bitcoin

Bitcoin
We're here to explore the ramifications of cryptocurrency on tech, society and money.
   10 years ago
#bitcoinBitcoinWe're here to explore the ramifications of cryptocurrency on tech, society and money.
Top Votes
John Furrier
Question: Is the mainstream media covering bitcoin correctly? What are the biggest myths that need to be cleared up?
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Johannes Schmitt
that bitcoin is for geeks, libertarians and ppl who want to launder money only
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Jesse Stay
many are not doing their research ahead of time. So as a whole, I think no. I'll respond separately with myths.
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David Birch
The biggest myth is probably that Bitcoin is anonymous. The second biggest myth is that there is a demand for an anonymous payment system.
Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins Exactly. Pseudonymous and Anonymous are subtle but important distinctions.
John Furrier I totally agree with you David on that comment
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Jesse Stay
one myth is that Bitcoin has no value. Another is that only geeks and libertarians and anarchists use it. Another is that it is used for illegal activity mostly.
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Crowd Captain
It was said in Silicon Valley that Obama asked Eric Schmidt if the USA should pay attention to Bitcoin movement. Schmidt said Absofu**kinglutley as reported by @wsj and others
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Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins
The mainstream media is very hit or miss. Their early coverage was abysmal, and very biased against. We're seeing a lot of bandwagon jumping, with positive coverage. Very little of it is 100% accurate in the MS media, IMO.
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kytsune
I think mass media mythology about Bitcoin is a mixture of poor research and potentially sensationalism: the crime-opportunities get played up, but the security played down (often in amplification of each other.)
Jesse Stay
One thing you'll learn from me is Bitcoin is so much more than a currency. It's the protocol that makes it powerful. What are some of the greatest use-cases you can see for Bitcoin protocol in the future?
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kytsune
I think that BTCs already digital nature would make it exceptionally good for massively multiplayer video games to implement microtransactions or even share internal economies globally.
Jesse Stay I think there is a huge future in the "trust economy". P2P will finally work in this economy because people will be able to finally pay software/music/media creators out of pure good will.
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Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins
I like Primecoin, Devcoin and Namecoin... they're examples of using Bitcoin-like protocols to create an autonomous corporation that's difficult to destroy and will continue to administer a useful service for the communities they serve.
kytsune I enjoy novel uses of the Blockchain, such as how Twister is trying to produce a microblogging platform out of a P2P distributed ledger to enable difficult-to-suppress and pseudonymous communication.
Jesse Stay totally agreed - need to look into Devcoin - haven't heard of that until now.
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David Birch
I agree. In a way, the currency is something of a sideshow. It attracts a lot of journalistic attention because it's a "human" story whereas the protocol side is a "tech" story.
John Furrier
Naysayers say the following: An online currency controlled by a secretive group, with no underlying source of value behind it. - Comments?
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Crowd Captain
in the twenties - the investment 'partnerships' that ended up representing nothing but pure fraud - I forget the name of the asset class. In theory, a digital currency is an interesting idea and may apply to small online micro-environments.
Crowd Captain But it is nothing more than that. Hey, why not create your own online currency - FurrierCoin! Say you will never issue more than 100M units, and the offering price will be $1 per coin. Pay Goldman 7% to take you on the Private Placement Circuit.....
Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins That is exactly what crypto-currencies are for! Create them for your neighborhood! Create them for your company! Create them for your family! Does the existence of Target reward points negatively affect the value of Xbox Gamer points? No!
David Birch @CrowdCapta The idea of personal currencies isn't crazy at all. Why not have individuals issue currencies that are a claim on their time or network or stuff? Money based on the social graph.
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kytsune
I'd love to know who that secretive group is supposed to be. (Can I get in?) Bitcoin is an open protocol and the Blockchain is public.
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David Birch
Some people would say the same thing about the US dollar! But seriously, this is why I expect some son-of-Bitcoin to monetise other kinds of new currencies (local, energy, reputation, who knows).
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Jesse Stay
Bitcoin is the most public ledger of online transactions ever available. Not much secret about that. Can't say that about government transactions...
Jesse Stay Just go to http://blockchain.info and you can see every single transaction that ever occurred in Bitcoin. No other currency allows that.
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Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins
It's actually the opposite. The development is done out in the open, and it has both intrinsic, percieved as well as clear market value. See: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Myths#Bitcoins_have_no_intrinsic_value_.28unlike_some_other_things.29
Van Patton
With super ASIC miners supposedly coming out soon, is it even worth mining Bitcoin or just mine alt-coins and trade them for Bitcoins?
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Jim McBride
Ride the volatility curves and mine what makes sense - check out: http://www.reddit.com/r/litecoinmining/comments/1ua4d6/hashbros_multicoin_pool_with_profit_switch_alpha/
John Furrier Jim: thanks for sharing that link .. I need to do some research on mining.. i think this will be a great paradigm for #crowdbiz going forward.. online gaming, online currency, game mechanincs all are my fav trends - powered by cloud & computer science
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Jesse Stay
IMO alt-coin will give you much greater ROI. It takes a lot more work though to balance it just right.
Johannes Schmitt
Is Patrick Byrne's public endorsement of #bitcoin going to make a difference?
