 0.5% of all BTC is used for 'drug related' purchases.

[Human]

>mainly drugs
That's a very objective statement, complete useless unless you have figures to back it up.

Roughly, the total amount of BTC is worth $8,000,000,000 (8 billion $)

The amount of BTC seized(in $$$) from Silk Road (the largest of all drug markets) is worth about $30m.

Doing the math, 1% of all BTC is about $80,000,000

My personal estimate is that only about 0.5% of all BTC is used for 'drug related' purchases.
What else are they used for then? If you needed to make a non sketchy purchase, why would you not use normal money?

I don't mean only drugs by the way

[fordgtguy]

My buddy has made just around 50,000 off of 80 bitcoins which he bought for 10 bucks each. I have 5 so i have a few grand worth of them