Learned something new. Bitcoin

[kerplode]

It's not essential at all to keep mining. Bitcoin would continue on just fine without more being mined. Otherwise it would all be worthless the same day the last Bitcoin was mined.

That is why they are mining Ethereum. There haven't been many Bitcoin left to be mined for the last few years. And they aren't using old video cards to mine Ethereum either. A couple of weeks ago the good video cards that the retail price is about $600 were going for $3000 to $4000 each. Guys are buy brand new gaming PC's just to pull out the video card to use for mining.

"Mining" is fundamentally the process of validating new blocks on the chain. Minting and distribution of new coins is a reward for mining on BTC. The miners aren't really "discovering" new bitcoins. The protocol mints them at a determined rate as new blocks are hashed and then the new coins are awarded to miners. The rate at which new BTC is minted steadily decreases to an eventual cap of 21 million coins. But the mining pool is also paid a per byte fee for each transaction in addition to receiving portions of newly minted coins for their work.

No mining = no new blocks = dead blockchain. The fees are how BTC will keep going once the last Bitcoin is minted. The main reason that Bitcoin mining isn't profitable for the little guy anymore is that there are massive commercial operations running millions of dollars worth of dedicated hardware. As a result, the little guy with a video card will almost never be the first to validate a block, so will almost never get rewarded for the work.

As you noted, Ethereum works slightly differently

[Hometek]

What happens to all the lost bitcoins?
https://www.investopedia.com/news/20...e-study-shows/

[GOPHER SLAYER]

When I read or hear about mining Bitcoins, my mind congers up an image of old Seldom Seen Slim and his faithful burro "Bessie", leaving Barstow heading for the desert searching for the motherload.

[MaryB]

If you can't hold it you don't own it! I can't "hold" a physical bitcoin. It is digital data that can go POOF/be outlawed and become worthless.

My gold and silver I can hold, it can't go poof into nowhere, they outlaw it I bury it and only use a tiny bit as needed for barter. When gold coins were made illegal to own many got melted down and recast as jewelry that was legal to own. And that jewelry was used to barter... necklaces with removable links for example. Make a link weigh a gram, I now have a $~50 bill per link...

[Jaaymar]

The fed is not and never has been part of the federal government.
It is a private bank.

It took several years for the people to be willing to accept the fed reserve note.
On the order of 15+ years and the only reason it was so fast was because it was backed by gold & silver PROMISES.

The current currency system has lost over 80% of its purchasing power on luxury services.
In 1971 the cost of a movie ticket was $1.65.
In 2021 the cost was $9.16.

I assert that the loss regarding necessities is more substantial.

Having a central authority controlling our currency has been a complete disaster for the average person, 2% inflation is the fed telling you it is stealing from your savings.

I suppose the saying is true, no one cares about your money except for you.

Removing central control and returning the control of the money to the people, to whom it rightfully belongs, will go a long way towards rectifying many of the issues we face.

[MUSTANG]

Hello, this news is ridiculously stupid. Let's count how much electricity consumes the bank industry all over the world? I bet it would be no less than 2 Argentinas in common. They up the ecology question because they want to control the cryptocurrency and try to find a solid excuse for that. I know already that crypto exchange services like Eveningstar have already switched to eco methods of gaining electricity for their services, so I don't find any arguments in these talks about the danger to ecology from the cryptocurrency industry.

One of my grandson's is into "Magic". He collects and practices "Magic Tricks" like a little fiend. Basis of all the "Magic Tricks" he has are - the Diversion of attention away from what one is doing and getting the audience to "Watch Closely" the area where the slight of hand IS NOT occurring.

"Green Companies employ these same "Wizard Practices". There are no "Green Electrons" coming down the electrical wire to replace those "Dirty Black Electrons". The "Green Energy Provider" these companies say they use; are simply a diversion from the fact the the Electrical Grid is made of many provides using Coal, Natural Gas, Hydro, Nuclear; and to a much lesser level Wind and Photo voltaic. Any "Crypto" company or other entity stating they only use "Green Energy" is simply playing an old time Carnival Shell Game about"Which Shell is the Pea Under? When in reality "There is NO Pea"!!. My Grandson let me in on that secret Magician Trick last Christmas. (Please keep this secret)

[savagetactical]

I was initially interested in Crypto , but what most do not understand is that the government has been ratcheting down the ability to convert it to cash without taxation coming in so the dreams of the cypher punks and many who want to create an economy which exists outside of the mainstream are restricted to conducting transactions among themselves which are still taxable events . Plus the amount of theft and fraud in the crypto sphere is mind boggling. Even hardware wallets which were thought to be immune to theft have now been reported as being compromised. I personally believe that many of these crypto currencies were funded quietly by the US government and other nations as proof of concept platforms to demonstrate the viability of an electronic currency. Look at how many nations are working to release centralized digital currencies . The US government is pushing hard to do this and issue money directly to the individual, keep this in mind .