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Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins
I think it's already made a bit of difference (as I recall, the market moved a little based on his reported sales in BTC). Long term, IMO, I think that Patrick Byrne may be seen as an early mover, it's him plus others that make the diff.
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Jesse Stay
that depends on what you mean by "difference" - care to elaborate?
Johannes Schmitt Sure - is his bold move going to convince other big retailers to accept bitcoin soon?
Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins @johannesschmitt I think that his move will be seen as the start of the major retailer momentum in this direction.
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Jesse Stay
I do think @overstockceo has set the precedence for other companies to learn from. Others are watching carefully, I guarantee you.
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Crowd Captain
thx @johannesschmitt for the newbies Patrick Byrne is Overstocks CEO who announced they will accept bitcoin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_M._Byrne
Johannes Schmitt besides being CEO he is also a very impressive character. And holds a Ph.D. in philosophy.
Jesse Stay @johannesschmitt very smart guy - I helped him with a Facebook app back in 2008 or so. I was very impressed.
Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins
Question for the crowd: Bitcoin is often very confusing to newcomers. What questions do you want answered on Bitcoin?
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Raghavan M
I'm a bitcoin newbie. Can bitcoin create a truly decentralized commerce system ? (i am envisioning no-centralized-banks to manage commerce)
Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins I think there will be a degree of clustering, which I'd term shy of centralization. You can see this happen in the mining and the exchange communities. The ethos of BTC is to work for decentralization, so over time, you'll see less clustering.
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kytsune
One of the first things that I think newcomers need to know up front is where to go first. Just downloading a wallet for PC or smartphone is not enough, there's a growing industry still gaining trust including web wallets and bitcoin trading.
Jesse Stay have you checked out http://weusecoins.com? That's a decent starting point. Agreed though - more resources and better Ux is needed.
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Crowd Captain
I want a resource that shows me how it works end to end. I love the idea but want to know "how the sausage is made"
Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins @kytsune and I are work weekly on the Dr. Bitcoin column, where we answer these questions and describe Bitcoin's inner workings, so SiliconANGLE is a good place to start. :)
John Furrier
Question for thought leaders: Is bitcoin going to implode and if not why?
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Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins
It's my personal opinion that Bitcoin is at cruising altitude right (or critical mass, if you will). It would take something pretty spectacular to do in BTC at this juncture.
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kytsune
This one is a little bit hard to address because any technology can get disrupted if something better comes along. Bitcoin is still in its baby-steps when it comes to adoption, but the technology behind it has proven itself to be extremely smart.
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Jesse Stay
I think it's solid for at least the next few years. As a new technology it, and its community will change though.
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Jesse Stay
I'll also add that, as a currency, I'm aware of some pretty big players on both Wall Street and Silicon Valley that are about to get involved in Bitcoin.
Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins Like the news this morning that Wells Fargo, for instance, is about to make a move.
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Jesse Stay
I keep hearing that "one of the world's largest internet companies" is going to accept bitcoin starting Q2 of this year.
Jim McBride
Question - is anyone working to adapt existing algo engines to work with the emerging btc exchange API's?
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Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins
Clarification: What do you mean by algo engines... do you mean trading algorithms?
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Jim McBride
Sorry - algorithmic trading engines - e.g., algotrader
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Jesse Stay
Check out some of the trading bots out there. Gox Trading bot comes to mind.
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Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins
There are a number of closed and open-source bots being passed around. I've had mixed results with them, and none were effective enough to warrant a public recommendation. This is still a greenfield in my opinion.
Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins You can explore some of these options on the BitcoinTalk forums.
Jesse Stay
What price will Bitcoin be at end of 2014? How about Litecoin? Any smaller ones over $100?
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Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins
I'm always surprised by the price rise of Bitcoin, but if the current trends continue, I think the $10,000 / BTC predictions I've been seeing are fairly conservative answers.
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John Furrier
I am bummed that I didn't pick up 1k worth of bitcoin three years ago.. when I had the chance .. I see it going to 1000
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Van Patton
I hope for 10,000 but I'm expecting 5,000
Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins
Serious question for crypto enthusiasts: Do alt-currencies like Dogecoin undermine or enhance the reputation and momentum of Bitcoin?
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kytsune
Heh. I'd say a little of both? Things like Dogecoin and Coinye may undermine the perception of the "serious" but the fact that they can be fad-tradable crypto sometimes acts as a beginning point for newbies to get a handle on the underpinnings.
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Jesse Stay
I think they enhance it. To me they show that each coin is really based on community - it will be interesting to see if it gains value from that community though.
kytsune I think that comment wins the Internet. Alternate Blockchains also have the opportunity to create value internal to different community contexts and it even pays nice metaphor to "cultural coin" when it comes to crypto as proof of ownership.
Jesse Stay @kytsune just wait until a social network like Facebook or Twitter integrates their own "coin" transactions natively into their interface. #thatswhatiddo
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kytsune
Example. I have several friends who now have some Dogecoin because "wow much meme" and now know a lot more about Bitcoin as a result. Silly alt-currencies posses a cultural teachable moment for the BTC community.
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Van Patton
I believe it enhances due to the fact that almost anyone can create an alt-currency and it can either become famous and productive like Dogecoin, or infamous and earn a lawsuit like Coinye.