BITCOIN ??

[MancMike]

It’s valuable because of the increasing difficulty in mining bitcoin and the costs associated with doing so.

You can’t forge bitcoin. Your options are to buy them or mine them. Ultimately all bitcoin comes from those who’ve mined them. So even if you buy bitcoin 5th hand, each person is only going to sell for a profit or break even, not for less.

As bitcoin gets more difficult to find via mining, it’s value goes up because those who’ve mined them obviously won’t let them go for less than their investment in equipment and lecky.

 

[Red C220]

Alternatively, just hack in and steal it. As it's not a real currency, underwritten by any government or insured by any financial conduct authority. So if it's stolen it's gone and you have no course of recompense.

The Inside Story of Mt. Gox, Bitcoin's $460 Million Disaster

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Why the feds took down one of Bitcoin’s largest exchanges

It may be the future, it may be Tulips but it's complete and absolute lack of any regulation whatsoever makes it unsafe right now.

 

[rockits]

I've been in the tech industry for 25 years & cannot understand or get on board with Bitcoin. I have done plenty of clever tech things over the years but they all have intrinsic 'value' of some kind.

Even a piece of A4 blank paper is physical and has some value. Today Bitcoin can be worth $10k....tomorrow it could be worth $10. As fast as it rises it could fall by the same rate. With anything that has physical value or use or some intrisinc value it is unlikely to fall by the same dramatic rate unless there is very good reason.

Bitcoin is another 1st world fad or problem IMHO. Just like social media fads the world gets on board in their masses as they support one messaging site then all of a sudden it is no good any more & it is ditched in favour of another. There is nothing to stop Bitcoin falling the same foul as a new crypto currency becomes the new kid on the block & bitcoin is dropped like a stone overnight.

Bitcoin & all it stands for is creating more boom & bust economics than ever before. Surely this is not healthy. It is another ponzi get rich quick scheme & the advent of new young lazy people who want everything today without working hard at the expense of anything & they don't care at what cost.

I really don't get it & cannot invest one penny of my hard earned cash on it. I don't understand it, what it is, what it stands for, how it works & why. Global economics, global monetary policy & exchange is hard enough as it is without making it more compex with more variables.

 

[MancMike]

Does nobody read previous comments?

It does have intrinsic value. Those who invested money in mining it aren’t going to sell it for a fraction of what it cost them.

 

[markjay]

Does nobody read previous comments?

It does have intrinsic value. Those who invested money in mining it aren’t going to sell it for a fraction of what it cost them.

The cost of production is not a guarantee of future value.

Supply and demand may mean that you sometimes have no choice but to dispose of an assest for less than it cost you to produce or acquire it.

Ask Aston Martin.... for decades they were selling cars for less than it cost to make them.

An assest is only worth what someone else is willing to pay for it.

This is an age-old market principle that no amount of digitising or virtualisation can chance.

 

[Dryce]

It does have intrinsic value. Those who invested money in mining it aren’t going to sell it for a fraction of what it cost them.

In that case I'll introduce Dryce-coin-plus which uses a finite set of numbers which are generated using some hugely CPU intensive algorithm and set the initial offering at $100 because clearly the work to generate them must be reflected in their value.

Think about it.

 

[MancMike]

You think about it.

Firstly, you can’t mine anymore with CPUs or GPUs.

You need dedicated asic miners which consume thousands of watts.

There’s lots of people misunderstanding crypto currency here...

 

[Dryce]

There’s lots of people misunderstanding crypto currency here...

Nope.

I think there are a lot of people misunderstanding crypto currency as an investment.

As long as they understand the idea of a bubble for something that has no intrinsioc value (though it may have a cost of digiitally mining it) then fine - understand the risk - make your choices.

 

[rockits]

You think about it.

Firstly, you can’t mine anymore with CPUs or GPUs.

You need dedicated asic miners which consume thousands of watts.

There’s lots of people misunderstanding crypto currency here...

The problem is I am a young creative thinking 45 year old with an older head on my shoulders than my years. I have a sound business head and am pretty techie. If I can't get onboard or 'get it's then many millions of others won't.

