Bitcoins and Other Crypto-currencies

I had a whole bunch of bitcoin's years ago. Sadly I sold the computer I would have had them on before going to Japan in 2014. I just formatted everything so they'll just be gone. I'm sure I had over 80 of them, at the time I mined them they were pretty worthless. Although checking the value it would have been a pretty good idea to sell them back in 2014. Didn't really think about it until I saw they were worth 7G's each.

CuriousOyster wrote:Someone made a good point that BitCoin is basically set up like a Ponzi scheme.

Those invested early make the most, attracting others increases the value, new buyers pay the most and benefit the least.

Hard to argue really.

The thing is, it's also a brilliant technology in terms of being fairly useful for other applications. Unlike Ponzi schemes which rely on Italian stamps, or Dutch Tulip bulbs or whatever.

The best example of this is Ethereum, which (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) basically works in the same way that SETI@Home or Folding@Home do. In that people give their computers power to solve some task, in exchange for a reward. The difference being that unlike SETI or Folding it's open to anyone to go in and buy ethereum and set up a contract, whereas those were only for searching for aliens and protein folding.

That being said though, I know some others who are really into this and they claim that the same thing can be done with bitcoins, although I have no idea how as I thought those were purely a currency.

Rightey wrote:

CuriousOyster wrote:Someone made a good point that BitCoin is basically set up like a Ponzi scheme.

Those invested early make the most, attracting others increases the value, new buyers pay the most and benefit the least.

Hard to argue really.

The thing is, it's also a brilliant technology in terms of being fairly useful for other applications. Unlike Ponzi schemes which rely on Italian stamps, or Dutch Tulip bulbs or whatever.

The best example of this is Ethereum, which (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) basically works in the same way that SETI@Home or Folding@Home do. In that people give their computers power to solve some task, in exchange for a reward. The difference being that unlike SETI or Folding it's open to anyone to go in and buy ethereum and set up a contract, whereas those were only for searching for aliens and protein folding.

That being said though, I know some others who are really into this and they claim that the same thing can be done with bitcoins, although I have no idea how as I thought those were purely a currency.

You just described the exact basis of all cryptocurrencies, of which Bitcoin was the first & biggest.

Yes, but for bitcoin your computing power is used to verify transactions, it can't (as far as I know) be used to say calculate structural loads on a bridge or something like that, whereas Ethereum can. For Ethereum, you mine the coins by completing these contracts which can have a wide variety of applications, for bitcoin you mine coins by verifying transactions.

Is anyone actually doing that though? I only ever see it referred to as a new currency worth speculating on (now that the mining has become excessively unprofitable)

Tineash wrote:Is anyone actually doing that though? I only ever see it referred to as a new currency worth speculating on (now that the mining has become excessively unprofitable)

There's some browser game about cats that runs on Ethereum transaction computing, but it got too popular over the last day or two and now the Ethereum infrastructure has crashed. Truly the future of currency is here.

lex-man wrote:I had a whole bunch of bitcoin's years ago. Sadly I sold the computer I would have had them on before going to Japan in 2014. I just formatted everything so they'll just be gone. I'm sure I had over 80 of them, at the time I mined them they were pretty worthless. Although checking the value it would have been a pretty good idea to sell them back in 2014. Didn't really think about it until I saw they were worth 7G's each.

I hope you're over estimating how many you had for you're sake, price today is £12,300.....making you pretty much a millionaire if you still had them

CuriousOyster wrote:

lex-man wrote:I had a whole bunch of bitcoin's years ago. Sadly I sold the computer I would have had them on before going to Japan in 2014. I just formatted everything so they'll just be gone. I'm sure I had over 80 of them, at the time I mined them they were pretty worthless. Although checking the value it would have been a pretty good idea to sell them back in 2014. Didn't really think about it until I saw they were worth 7G's each.

I hope you're over estimating how many you had for you're sake, price today is £12,300.....making you pretty much a millionaire if you still had them

Yeah I felt sick reading that!

CuriousOyster wrote:

lex-man wrote:I had a whole bunch of bitcoin's years ago. Sadly I sold the computer I would have had them on before going to Japan in 2014. I just formatted everything so they'll just be gone. I'm sure I had over 80 of them, at the time I mined them they were pretty worthless. Although checking the value it would have been a pretty good idea to sell them back in 2014. Didn't really think about it until I saw they were worth 7G's each.

I hope you're over estimating how many you had for you're sake, price today is £12,300.....making you pretty much a millionaire if you still had them

In other news, a man that bought a computer in 2014 just sold 80 Bitcoins for £950,000.......

How do you think I feel! I actually think I'm underestimating, I think I had 84 of them. I worked out last night I throw away about 1.1 million dollars. Which is probably the dumbest thing I've ever done.

lex-man wrote:How do you think I feel! I actually think I'm underestimating, I think I had 84 of them. I worked out last night I throw away about 1.1 million dollars. Which is probably the dumbest thing I've ever done.

strawberry float.

lex-man wrote:How do you think I feel! I actually think I'm underestimating, I think I had 84 of them. I worked out last night I throw away about 1.1 million dollars. Which is probably the dumbest thing I've ever done.

jesus christ

On the plus side, you have saved yourself having to pay 10%/20% capital gains tax.

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/expe ... rofit.html

Oh my strawberry floating God, that is the worst thing I've ever read on here.

strawberry float.

Jesus, I feel sick for you

strawberry float man.

I'd be circling the drain if that were me.
Obviously, don't do anything stupid though.. it's only money!

On the flip side, I doubt you'd have held on to them to today's high? Surely you'd have cashed out awhile ago and obviously made some money but not the crazy amount it would be now.

Yeah, the guy I lived with at the time cashed his out years ago for about 120 quid. I had only held on to them because I kept forgetting about them. Also it's been so long that I don't actually feel that bad about it, although I really wish the would crash because every time I hear they reach a new peak, I feel a little sick.

I'm really sorry lex-man. If it makes you feel any better, we've probably all let slip opportunities that would have made us money if we'd been able to see the future, but there's no way to foresee these things.