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I'm old, and I don't get Bitcoin [Cryptocurrency and society].

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Posts

  • bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    Yeah you're right.

    These kinds of democratic P2P things are fairly common though, this is just the first time I've heard of it with a blockchain system. They've existed in bittorrent and napster and they'll keep right on existing in anything that uses a democratic P2P system.

    This is why central authorities are better for things like dollars.

    not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
  • OrcaOrca Also known as Espressosaurus WrexRegistered User regular
    All part of why crypto currencies are solving a problem that doesn’t actually exist. They’ll get to relive currency history as they each get fucked in ways largely solved by modern currency institutions.

  • GoumindongGoumindong Registered User regular
    Veevee wrote: »
    bowen wrote: »
    Phyphor wrote: »

    Is this when I get to feel smug because blockchain idiots told me I was making a problem out of nothing?

    Yes, but this is also when they move the goal posts and say "sure, it happened to ethereum, but there is no way it could happen to stupid coin name goes here"

    That is true, dogecoin is much more secure against those types of attacks

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  • VeeveeVeevee WisconsinRegistered User regular
    edited January 2019
    Goumindong wrote: »
    Veevee wrote: »
    bowen wrote: »
    Phyphor wrote: »

    Is this when I get to feel smug because blockchain idiots told me I was making a problem out of nothing?

    Yes, but this is also when they move the goal posts and say "sure, it happened to ethereum, but there is no way it could happen to stupid coin name goes here"

    That is true, dogecoin is much more secure against those types of attacks

    This made me curious about the price of Dogecoins, and it's timeline looks like it is a pretty good illustration of the issues with crypto as a currency.

    taken from here https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/dogecoin/
    mjvoro4whsxp.jpg

    Look at those pump and dumps. Someone made, and someone lost, a fair bit of money from dogecoin in 2018

    Veevee on
  • djmitchelladjmitchella Registered User regular
    To be fair, the recent hack was "ethereum classic", which isn't the same as "ethereum", it's much smaller, so it was easier to control 51% of it.

    From https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/9/18174407/ethereum-classic-hack-51-percent-attack-double-spend-crypto
    The more it costs to mine a block, the more expensive it is to outspend the honest miners for long to reverse a transaction. Electricity prices vary from miner to miner, but Weaver estimates that the Bitcoin network currently runs through about $300,000 in electricity each hour, while the smaller Ethereum network runs at roughly $100,000 per hour. For Weaver, any coin much smaller than that is at risk of a 51 percent attack. Ethereum Classic clocks in at roughly $5,000 per hour.

    “Any coin not burning $100,000 per hour should probably be considered insecure in the face of attackers, and should not be supported by any exchange,” Weaver said. “That Coinbase supported a coin that has just $5,000 per hour of protection is negligence.”

    That said, the fact that the "safer" coins are the ones literally heating up the planet faster is probably not a good sign.

  • chrisnlchrisnl Registered User regular
    $300k per hour? $2.6 billion in electricity a year? How is this even remotely acceptable?

    steam_sig.png
  • JepheryJephery Registered User regular
    Cryptocurrency is fundamentally wasteful in that way. Any proof system robust enough to prevent a 51% attack represents an enormous waste of economic resources, whether it is electricity, processing power, memory, or whatever crazy proof scheme people are coming up with.

    }
    "Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
  • Alistair HuttonAlistair Hutton Dr EdinburghRegistered User regular
    Phyphor wrote: »

    But no one would ever do this, it would.... Blah blah blah.

    I have a thoughtful and infrequently updated blog about games http://whatithinkaboutwhenithinkaboutgames.wordpress.com/

    I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.

    Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
  • SchrodingerSchrodinger Registered User regular
    Jephery wrote: »
    Cryptocurrency is fundamentally wasteful in that way. Any proof system robust enough to prevent a 51% attack represents an enormous waste of economic resources, whether it is electricity, processing power, memory, or whatever crazy proof scheme people are coming up with.

    Bitcoin is basically cold wars arms race mentality incentivized by ponzi scheming and gambling.

  • RickRudeRickRude Registered User regular
    I come in this thread to read every once in awhile, especially after learnING two know scammed were involved in a crime that hit someone I knew.

    Anyways. Just wanted to say I am no close to understanding crypto currency and the electric usage posted earlier blows my mind. I still don't understand how mining works and why people buy expensive gpu's, and I just feel old.

