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On December 02 2013 04:16 obesechicken13 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 02 2013 04:11 Chrono000 wrote:On December 02 2013 04:08 obesechicken13 wrote:
As someone who doesn't understand bitcoins, I initially thought you meant that you only needed to write down one passphrase and your wallet was safe in case you lost your laptop.
Now it sounds like you need a passphrase for every coin you have. na na, if u generate a wallet it will have a secret key or for some services a passphrase or both. Bitcoin is still a little rough around the edges in terms of user friendliness but u know so was the internet and email not that long ago. So you have one secret key and a passphrase, and your wallet is safe even if you lose your laptop? I just want to make sure I understand this.
yes pretty much. sometimes u only have the secret key because the service u make your wallet with wont have the passphrase. the passphrase is just an easier to remember version of your secret key.
if u have an online wallet u will also have a user name and password. but essentially anyone can access your wallet if they have your secret key.
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On December 02 2013 19:27 aseq wrote:Show nested quote +On December 02 2013 12:14 Butterednuts wrote:
Bitcoins feel like one of those "too good to be true" things.
Usually things that are too good to be true, are just that. To me, they feel more like a 'startup' thing. Like when a company first goes to the stock market. After a while, it stabilizes and acts like a normal share. But in the beginning, some lucky people can make huge profits or losses.
this is true. facebook was very volatile to begin with but no body saw this volatility because only venture capitalist would be in on it.
facebook is such a basic idea, so is twitter and so is email and bitcoin is just as basic as all of them. too true and too good to fail.
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On December 02 2013 04:16 obesechicken13 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 02 2013 04:11 Chrono000 wrote:On December 02 2013 04:08 obesechicken13 wrote:
As someone who doesn't understand bitcoins, I initially thought you meant that you only needed to write down one passphrase and your wallet was safe in case you lost your laptop.
Now it sounds like you need a passphrase for every coin you have. na na, if u generate a wallet it will have a secret key or for some services a passphrase or both. Bitcoin is still a little rough around the edges in terms of user friendliness but u know so was the internet and email not that long ago. So you have one secret key and a passphrase, and your wallet is safe even if you lose your laptop? I just want to make sure I understand this.
That depends. I think two different things are being confused here.
If you store your wallet offline, it is ONLY on your laptop. That means that if you lose your laptop, you lose your money. Same as with physical money. If you drop your wallet down a well, the money in it is gone. Someone said bitcoins last forever. That is also technically true. Just as for that money that got dropped down the well, it will sit there, unreachable for "forever", just as the bitcoins on your laptop will still be there, but fat lot of good they will do you, because there is no way you can ever get them back (without recovering the laptop's hard disk).
If you store your wallet online, then it will be stored on some server, and depending on that service it will be more or less secure. However, sometimes even this kind of services has massive failures (like over this weekend and lots of bitcoins were lost forever). You are free to store your wallet in whatever form you like. There are online wallet services that specialize in bitcoins, but they are essentially no different from dropbox or google drive (except they might emphasize security more, so the data is less easy to access for hackers).
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Out of curiosity what are some examples of attacks that people have faced when doing these mining. I mean is it really that big of a danger (assuming you do basic security i.e don't have open wifi)?
Also, are people still getting on this train? I feel like the train to profit already sailed long ago and it won't be long before you come up to a cliff (the bubble is likely to be happening soon), no?
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On December 02 2013 23:04 heroyi wrote:
Out of curiosity what are some examples of attacks that people have faced when doing these mining. I mean is it really that big of a danger (assuming you do basic security i.e don't have open wifi)?
Also, are people still getting on this train? I feel like the train to profit already sailed long ago and it won't be long before you come up to a cliff (the bubble is likely to be happening soon), no?
I am not aware of any bitcoin specific attacks. I am not even aware of any cybercrime specifically targeting bitcoin wallets. However, all the regular suspects are obviously risks:
1. It's a public-private key encryption system to access your wallet, so anybody managing to get a hold of your private key (or username + password for online wallets) can access your wallet. Keyloggers, trojans and man-in-the-middle attacks are all potential ways of getting that info.