A coin issued by a centralized authority can be taken at will by the issuer, and colored so that you can't spend them . A blacklisted coin would unable to be spent by you no many how much of the coin you have, no need to "seize an account"

Also there is no anonymity on the block chain and the IRS has been developing software to track transactions to their source and pair it to humans.

The dollar is already largely digital for the most part and has been priming people for this push for quite some time now, almost everyone gets direct deposit now, and we spend our funds via online transfers and transactions. Very few people are using actual cash these days which provides real privacy ...

The convenience of technology is a yoke that is taking your liberty folks. Chose what you use carefully

[scattershot]

I’m admittedly a dinosaur, but Bitcoin strikes me as a Ponzi scheme, not backed by anything.

[fixit]

It's called fiat currency....it has value because the guarantuers say it does. A scam?.... there's a little bit of scam in almost every currency out there!

[MUSTANG]

It's called fiat currency....it has value because the guarantuers say it does. A scam?.... there's a little bit of scam in almost every currency out there!

Not exactly; I have some dimes, quarters, 1/2 dollars and dollars that are easily exchanged at varying rates depending on what Buyer and seller agree on - although the US Government's FACE VALUE is considerably less than I would take.

[Cosmic_Charlie]

My son and his wife bought 500 worth for their daughter who is 5. I have never had much interest in it. If the internet ever disappears, it is gone. My wife likes silver money so i buy that for her from time to time.

[dpaultx]

[bedbugbilly]

I'm old and cute honestly, both my wife and I can't get grasp or understand why of this. The other day, Dr. Pho did a segment on this . . . . pro and con . . . and in the end, no determination or judgement on "good or bad" - "legit or scam" . . . . and I'm certainly am not going to pass judgement on something that I don't understand. We watched the show and the young fellow explaining his side of it - trying to explain how it works and how it was legitimate . . . well . . . I guess both my wife and I, both with college educations and Masters, we still aren't savvy enough to understand it.

I know that "age" has nothing to do with the ability to understand any of it . . . but it's been interesting to read the posts. I think it would be interesting though . . . if a poll are made to show the ages . . or age spans . . . of those who are in to all of this.

Like I said . . . I'm older . . . but if things like this are "the future" . . . then I'm glad that I'm on the downhill side of life. As it is now, we have a bunch of loonies who seem to think that there are many more "sexes" than male and female, we have whole generations who can't walk without staring into a "smart phone", they can't establish meaningful relationships or even communicate with others in a meaningful way and a generation who thinks they are entitled to not have to work but instead, be handed everything . . . . .

In what looking I have done and after listening to the show on it the other day . . perhaps someone here who "is in to all of this bitcoin" can answer a question . . . .

"Who" started all of this? I still don't grasp the concept of how it "uses" so much "energy" . . . but obviously it is something that somehow is not good for not leaving a "carbon footprint" . . . so why are so many of those who lean Left and want to push the "new green deal" so involved in it? Kind of hypocritical isn't it? I'n really not casting stones . . just curious about it like a lot of folks who made our wy in this world the "old fashioned way" . by working. And I'm not saying that all of those involved in this don't work hard . , . I'm sure they do . . . but 'm also sure that not "all" do. Nothing in life is "free" . . . it comes with a price . . so who started all of this and who is actually making cold hard cash that can be held in their hand . . . I'm assuming that from several of the posts that if you buy one of these bitcoins and then sell it, you receive traditional currency in exchange that goes into a bank account? And of course . . with the new $600 IRS transaction reporting that the Socialist Left put into effect, that when you actually "sell" a butciub you are going to have to pay what taxes are due on the capital gain just like every other American Citizen?

[Wag]

Part of this that I still don't understand is:

You pull money out of your bank account.
You "buy" some bitcoin.

Where does your cash go? Who gets it from you? Can you rely on them to actually buy the bitcoin in your name? Where's the trust?