  • discriderdiscrider Registered User regular
    RickRude wrote: »
    I come in this thread to read every once in awhile, especially after learnING two know scammed were involved in a crime that hit someone I knew.

    Anyways. Just wanted to say I am no close to understanding crypto currency and the electric usage posted earlier blows my mind. I still don't understand how mining works and why people buy expensive gpu's, and I just feel old.

    It's a gold rush.
    People buy more picks, buy more land and sink money into hollowing out an increasingly useless pile of dirt.
    Except all the gold is fool's gold and is only tradable at the village that has sprung up to service the gold mine.

  • Commander ZoomCommander Zoom Registered User regular
    I'm here to try to get some idea of when I'll finally be able to afford a new video card.

  • ShadowfireShadowfire Vermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered User regular
    I'm here to try to get some idea of when I'll finally be able to afford a new video card.

    You can now. Miners have mostly moved away from GPUs since they're just not profitable anymore.

    WiiU: Windrunner ; Guild Wars 2: Shadowfire.3940 ; PSN: Bradcopter
  • Stabbity StyleStabbity Style He/Him | Warning: Mothership Reporting Kennewick, WARegistered User regular
    Shadowfire wrote: »
    I'm here to try to get some idea of when I'll finally be able to afford a new video card.

    You can now. Miners have mostly moved away from GPUs since they're just not profitable anymore.

    Well, miners have moved away from them, but they're still not affordable.

    Stabbity_Style.png
  • MvrckMvrck Dwarven MountainhomeRegistered User regular
    I'm here to try to get some idea of when I'll finally be able to afford a new video card.

    Pray that AMD's Navi cards do something to the market when they are finally released.

  • Alistair HuttonAlistair Hutton Dr EdinburghRegistered User regular
    Shadowfire wrote: »
    I'm here to try to get some idea of when I'll finally be able to afford a new video card.

    You can now. Miners have mostly moved away from GPUs since they're just not profitable anymore.

    Not for Bitcoin but many other crypto currencies can be GPU mined.

    I have a thoughtful and infrequently updated blog about games http://whatithinkaboutwhenithinkaboutgames.wordpress.com/

    I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.

    Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
  • HappylilElfHappylilElf Registered User regular
    Shadowfire wrote: »
    I'm here to try to get some idea of when I'll finally be able to afford a new video card.

    You can now. Miners have mostly moved away from GPUs since they're just not profitable anymore.

    Well, miners have moved away from them, but they're still not affordable.

    Nvidia made noises about reducing prices because the wave of stupid they'd been making huge profits off of is finally collapsing like they'd warned investors it was going to.

    Predictably investors panicked because of course they did

  • TofystedethTofystedeth Registered User regular
    What always gets me is when people trumpet blockchain as solution to everything. Like when there was the romaine lettuce issue they had people on shows talking about how they could use blockchain to track each head of lettuce all the way through the supply chain.

    What does blockchain add to that process that a centralized database that they scan QR codes/UUIDs into other than a bunch of overhead on every transaction.

    steam_sig.png
  • surrealitychecksurrealitycheck lonely, but not unloved dreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered User regular
    the core and simple problem with every real world use of block-chain is that all trust problems in life require some intersection with the real world, whether it is something that verifies eg origin of lettuce or anything else, and the problems that we actually face are virtually never failure of centralised databases or inability to trust records due to the records themselves being corrupted, but the ability to make sure that standards have been applied correctly, regulations obeyed, measurements taken accurately, instruments correctly configured and used....

    i increasingly suspect that many of the good uses of blockchain will end up being ideas that are independently good but the guy doing it just happened to like blockchain so stuck it in

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  • MvrckMvrck Dwarven MountainhomeRegistered User regular

    What does blockchain add to that process that a centralized database that they scan QR codes/UUIDs into other than a bunch of overhead on every transaction.

    A ridiculously high amount of storage space requirement as well!

  • SanderJKSanderJK Crocodylus Pontifex Sinterklasicus Madrid, 3000 ADRegistered User regular
    Yeah there's a brand of chocolate here that wanted to prove origins of their chocolate ingredients.
    And the basic problem they couldn't solve is "what if people lie where they got these cocoa beans"

    Steam: SanderJK Origin: SanderJK
  • RickRudeRickRude Registered User regular
    Is mining for bitcoin like hitting the lotto? Anyone can do it , and you may find one, but you're probably wasting money doing it?

    Is there any reason you wouldn't leave your pc mining when you're not using it on the chance you found one?

