Bitcoins

MFW_ASAP

csm888 wrote: »

I'll prove how many coins I have (by signing a message with the private key of my stash) when you upload a PDF of your bank statement.... isn't it the same thing, money is money?

I haven't asked you for proof.

[Deleted User]

I too find it impossible to believe that dryhat, someone who posted about 6 months ago about buying BTC, actually has BTC. It just doesn't add up! Why would someone who posted about buying BTC actually buy BTC? Nonsensical. Clearly dryhat has ulterior motives and is lying about buying BTC when he said he was going to buy BTC. Thank god for MFW_ASAP who saved us from dryhat and his lies.

mystic_trev

MFW_ASAP wrote: »

I guess you have proof of when you bought, how much you bought and how much you have now, that you could post on here?

Why should he?

MFW_ASAP wrote: »

The last time I got out of all of my investments was just before the 2008 stockmarket crash. I did it just in time, so I wasn't in cash for long before I bought back in (close to the bottom). However, since 2008 I have almost doubled my investments

I guess you have proof of when you bought, how much you bought and what you have now, that you could post on here?

csm888

MFW_ASAP wrote: »

I haven't asked you for proof.

I know, I was just making the point... you really shouldn't disclose how much money you have, no good can come of it, and it doesn't really matter does it, this isn't a bragging contest, we are simply having fun and trying to educate each other.
If he say thats what he's done I'll believe him, if he's lying he's a fool, but its no problem to me.

dryhat

MFW_ASAP wrote: »

So do I, £1,000,000 worth, though you cut that bit when you quoted my post.

I did not reply to the bit about you buying bitcoins in the 80s or whatever, because you haven't and it is a meaningless statement anyway because Bitcoin wasn't around then.

MercilessKiller

Going back to how risky buying BTC is, this is a very common problem with traders:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1qzemm/bitcoin_traders_crippled_by_server_overload/?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=Fancy+Show+Tech

Do you want something that you have no option to sell at certain times?

Swafe

Bitcoin is reversible if enough computing power is put into unmining bitcoins than is put into mining them

with coins on offer and the amount of people and servers now mining them this is near impossible unless there was a massive group with access to some serious supercomputers to reverse the hashing process

but,... what if a new type of supercomputer that could decrypt (or crypt) faster than anything else came onto the market, could it be reversed?

Im asking as the US government are clearly not a fan (despite recent conferences), but what happened if they developed a quantum computer, or a few of them and whacked everything in reverse ?

MercilessKiller

Swafe wrote: »

Bitcoin is reversible if enough computing power is put into unmining bitcoins than is put into mining them

with coins on offer and the amount of people and servers now mining them this is near impossible unless there was a massive group with access to some serious supercomputers to reverse the hashing process

but,... what if a new type of supercomputer that could decrypt (or crypt) faster than anything else came onto the market, could it be reversed?

Im asking as the US government are clearly not a fan (despite recent conferences), but what happened if they developed a quantum computer, or a few of them and whacked everything in reverse ?

Based on a BBC Horizon episode I saw a while ago, quantum computing is a near reality and thus you are right, suddenly the whole thing could collapse.

Unfortunately for us, this type of computer power could also decrypt banking systems for every currency, not just BTC... so the world would be at risk of much more damaging things should the computational power exist.

Yet, that is still another risk to add to the list with BTC!

dryhat

Swafe wrote: »

Bitcoin is reversible if enough computing power is put into unmining bitcoins than is put into mining them

with coins on offer and the amount of people and servers now mining them this is near impossible unless there was a massive group with access to some serious supercomputers to reverse the hashing process

but,... what if a new type of supercomputer that could decrypt (or crypt) faster than anything else came onto the market, could it be reversed?

Im asking as the US government are clearly not a fan (despite recent conferences), but what happened if they developed a quantum computer, or a few of them and whacked everything in reverse ?

Well for a start the hashing power of the Bitcoin network is greater than the world's top 500 computers put together.

Secondly, Bitcoin doesn't use "encryption" it uses "cryptography"
and even given the anticipated advances in computer technology to "decrypt" the hashes would take many many trillions of years.

If a way was found to decrypt these codes, that would mean every credit card, bank account, ATM machine in the world would be vulnerable to attack, not just Bitcoin

csm888

Swafe wrote: »

Bitcoin is reversible if enough computing power is put into unmining bitcoins than is put into mining them

with coins on offer and the amount of people and servers now mining them this is near impossible unless there was a massive group with access to some serious supercomputers to reverse the hashing process

but,... what if a new type of supercomputer that could decrypt (or crypt) faster than anything else came onto the market, could it be reversed?

Im asking as the US government are clearly not a fan (despite recent conferences), but what happened if they developed a quantum computer, or a few of them and whacked everything in reverse ?

Its not really reversal but there is a potential weakness called a 51% attack, but this is difficult and very expensive.

The current generation of miners are custom chips called ASIC's. They have the SHA hashing algorithm written in silicon on the chip. A supercomputer has far less 'hashing' power than an ASIC. The quantum computer may one day break some cryptography but at the moment this is just fantasy.
If cryptography is broken we are in for more problems than simply Bitcoin, the whole world uses cryptography especially banks.