@metal-brain saidIt works for me!!!!
Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? Does he really exist? If he owns more bitcoin than anyone else how did he get them?
If in the future no more bitcoins can be mined how will verification of transactions take place then? What is the incentive? Is that written in the source code?
Why do people have so much faith in bitcoin?
@very-musty saidAs bitcoin is now, the incentive for bitcoin mining will diminish and it would be in danger of becoming monopolized. Increasing the coin supply to incentivize miners would have to take place to save it from mutiny.
It's not a scam.
It is a unit of value to be traded and speculated on.
It has no real value in a useful sense or an industrial sense like other traded items like commodities and such.
It is a legal pyramid scheme in my opinion.
Is it stable in the long term? Without enough incentive the only people who will mine are people who want to sabotage it. It could end badly. If there is a good explanation of consensus I will be a believer, but I only get ambiguous mention of it. Nothing substantial for such an important detail.
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@Metal-Brain
It will crash big-time eventually.
When people realize it really isn't anything.
It was made out of thin air.
@metal-brain saidI don't care about bitcoin
Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? Does he really exist? If he owns more bitcoin than anyone else how did he get them?
If in the future no more bitcoins can be mined how will verification of transactions take place then? What is the incentive? Is that written in the source code?
Why do people have so much faith in bitcoin?
@very-musty saidThat is the case with all fiat currency. The US dollar isn't really anything. When I use my credit cards those are just numbers on a ledger. I pay them with my bank account which is the same. I got the money from my tax return and stimulus money and both were deposited directly into my checking account and no paper currency was used in any of it.
@Metal-Brain
It will crash big-time eventually.
When people realize it really isn't anything.
It was made out of thin air.
I'm not saying it won't crash. That is possible. I would not buy any at the price now even if I did trust the long term fundamentals. I would wait for a better price dip. I think most cryptocurrencies are due for a good correction. There are too many of them that are terrible and people are buying them anyway.
Damn. It’s like watching chimps discuss theology.
Besides 1 James Bond reference; which is always a good thing, it’s rather obvious none of you know what you’re jibbering on about.
The gold standard has been let go, long ago.
That means most currency is digital. It doesn’t exist except in 0’s and 1’s on computers. Hence that wallstreet can make so much money, lose so much money and that the effects in reality aren’t direct or proportional.
Most currencies have a centralized ledger. This means that a transaction is logged in a central location (think bank).
Bitcoin (and other crypto currencies) don’t use a centralized ledger. They use blockchain. So the logging of each transaction is logged decentralized (on everyone who participate’s ledger).
So to steal a bitcoin you need to hack everyone’s ledger (and not just a centralized ledger). This makes it far harder to steal.
So this blockchain thing (the decentralized ledger) can only exist because people use their computers’ power to add blocks of transactions to the chain. As a reward for doing this, they can earn a bit coin (or another crypto currency). This is called mining. Which is a stupid term, it’s actually facilitating or building... whatever...
The more transactions, the more data, the larger the blockchain, the more power which is needed to add blocks to the chain... the harder it is to “mine” a bitcoin.
A bitcoin is therefore ever more scarce and theoretically the value of a bitcoin goes up.
Equally theoretically, at a certain point all the power of all participants is used for the blockchain and no mining will happen. Perhaps transactions will stagnate.
Equally theoretically, should quantum computers ever become a thing (to simplify it, think of your computer as 2-D, going from Berlin to Sydney around the globe and a quantum computer as 3-D and popping that same distance through the planet... much, much faster... therefore more powerful) it will be much easier to mine, bitcoins become less scarce and worth less.
All currencies are measured against each other and sometimes people want dollars and sometimes they prefer Yen. Same 0’s and 1’s. So the same with crypto currencies.
I don’t invest in any currency. But if I was into bitcoin, I’d keep hold of it until a day before they revealed the new generation of supercomputers. Because when they come on the market, I presume that’s when bitcoins seriously become worthless.
Edit:
I just want to add two things:
That last paragraph reads a bit like insider-trading... I in no way condone... blah blah blah... capitalist scum bucketry...
And: I am no financial expert and feel more at home with chimps on many money matters.
So, you’re better off googling than taking my word for it...
😎
@kevcvs57 saidhow does bitcoin differ from the dollar?
I don’t have any faith in Bitcoin but then I don’t have any faith in the other ephemeral transactional tokens either.
Someone must be running these servers and given ( and I’m guessing here ) new Bitcoin can only be mined if their existence is supported and demanded by offline currency or some sort of physical collateral. I would imagine that they are as prone to bubbles as any other currency and could all end in tears for the bottom four fifths of the Bitcoin pyramid.
Nothing prevents the dollar from being stolen, biden is proving that right now.
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@very-musty saidYou contradict yourself.
It's not a scam.
It is a legal pyramid scheme in my opinion.
In answer to the thread title: YES!!!! And any computer programmer could have told you so!
-Removed-I seem to know just as much as anyone else posting on here.
I will not buy bitcoin until I know there is long term stability to it. That all depends on it evolving before incentive for mining runs out. That depends on consensus, whatever that is.
Until someone can explain how consensus is reached and that it can happen I will not waste my money on any cryptocurrency. Bitcoin may very well be designed to fail for all I know.
The consensus question is not a trivial question. Anyone who speculates on bitcoin by buying and holding it should be interested in an answer to that question. They don't seem to be interested so it is obvious they are just following the herd in a leap of faith.
Anyone who doesn't know how consensus works and buys into bitcoin is doing so out of faith. They are clueless speculators. I'm not saying I know it is a scam, but it does look that way. Heck, even the creator of bitcoin is a mystery. You would think the genius would take credit for it if it is not a scam.
@shavixmir said"Equally theoretically, at a certain point all the power of all participants is used for the blockchain and no mining will happen. Perhaps transactions will stagnate."
Damn. It’s like watching chimps discuss theology.
Besides 1 James Bond reference; which is always a good thing, it’s rather obvious none of you know what you’re jibbering on about.
The gold standard has been let go, long ago.
That means most currency is digital. It doesn’t exist except in 0’s and 1’s on computers. Hence that wallstreet can make so much money, lose so ...[text shortened]... th chimps on many money matters.
So, you’re better off googling than taking my word for it...
😎
That would increase the chances of a now unlikely 51% attack if that happens. The incentive is supposed to shift to transaction fees from what I have heard.
That just leads to questions about transaction fees. Heck, I'm not sure why there are transaction fees at all. I thought miners already have incentive to mine by being rewarded with bitcoin.
I was told transaction fees for bitcoin are about $15 right now. That is higher than a credit card purchase to a different country. That makes small purchases impractical.