I don't even trust the banks or the govt that much & trust companies like Apple, Google & Amazon even less. Bitcoin has zero intrinsic value & it's only value is what the market says it is worth. I could try to sell a piece of A4 paper for $5k & if some idiot buys it then great. Would I buy that piece of paper back for $1 the day after from the same person who bought it? NO!

This is the issue. It is not regulated, not backed by any govt or institution or anything. It could fall to zero tomorrow & be worthless. It is less viable for me than many other investments. It is purely a confidence thing & requiring the next guy to buy it.

If you look at the financial crisis of a few years back stocks were falling like stones in banks etc. as confidence not only fell but was lost almost completely. Some of these lost 90% of their value in hours & days. I have invested in tech companies in the tech boom that cost me £5k that are now worth 50p. These banks & tech companies owned assets, buildings, equipment & had lots of assets value & worth. Bitcoin has none of this a try all.

It makes Bitcoin a very simple & easy to understand entity but by its very nature it is high risk...high return. Many did well & took a punt a.lower levels. Many of these should & will start dumping. As soon as this happens the price will plummet. Can confidence re-recover & people buy in again....I'm not so sure.

Fads come and go. Fashions come and go. Business, the housing markets and other things with solid fundamentals will always been here.

Would I accept Bitcoin as payment for my business? No....never. Many millions of businesses will be like this so it reduces the wider picture for Bitcoin to just a prospective investment.

 

[zipdip]

I wanted to invest £500 in Bitcoins when they first were talked about I liked the idea of a new electronic currency,but I did not have the first idea how to mine them and knew nobody who did either ,so the idea just drifted away,pity they would have been worth zillions now.

 

[John]

Increasing difficulty to mine something that is meaningless to all but those interested in "investing" in a non-tangible asset...

My previous turds and manual transmission 7 Series BMWs are rare... that doesn't mean they have any value and are worth investing in if you find any!

Sounds and feels like a big con and some people will lose a lot of money at some point.

 

[Steveml63]

Hi,
I also think that one of the biggest problems with Bitcoin are the undesirable types using it to buy and sell illegal products and services - to circumvent normal laws, checks and balances.
This might force governments to take action to discredit/disrupt its use - and this will then affect its value.
Cheers
Steve

 

[Steveml63]

As predicted in my previous post!

UK government mulls Bitcoin regulation

 

[markmifsud]

Just a little update on my mining of XMR (monero coins), I now have 0.19945536 XMR in my wallet, which is currently worth around £43. This is mined using mainly just a few CPU and when I am not using my PC I also run a GPU miner.

Is it £43 free money though? it more or less is, I am using existing hardware and the mining software uses around 23% cpu so is happily running in the background. The best single miner for me is the Nvidia GPU but that makes the PC unusable when its running so its only on when I leave the PC.

 

[markjay]

Just a little update on my mining of XMR (monero coins), I now have 0.19945536 XMR in my wallet, which is currently worth around £43. This is mined using mainly just a few CPU and when I am not using my PC I also run a GPU miner.

Is it £43 free money though? it more or less is, I am using existing hardware and the mining software uses around 23% cpu so is happily running in the background. The best single miner for me is the Nvidia GPU but that makes the PC unusable when its running so its only on when I leave the PC.

Over what period of time did you generate it?

 

[markmifsud]

I started on 26th Oct, so not a fortune
BITCOIN ?? < see here

 

[merc85]

I started on the 21st, Current return has been £65, some of which i re invested,

 

[markmifsud]

I think I had a slow start as I was using a JS miner just to play with, but now run a faster miner. Using XMR-Stak at the moment, what are you using? I get an average 900h/s

 

[merc85]

I can tell by what you have written are vastly more upto speed on this than i. lol

I'm not directly mining, I'm buying Packs "amounts of bitcoin" which grow until they return 140% roughly around 140-156 days
I've 12 of these packs one of which i bought with the return from my original investment.

I compound the packs to get more returns, Ps i haven't a clue really what im doing i just thought it was all worth a punt and am not worried one bit about loosing my initial investment, or returns that gives.

Sometimes you just have to take a risk lol

 

[markmifsud]

Ah, your actually trading on BTC then, taking the risks of growth against loss. If you have a few spare systems that are running, try getting into XMR Mining. Zero upfront investment if you have spare kit that would be running anyway.