    I know the bare minimum of this digital currrency stuff

  • SchrodingerSchrodinger Registered User regular
    RickRude wrote: »
    Is there any reason you wouldn't leave your pc mining when you're not using it on the chance you found one?

    The cost of electricity will outpace the worth of the coin. In large part because the coin is intrinsically worthless.

  • destroyah87destroyah87 They/Them Preferred: She/Her - Please UseRegistered User regular
    edited January 2019
    RickRude wrote: »
    Is mining for bitcoin like hitting the lotto? Anyone can do it , and you may find one, but you're probably wasting money doing it?

    Is there any reason you wouldn't leave your pc mining when you're not using it on the chance you found one?

    I know the bare minimum of this digital currrency stuff

    Leaving the computer mining is how crypto works, you are correct. Problem is that a single person (running a single pc as a miner) would spend far more money in electricity than the worth of a bitcoin, if one were even mined. Most of the coins would go to a huge server farm, not a single user.

    Never mind the wear and tear on the computer graphics card running flat out to try to crack a coin hash and earn a bitcoin.

    destroyah87 on
    steam_sig.png
  • RickRudeRickRude Registered User regular
    RickRude wrote: »
    Is mining for bitcoin like hitting the lotto? Anyone can do it , and you may find one, but you're probably wasting money doing it?

    Is there any reason you wouldn't leave your pc mining when you're not using it on the chance you found one?

    I know the bare minimum of this digital currrency stuff

    Leaving the computer mining is how crypto works, you are correct. Problem is that a single person (running a single pc as a miner) would spend far more money in electricity than the worth of a bitcoin, if one were even mined. Most of the coins would go to a huge server farm, not a single user.

    Never mind the wear and tear on the computer graphics card running flat out to try to crack a coin hash and earn a bitcoin.

    So what I'm hearing is that teenage kids are ruining their parents computers and running up the electricity bill mining for worthless coins.

  • SchrodingerSchrodinger Registered User regular
    Bitcoin economics in a nutshell.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYlZd__XFro

  • discriderdiscrider Registered User regular
    RickRude wrote: »
    RickRude wrote: »
    Is mining for bitcoin like hitting the lotto? Anyone can do it , and you may find one, but you're probably wasting money doing it?

    Is there any reason you wouldn't leave your pc mining when you're not using it on the chance you found one?

    I know the bare minimum of this digital currrency stuff

    Leaving the computer mining is how crypto works, you are correct. Problem is that a single person (running a single pc as a miner) would spend far more money in electricity than the worth of a bitcoin, if one were even mined. Most of the coins would go to a huge server farm, not a single user.

    Never mind the wear and tear on the computer graphics card running flat out to try to crack a coin hash and earn a bitcoin.

    So what I'm hearing is that teenage kids are ruining their parents computers and running up the electricity bill mining for worthless coins.

    Teenage kids are likely earning a better return using their parents' credit card to open Fortnite lootboxes and selling the cosmetics.

    ... I am assuming Fortnite has lootboxes.

  • ForarForar #432 Toronto, Ontario, CanadaRegistered User regular
    edited January 2019
    discrider wrote: »
    RickRude wrote: »
    RickRude wrote: »
    Is mining for bitcoin like hitting the lotto? Anyone can do it , and you may find one, but you're probably wasting money doing it?

    Is there any reason you wouldn't leave your pc mining when you're not using it on the chance you found one?

    I know the bare minimum of this digital currrency stuff

    Leaving the computer mining is how crypto works, you are correct. Problem is that a single person (running a single pc as a miner) would spend far more money in electricity than the worth of a bitcoin, if one were even mined. Most of the coins would go to a huge server farm, not a single user.

    Never mind the wear and tear on the computer graphics card running flat out to try to crack a coin hash and earn a bitcoin.

    So what I'm hearing is that teenage kids are ruining their parents computers and running up the electricity bill mining for worthless coins.

    Teenage kids are likely earning a better return using their parents' credit card to open Fortnite lootboxes and selling the cosmetics.

    ... I am assuming Fortnite has lootboxes.

    Eh, kind of, but in most cases they’re not selling the items found within (basically, you can’t).

    There’s nuance here, but in the name of not dragging the thread off topic, as a heavy Fortnite player for the last year, I’d say “not really”.

    Spending money on Fortnite cosmetics and gear loot crates, however, is an infinitely better use of money than blowing it on crypto or wasting electricity and wear/tear on mining that shit.

