it has value because people assign value to it, like anything else, and once that is translated into an actual market place, that value (however volatile) can be translated to other currencies or goods.

The first BTC purchase was a pizza for 10,000BTC - About $1m in todays climate

no mate, I have most of my allocated funds in LTC now, bit of a gamble but could easily double (or triple or more) my profits once gox takes on LTC. I have patience, actually considering chucking some of this months wages into gox to strike as soon as they make the announcement.

Is your account verified? Once it is you can take out more than the £1000 limit per day.

The transfer should be 5days max, same as any international wire.

did you withdraw any GBP from Gox yet ferg? Wonderin how long it takes etc, would ideally want to take everything out at once but gettin impatient with it now haha

OK, didnt see Ferg's post but thats a really good explanation and has cleared it up for me a bit.

Is a bitcoin essentially "buying" your processing power on someone's behalf?

Its hard to explain, I still have trouble grasping the whole thing. But mining produces bitcoins and these are added to bitcoin economy. People can buy the bitcoins with actual money. I don't know really how the mining bit benefits anyone bar the person doing the mining. Not sure how it benefits owners of bitcoin or whatever. Its complex enough.

Fuckin censorship

yeah

a simple way to look at the mining process is to imagine that your gpu is acting as an accountant for the network, crunching numbers for all the transactions that are made on the block chain... and is subsequently rewarded for this "work" with bitcoins or parts there of. The coins are released in a schedule, with the mining difficulty rising, therefore less profitable over time.

there will only ever be 21million BTC and the last will be released in 2140

LTC is similar, but there will be 4x as many coins and the transactions are faster, hence its being dubbed as the #2 cryptocoin and imminent support from mtgox

non miners can just buy bitcoin for fiat on exchanges and trade, much like forex

Need to go to the toilet when I think about Bitcoins

With litecoins and my processor and running 24 hours:

0.13 LTC = $0.54469 USD

you want a few high powered cheaply bought gpus running to make any real money
there are forums dedicated to all this, you might find that mining LTC is more profitable for you

Its just interesting thats all. Its value based is partially on the availability of processing power. An interesting approach to finance as processing power in computers, especially in this age is a very good commodity in business.

1 bitcoin I believe is worth 100 odd bucks no? I'm not sure. Though I imagine you'd be seeing less of return than that so is it worth it doing the pool thing? Probably not. But I don't know. One article I read guy left his computer on all weekend, it was an older spare he had and made $1.50. The electricity cost more. You don't know though until you try. Ideally you want a really good server dedicated to mining, not in a pool to see real money.

there are charts available that show gpu/mining compatibilty and maximum hashrates etc

lots of people mining litecoin as well, and there is a new coin called feathercoin which is a clone of LTC that seems to be getting alot of attention/trading. remains to be seen if it is a premined scam liked NVC, PPC and the likes

you deleted the whole thread cause she posted what she bought at and what its currently being traded at but made no mention of how much she bought or did I miss something..

s1 I have a 4gb quadro in my work laptop which is a pretty good number cruncher also access to a few more top spec quadros that I could certainly leave on overnight crunching away free of charge in work but is it actually worth it, what are we talking here? leave computers one for 1 week and get 1 bitcoin?

Did quite a bit of reading up on this the last day or so. Might let my computer do a bit of mining on bitcoin as part of a mining pool. Obviously not looking at big gains, doing it more as an experiment to see what sort of bitcoin income I could be looking at. Though I think my GPU isn't great so probably not going to see a big return on it at all.

made you? haha

you could have just deleted the posts where she was illustrating her figures...

ah well, onwards and hopefully upwards (chikun)

most of the mining set have cooling systems etc (well the ones who are serious about it)

Regarding people thinking about mining..leave you GPU maxed out for a few weeks and let us know the results. Keen to know what temparature your card hit when it melts down

considering 1oz is $1500 (or whatever is is) at least you wouldnt have to pay too much for postage for a coulple of grands worth! The sites i have seen are selling 1oz coins/plates (usually with some sort of cheesy design on them)

Food for thought, for sure. Physical gold is not easy to get.

Na but i buy stuff (music gear, comics, antiques, art, vinyl etc) which i know i can make money on if i throw the head up and wanna sell my stuff. Hard to get physical gold. Silver is good to buy but haven't thought about it proper yet.

you dont pay tax on silver if it is kept in a vault on your behalf, afaik. Not sure if the same applies with gold. Gold is easily got, just expensive so not really for small time peeps like us, more a storage vessel for vast wealth.

You can exchange bitcoins for gold, there are popular sites for it. If you invested a grand or two in bitcoin, and the price say, doubled, you would be looking good for a gold purchase then (hypothetical, not a suggestion)

are you putting money into gold kev?