2. As with any online system, it can be disrupted using denial-of-service attacks. This means that you won't be able to access your online wallet, the bitcoin trading sites, or whatever else is being attacked. If it disrupts the system enough, it will obviously affect confidence in the entire trading system, and the coin itself, causing a market crash (somewhat similar to what just happened).
However, there is, insofar as I know, no greater security risk in bitcoin systems than there is in any other online monetary system (paypal, internet banking, online investment sites, etc). The only risk that might be greater is that established credit card and banking systems have insurance, and you are somewhat protected from identity theft through this. Insofar as I know this does not exist for bitcoins.
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On December 02 2013 18:24 Pandemona wrote:
Would you say that Litecoins is not worth it now either? Due to the same reasons as Bitcoins? Litecoin mining is supposedly better for numerous reasons, but if like Bitcoins it is not outweighing the cost of Electricity then i would probably stop..lol
How much do you want to invest in hardware? $1000? Don't bother. $2k? You'll make some profit... maybe a few thousand dollars if you hold your coins for a year or two.
$10k? You could potentially make six figures and the risk is quite low due to the resale value of hardware. The thing with Litecoins is that you'll only be able to mine them for 3-4 months before the difficulty becomes too high. Your goal is to frontload your mining and get as many coins as possible during that timeframe. The more you spend on hardware, the more coins you get.
You save your coins until the price goes up to where you want it, then cash out. Likely a minimum of one year.
If you have a few thousand dollars I recommend it. It's very very hard to actually lose money as long as you understand it's a long term investment and you don't panic sell your coins at the first sign of their value dropping. Anything under a few thousand dollars I wouldn't bother with, though.
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Also, anyone doing coins... you should never keep all of your coins in a wallet. That's just stupid and asking for trouble. Keep about 30% in a wallet and print the rest of your coins to paper and store them in a safe. The ones you keep in a wallet should be stored on a computer that isn't connected to the internet as well.
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On December 02 2013 21:37 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On December 02 2013 04:16 obesechicken13 wrote:On December 02 2013 04:11 Chrono000 wrote:On December 02 2013 04:08 obesechicken13 wrote:
As someone who doesn't understand bitcoins, I initially thought you meant that you only needed to write down one passphrase and your wallet was safe in case you lost your laptop.
Now it sounds like you need a passphrase for every coin you have. na na, if u generate a wallet it will have a secret key or for some services a passphrase or both. Bitcoin is still a little rough around the edges in terms of user friendliness but u know so was the internet and email not that long ago. So you have one secret key and a passphrase, and your wallet is safe even if you lose your laptop? I just want to make sure I understand this. That depends. I think two different things are being confused here. If you store your wallet offline, it is ONLY on your laptop. That means that if you lose your laptop, you lose your money. Same as with physical money. If you drop your wallet down a well, the money in it is gone. Someone said bitcoins last forever. That is also technically true. Just as for that money that got dropped down the well, it will sit there, unreachable for "forever", just as the bitcoins on your laptop will still be there, but fat lot of good they will do you, because there is no way you can ever get them back (without recovering the laptop's hard disk). If you store your wallet online, then it will be stored on some server, and depending on that service it will be more or less secure. However, sometimes even this kind of services has massive failures (like over this weekend and lots of bitcoins were lost forever). You are free to store your wallet in whatever form you like. There are online wallet services that specialize in bitcoins, but they are essentially no different from dropbox or google drive (except they might emphasize security more, so the data is less easy to access for hackers).
dude! hold on. its not fully true. if you have bitcoin on your laptop and u loss the laptop u can still get the bitcoins if u recorded the secret key.
put it this way. the only way u can put bitcoin in the laptop is if u broadcast that u are doing so to the whole bitcoin network so they can also update the ledger so everyone else knows that the bitcoins have been sent there. this is the beautiful thing about bitcoin.
if u are a noob like most people were when first using bitcoin, they probably never bothered to record all the back up data and keys they need incase they lost the laptop/HD. so a lot of bitcoin are lost but never destroyed. u can witness many coins stuck in wallets online that can never be access.
bitcoin is like one massive puzzle that anyone can access anyones money. all you need is the secret key.