    Forar on
    First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
  • HevachHevach Registered User regular
    RickRude wrote: »
    Is mining for bitcoin like hitting the lotto? Anyone can do it , and you may find one, but you're probably wasting money doing it?

    Is there any reason you wouldn't leave your pc mining when you're not using it on the chance you found one?

    I know the bare minimum of this digital currrency stuff

    It's the same reason you wouldn't spend all your extra money on a pile of lottery tickets.


    Now, there are collective mining networks where everyone splits whatever coins the network earns in proportion to how much work each member does, like an office lottery pool. Instead of getting a coin every million days you'd get a millionth of one every day.

    You still lose your shirt, but you have something to show for it, so it's more insidious this way.

  • HefflingHeffling No Pic EverRegistered User regular
    Hevach wrote: »
    RickRude wrote: »
    Is mining for bitcoin like hitting the lotto? Anyone can do it , and you may find one, but you're probably wasting money doing it?

    Is there any reason you wouldn't leave your pc mining when you're not using it on the chance you found one?

    I know the bare minimum of this digital currrency stuff

    It's the same reason you wouldn't spend all your extra money on a pile of lottery tickets.


    Now, there are collective mining networks where everyone splits whatever coins the network earns in proportion to how much work each member does, like an office lottery pool. Instead of getting a coin every million days you'd get a millionth of one every day.

    You still lose your shirt, but you have something to show for it, so it's more insidious this way.

    You might not, but some people obviously do. See lottery awards hitting hundreds of millions of dollars for reference.

  • mrondeaumrondeau Montréal, CanadaRegistered User regular
    Heffling wrote: »
    Hevach wrote: »
    RickRude wrote: »
    Is mining for bitcoin like hitting the lotto? Anyone can do it , and you may find one, but you're probably wasting money doing it?

    Is there any reason you wouldn't leave your pc mining when you're not using it on the chance you found one?

    I know the bare minimum of this digital currrency stuff

    It's the same reason you wouldn't spend all your extra money on a pile of lottery tickets.


    Now, there are collective mining networks where everyone splits whatever coins the network earns in proportion to how much work each member does, like an office lottery pool. Instead of getting a coin every million days you'd get a millionth of one every day.

    You still lose your shirt, but you have something to show for it, so it's more insidious this way.

    You might not, but some people obviously do. See lottery awards hitting hundreds of millions of dollars for reference.

    And those people lose even more millions of dollars.

  • MugsleyMugsley DelawareRegistered User regular
    RickRude wrote: »
    RickRude wrote: »
    Is mining for bitcoin like hitting the lotto? Anyone can do it , and you may find one, but you're probably wasting money doing it?

    Is there any reason you wouldn't leave your pc mining when you're not using it on the chance you found one?

    I know the bare minimum of this digital currrency stuff

    Leaving the computer mining is how crypto works, you are correct. Problem is that a single person (running a single pc as a miner) would spend far more money in electricity than the worth of a bitcoin, if one were even mined. Most of the coins would go to a huge server farm, not a single user.

    Never mind the wear and tear on the computer graphics card running flat out to try to crack a coin hash and earn a bitcoin.

    So what I'm hearing is that teenage kids are ruining their parents computers and running up the electricity bill mining for worthless coins.

    It's not a great analogy, but it's like running Folding@Home 24/7, except you're harming the world instead of curing cancer.

  • HevachHevach Registered User regular
    mrondeau wrote: »
    Heffling wrote: »
    Hevach wrote: »
    RickRude wrote: »
    Is mining for bitcoin like hitting the lotto? Anyone can do it , and you may find one, but you're probably wasting money doing it?

    Is there any reason you wouldn't leave your pc mining when you're not using it on the chance you found one?

    I know the bare minimum of this digital currrency stuff

    It's the same reason you wouldn't spend all your extra money on a pile of lottery tickets.


    Now, there are collective mining networks where everyone splits whatever coins the network earns in proportion to how much work each member does, like an office lottery pool. Instead of getting a coin every million days you'd get a millionth of one every day.

    You still lose your shirt, but you have something to show for it, so it's more insidious this way.

    You might not, but some people obviously do. See lottery awards hitting hundreds of millions of dollars for reference.

    And those people lose even more millions of dollars.

    The money to pay the jackpot comes out of the money they lose. That's how the lottery works - a bunch of people throw money in a hole, and one of them gets drawn to split the money with the guy who dug the hole. At least in that system the guy with the hole is winning, Bitcoin is doing the same thing with a bonfire.