I can't be bothered with all this. Smart assets and precious metals are were it's at.

No you didn't. I was hoking around a few sites last night and some seemed to have this impression from somewhere. They're a bit naive especially since some of them were using real money to buy it.

litecoin minig is possible with cpu but the difficulty level makes it a not very worthwhile endeavour, gpus are where the mining power lies

Its incredibly interesting though all of this virtual currency stuff. Definitely something to keep an eye on.

To say that it has no effect on it is probably a bit naive.

who is saying this? Did i imply that somehow, cos i didnt mean to. I have bought in/out using GBP, so I am aware of the relationship between centtralised and decentralised currency.

Not a chance this bitcoin thing is happening without external observation/go ahead

But isn't it essentially going to be effected by real world currencies that are state manipulated and controlled as these currencies are in fact used in the first place to buy them. Thus effecting the value of the virtual currency by the number of purchases made of the virtual currency. Those purchases depending on the wealth of people working in the "real world" state manipulated economy. To say that it has no effect on it is probably a bit naive.

I mean for example ifg everyone decided not to use real money to but it but just mined, it would essentially have no worth.

not with your gpu, but if you were to construct a wee rig that had low power consumption and high hashrate, it would oay for itself quickly and youd be making profit, and with the value of the coins rising, so would your profit.

I dont pay for electricity at the mo, but i couldnt be arsed investing in the tech, would rather just trade

* buy it

Litecoin uses the CPU itself I think but not sure.

So assuming a 65W adapter for my laptop, this is all very rough btw:

(65*24)/1000 = 1.56kwh in a 24 hour period.
1.56@15.03pencetarget="_blank">1.56@15.03pence> (price per kwh) = 23.44pence
0.54469 US Dollar equals 0.35 British Pound Sterling

yes there are but i think most of them will be sitting on their fortunes and allowing the wealth to accumulate. A lot of people genuinely see BTC and the other coins as away of removing themselves or freeing themselves from fiat. state manipulated and controlled currency... plenty of well documented recent evidence supporting this

The various exhanges can be manipulated by groups of coordinated traders at anytime. The poeple who tend to lose out are the new traders who panic sell when the value drops, the more experianced trader will be the one selling at the peak and buying back from the panic sellers. I have been playing it quite safe but have made a few savvy trades that have boosted my profits.

haha- I didn't make you! and just wanted rid of 2 posts, anyways, thanks for the promt and efficient response ;)
ferg- im definitely looking at the wallet stuff, Im gunna keep mine long term and I think Id rather not have them stored on these sites. I think there will be many more exchanges cropping up over the next year or so and lots more options- plus I definitely don't think the ones about at the min are too secure.

ferg, all decent GPUs have cooling systems - fair enough some after makrte stuff can be done

but leaving a CPU or GPU maxed out for days/weeks will eventually kill it

honestly don't think the electricity use and hardware cost justifies the little money people can mine from bitcoins

Not just bitcoins though is it

Fair enough Leanne. Let me know what you find, might be interested in cold storage for my LTC as well.

Just dont mention your particulars unlesss its PM ;)

Big drop in BTC price today (and last couple of days) probably got to do with the filed lawsuit against gox. Prob a good time to buy to make a few quid when it goes up again.

@leanne i have downloaded the ltc client which comes with wallet storage (along with mining platform). Got the vast majority of my ltc in an encrypted wallet file on my laptop now. As much of an experiment as a security anxiety, works just fine once the client has downloaded the blockchain.

Interesting and informative thread. I am sure the original one was even more so. fuck censorship

I have noticed that BTC seems to have been following Golds price a lot albeit with more volatility as the market is obviously thinner.

Couldn't resist pulling up a couple of charts showing what could be called that correlation between BTC & Gold.

content.screencast.com...

Does it suggest that BTC is being treated as a legitimate safe haven for global money flows moving on the same sorta stuff that moves gold? ( inflation worries, lack of confidence in fiat etc).

The obvious question was what happened on April 14,15,16 ? Gold broke through technical support and hit 2 year lows.. news was light really around then but there is a growing murmurs that the Fed may start be moving closer to a tightening cycle. i.e higher rates, no more free money for everyone.

I put equities on there because they make me laugh.

"Gaming League Employee Turns 14,000 Users Into Bitcoin-Mining Zombies .In just those two weeks, though, the damage was done. The employee had racked up close to BTC30, which is about £2,400 in sterling today (and either twice or half that tomorrow, given the viscosity of Bitcoin)"

So after 2 weeks running on thousands of gamer PC's some dude mined 30coins... And people wanna do this with 1 card!!??! Seems like an absolute waste if time and a real good way to kill ur card and all for what 1 possible coin