--Wag--

[kerplode]

Part of this that I still don't understand is:

You pull money out of your bank account.
You "buy" some bitcoin.

Where does your cash go? Who gets it from you? Can you rely on them to actually buy the bitcoin in your name? Where's the trust?

--Wag--

Fundamentally, it's really not any different than buying stocks with your broker...

You take your money out of your bank and transfer it to a crypto exchange such as Coinbase. There, you can either just buy your bitcoin at the BTC-USD exchange rate at that instant (a market order), or you can specify a maximum price you'd like to pay (a limit order, which is not guaranteed to execute).

Who gets your money is simple...It goes to the people who sold the BTC you purchased (minus a small cut to the exchange for facilitating the transaction). Remember, this is an exchange market and for every buyer, there is a seller.

So you make your order, Coinbase matches that with a seller or sellers on their order book, they fill the order (Transfer your USD to the sellers and their BTC to you), and your wallet on Coinbase gets credited for the quantity of the BTC you bought. Later, if you desire, you can transfer this BTC (minus a mining fee) to a wallet address that you own the keys to.

The "wallets" themselves are simply just cryptographic key pairs. A public key (or address), to which the ownership of the tokens is credited on the blockchain, and a private key that allows the owner (hopefully only you) to reassign ownership of some or all of the token quantity owned by the associated public key or keys to another address. This can be spending the BTC to buy something physical, sending it to another address you own, sending it to your exchange account to sell or trade, or sending it to Russia to pay off hackers that locked your computer.

The blockchain itself is nothing more than an immutable leger that tracks the movement and ownership of the tokens (some blockchains such as Ethereum are are much more complicated, but for Bitcoin this is accurate). The miners compete with each other to solve a math problem, and the winner gets to add a new block of transactions to the end of the chain. Each new block is based on all the blocks before it, so after the block recording your transaction is behind a couple others, it's basically impossible to alter. For their efforts, the winning miner is rewarded with freshly minted BTC. It is created from the air by the algorithm and credited to the winning miners public address. The miner then sells the BTC to pay their electric bill, which injects new liquidity into the markets.

Now, sure, if you just find some rando on the internet and send the money for the promise of them returning BTC, then you are on your own. Same risk as sending money to someone you don't know for anything else, really.

[kerplode]

I’m admittedly a dinosaur, but Bitcoin strikes me as a Ponzi scheme, not backed by anything.

What backs your US Dollar? Fundamentally nothing but the willingness for someone else to accept it in return for something they have. I get that it's a tangable thing, so it seems more "real", but it's just a piece of green paper sporting the picture of a dead politician. It's intrinsic value is basically nothing. You could wipe with it, or maybe start a fire, but that's about it as far as "actual" value.

At least BTC is scarce...There will only ever be 21 million minted. The treasury is printing the dollar into oblivion. In that regard, the crypto most like the USD is Dogecoin...

[kerplode]

One last thing, and I think this should be obvious to the audience here...

Many crypo tokens are indeed hot garbage. If you want to dip your toe in crypto do your research and find something that has an actual useful purpose laid out in its whitepaper. Or keep it simple and stick with BTC and ETH (BTC is meant to be a means of exchange and is the granddaddy crypto. ETH runs a flexible computing platform on its blockchain). Only spend what you are willing to lose, and EXPECT crazy volatility. 60K to 20K to 60K to 20K over the course of a few months is not unusual for BTC at this point. If you sell, it counts as selling "property", so Uncle Sugar is gonna want his cut of your capital gains. (I lol at all these kids on TikTok and Robinhood when the tax implications of their crazy crypto day trading sinks in...)

There are a lot of alt-coins (also called ****coins) that are indeed scams. I also think NFTs are almost all a scam.

Do research, start small, use limit orders, buy low, own the keys, keep records. It's only a loss if you sell (or the coin goes to 0, but that is a risk with stocks too...)

[Wag]

Thank you for the details, kerplode. I was missing the exchange facilitator part of the equation.

--Wag--

[sparky45]

I don't know why Warren Buffett recently switched stratedgy and heavily got into Crypto banking; anyone?

[jonp]

Modern banking and crypto systems are advanced enough that they can be trusted

Until the Fed decides negative interest rates are needed to fight inflation or the bank reports you for too many $600 withdrawals and the FBI freezes your accounts and knocks on your door.