    Still, I did say, "wouldn't," which is obviously wrong because idiots do. What I would have said is, "shouldn't."

  • CoinageCoinage Heaviside LayerRegistered User regular
    Another update on the unique security of cryptocurrencies
    Troubled Canadian crypto exchange QuadrigaCX owes its customers $190 million and cannot access most of the funds, according to a court filing obtained by CoinDesk.

    In a sworn affidavit filed Jan. 31 with the Nova Scotia Supreme Court, Jennifer Robertson, identified as the widow of QuadrigaCX founder Gerald Cotten, said the exchange owes its customers roughly $250 million CAD ($190 million) in both cryptocurrency and fiat. The company previously announced it had filed for creditor protection on its website, but the filing itself provides greater details about its predicament.

    As of Jan. 31, 2019, there were roughly 115,000 users with balances signed up on the exchange, with $70 million CAD in fiat and $180 million CAD in crypto owed overall, according to the filing.

    The exchange holds roughly 26,500 bitcoin ($92.3 million USD), 11,000 bitcoin cash ($1.3 million), 11,000 bitcoin cash SV ($707,000), 35,000 bitcoin gold ($352,000), nearly 200,000 litecoin ($6.5 million) and about 430,000 ether ($46 million), totaling $147 million, according to the affidavit.
    The founder of an exchange died of complications from Crohn's, which is sad, but for security he was the only one with the private key. So all of the cryptocurrency on the exchange is now gone forever. Oops

  • FencingsaxFencingsax It is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understanding GNU Terry PratchettRegistered User regular
    "With both cryptocurrency and fiat".


    So with monopoly money and real actual money

  • OrcaOrca Also known as Espressosaurus WrexRegistered User regular
    Coinage wrote: »
    Another update on the unique security of cryptocurrencies
    Troubled Canadian crypto exchange QuadrigaCX owes its customers $190 million and cannot access most of the funds, according to a court filing obtained by CoinDesk.

    In a sworn affidavit filed Jan. 31 with the Nova Scotia Supreme Court, Jennifer Robertson, identified as the widow of QuadrigaCX founder Gerald Cotten, said the exchange owes its customers roughly $250 million CAD ($190 million) in both cryptocurrency and fiat. The company previously announced it had filed for creditor protection on its website, but the filing itself provides greater details about its predicament.

    As of Jan. 31, 2019, there were roughly 115,000 users with balances signed up on the exchange, with $70 million CAD in fiat and $180 million CAD in crypto owed overall, according to the filing.

    The exchange holds roughly 26,500 bitcoin ($92.3 million USD), 11,000 bitcoin cash ($1.3 million), 11,000 bitcoin cash SV ($707,000), 35,000 bitcoin gold ($352,000), nearly 200,000 litecoin ($6.5 million) and about 430,000 ether ($46 million), totaling $147 million, according to the affidavit.
    The founder of an exchange died of complications from Crohn's, which is sad, but for security he was the only one with the private key. So all of the cryptocurrency on the exchange is now gone forever. Oops

    orrrrr....he fucked off to India with it and we'll see coins moving from that wallet in a couple years.

    Crypto is so exciting to watch!

  • CoinageCoinage Heaviside LayerRegistered User regular
    edited February 2019
    If his wife were lying, I think she wouldn't be showing up in court with a death certificate. Of course it's possible he decided to dump her by faking his death, but I think he would have been "hacked" beforehand, so even if people are suspicious they wouldn't know what account to watch. Plus that would be incredibly fucked up even by crypto standards, since her life is potentially ruined by the legal consequences. It seems much more plausible to me that he didn't want a copy of the password anywhere (for obvious reasons), but he also didn't want to think about the potential downsides of that plan.

    Coinage on
  • Commander ZoomCommander Zoom Registered User regular
    People who are hard into cryptocoins not rational actors, what a surprise.

  • OrcaOrca Also known as Espressosaurus WrexRegistered User regular
    Let's just say I automatically assume everything associated with crypto these days is either tied to illegal activities, is someone running a scam, or someone being scammed.

    Not everybody is a bad actor, but there are enough bad ones I wouldn't be comfortable using their services even if the coins were stable enough to use as a currency, which they're not.

  • Marty81Marty81 Registered User regular
    Wasn't the whole point of cryptocurrencies that they would eliminate the need for trusted intermediaries?

This discussion has been closed.