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Pandemona
Charlie Sheens House51493 Posts
On December 02 2013 23:52 Serejai wrote:Show nested quote +On December 02 2013 18:24 Pandemona wrote:
Would you say that Litecoins is not worth it now either? Due to the same reasons as Bitcoins? Litecoin mining is supposedly better for numerous reasons, but if like Bitcoins it is not outweighing the cost of Electricity then i would probably stop..lol How much do you want to invest in hardware? $1000? Don't bother. $2k? You'll make some profit... maybe a few thousand dollars if you hold your coins for a year or two. $10k? You could potentially make six figures and the risk is quite low due to the resale value of hardware. The thing with Litecoins is that you'll only be able to mine them for 3-4 months before the difficulty becomes too high. Your goal is to frontload your mining and get as many coins as possible during that timeframe. The more you spend on hardware, the more coins you get. You save your coins until the price goes up to where you want it, then cash out. Likely a minimum of one year. If you have a few thousand dollars I recommend it. It's very very hard to actually lose money as long as you understand it's a long term investment and you don't panic sell your coins at the first sign of their value dropping. Anything under a few thousand dollars I wouldn't bother with, though.
Well well, the great Serejai giving help and advice.... thanks 
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Wow. Bough 6.5 coins in the summer, but had to sell in October (at a small profit) when I needed money for an unexpected move.
Looking at price now . . . wish I had borrowed money from my parents instead.
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Pandemona
Charlie Sheens House51493 Posts
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Bought my first coin last wednesday. Would have bought more yesterday when they were down to 800, but I am still waiting for the initial purchase to be verified. I got 1 full coin for 990, yesterday coins went all the way down to 840 then all the way back to 1100 last night.
My basic plan is to slowly accumulate them, using bitcoins as a sort of long term savings account. But also only using money that I am capable of losing without major ramifications.
Its all long term for me, and risk-reward as to what I will invest. Will be looking to get 2-3 more coins in the next couple months.
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I am not an economist and not a big speculator either, but bitcoins as a long-term investment seems incredibly risky.
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On December 03 2013 01:34 MaestroSC wrote:
Bought my first coin last wednesday. Would have bought more yesterday when they were down to 800, but I am still waiting for the initial purchase to be verified. I got 1 full coin for 990, yesterday coins went all the way down to 840 then all the way back to 1100 last night.
My basic plan is to slowly accumulate them, using bitcoins as a sort of long term savings account. But also only using money that I am capable of losing without major ramifications.
Its all long term for me, and risk-reward as to what I will invest. Will be looking to get 2-3 more coins in the next couple months.
its a smart way of going about it and its totally fine to get fractions of bitcoin.
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The issue I see with BTC is, the smallest denomination of a BTC is 0.0000001, and right now a BTC is say $1000, therefore $1 is 0.00001. Right now there are 12,000,000 BTC in circulation, so therefore the value of all BTC is about $1.2e10... Okay, nevermind, I just did some quick research. I was going to say that the denomination of a BTC is not small enough, because if a BTC cost 1,000,000 it's smallest denomination would be equivalent of 0.00000001 would be equivalent to 1 cent. For this to happen the value of all BTC would have to be 1,000,000*(21,000,000-(BTC lost)), assuming about 1/4 of BTC will be lost, that's a value of 15 trillion USD. However a value this high would not be achieved as:
Surprisingly, there is only 4 trillion USD currency in circulation which is surprisingly low to me, however the currency in circulation doubled in 6 years... Yeah anyways, everything seems to workout okay. Apparently it is also possible to break down the BTC into even more pieces than that, I don't understand how that works though. So I just rambled a lot and didn't conclude anything, but at least I can leave you with a cool fact!
Total currency in circulation - 4 trillion USD
Value of BTC's - 12 billion USD
The portion of the world currency that is in bitcoins is 0.33%! That is huuuuuge!
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On December 03 2013 01:48 FiWiFaKi wrote:
The issue I see with BTC is, the smallest denomination of a BTC is 0.0000001, and right now a BTC is say $1000, therefore $1 is 0.00001.
0.001, you have two extra zeroes for some reason.
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On December 03 2013 01:45 Acrofales wrote:
I am not an economist and not a big speculator either, but bitcoins as a long-term investment seems incredibly risky.
as with any other major investment that you can possibly make, its risk-reward.
In general with investing, there is a direct correlation between risk and reward, I understand the very high potential risk, but as someone else has already mentioned in this thread, there is a chance at extremely high reward.
I am a believer in the currency and in it's future. I have spent the past 2 weeks reading any/everything I can, watching every single interview I can. In my opinion, we are only going to see bitcoins get bigger and bigger in the coming years. It's still small enough currently that governments arent afraid of it, but its big enough that its now getting a lot of public attention, as well as becoming more and more recognized and accepted by retailers.
For me personally, the sheer amount of interest I have in it, is worth my initial $990 investment. Now i have something to watch and pay attention to and keep my eyes on. I dont plan on cashing out anytime in the next year+ to be honest, but will definitely be looking to invest more when opportunities arise.
Also Im not usually a big advocate of reddit, but r/bitcoin is actually LOADED with information and discussion about bitcoins.
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On December 03 2013 01:45 Acrofales wrote:
I am not an economist and not a big speculator either, but bitcoins as a long-term investment seems incredibly risky.
Hard to say really. What's sure is that in short-term there is high-volatility, so at least in the short-term short-term it is a get-rich-quick/go-bankrupt-quick investment.
In the long-term however, it does have a general upwards trend, and as it's gaining more popularity, this trend should continue going up unless something drastic happens that changes the value of the bitcoin. So as long as nothing bad happens I'd say it'd be a very profitable investment in the long-term. The chances of something bad happening to the bitcoin are hard to calculate.
What could screw over the bitcoin? A better virtual currency, huge threats of hacking the scare people away, what else? It's all really hard to say and lots of speculation involved. Also it's important to note that the bitcoin may not be such a simple market, and government forces can play a role in determining it's value.
A quick little article: http://www.cnbc.com/id/101200996
Just some insight on how the price of the bitcoin works, and how governments may influence it's price. In this case it discusses China and it's effects on it. Interesting how many different things can play a role in this dynamic market.
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On December 03 2013 01:57 fdsdfg wrote:Show nested quote +On December 03 2013 01:48 FiWiFaKi wrote:
The issue I see with BTC is, the smallest denomination of a BTC is 0.0000001, and right now a BTC is say $1000, therefore $1 is 0.00001. 0.001, you have two extra zeroes for some reason.
From wiki:
One exception is the "satoshi" which is smallest denomination currently possible
0.000 000 01 BTC = 1 satoshi (pronounced sa-toh-shee)
which is so named in honour of Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonym of the inventor of Bitcoin.
The last decimal places are not used right now as they are so small they are not needed yet, but 0.00000001 is the smallest denomination possible without major alterations. The extra decimal places will be added as they are needed.
edit: Oh wait, I see what you mean. Apologies. Yeah I went from the opposite direction for some reason, did 0.00000001*1000 instead of 1/1000.
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On December 03 2013 02:01 FiWiFaKi wrote:Show nested quote +On December 03 2013 01:45 Acrofales wrote:
I am not an economist and not a big speculator either, but bitcoins as a long-term investment seems incredibly risky. Hard to say really. What's sure is that in short-term there is high-volatility, so at least in the short-term short-term it is a get-rich-quick/go-bankrupt-quick investment. In the long-term however, it does have a general upwards trend, and as it's gaining more popularity, this trend should continue going up unless something drastic happens that changes the value of the bitcoin. So as long as nothing bad happens I'd say it'd be a very profitable investment in the long-term. The chances of something bad happening to the bitcoin are hard to calculate. What could screw over the bitcoin? A better virtual currency, huge threats of hacking the scare people away, what else? It's all really hard to say and lots of speculation involved. Also it's important to note that the bitcoin may not be such a simple market, and government forces can play a role in determining it's value. A quick little article: http://www.cnbc.com/id/101200996Just some insight on how the price of the bitcoin works, and how governments may influence it's price. In this case it discusses China and it's effects on it. Interesting how many different things can play a role in this dynamic market.
Congrats man, read your success story, and its truely amazing and life changing.
Wish I would have bothered to invest in bitcoins back when I gained initial interest in them, but was too lazy to jump through the hoops to buy them.
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EPT
