Bitcoins

[Deleted User]

Swafe wrote: »

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

Perhaps I'm missing the obvious joke here, but I'll ask anyway: what do you mean by reversing and unmining? That's just not possible.

The concern with quantum computing will be breaking cryptography, more info here: http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/6062/what-effects-would-a-scalable-quantum-computer-have-on-bitcoin

sabretoothtigger

Bitcoin is more 'vulnerable' to parallel processing. As an alternative Litecoin uses different systems of words to encrypt which makes it harder to 'attack'

BTC is more popular because its easier to scale up so this feature is to its benefit, its not likely they will try to break the code this way. It delivers easier results to attack web sites or users like with SR

There is a sister coin to BTC called TRC that suffered a 'supercomputer' attack, many holders lost money from invented new coins -that were sold.
However it was a much smaller coin or system so thats partly why it happened. The technology was transferred sideways and aimed in a destructive way at this sister coin, thats why it happened. But it does show why a more esoteric system could be advantageous, Bitcoin is slightly more vulnerable then Litecoin (so the theory goes) due to its ease of development (this is aiding its progress at present though)

hander

WOW! This thread has got lively suddenly. And almost as aggressive as the fluctuations in BTC's value.

I was about to comment that it seemed some intelligent discussion but I've just read people asking others for 'proof' of their gains. How bizarre. Do they do that in the more traditional investment/trading threads? MSE ain't reddit, people. If someone wants to share their good fortune - made by honest means, shouldn't we just congratulate them?

There was an example yesterday from some forum (erm.. about guns) where someone told their tale of cashing out 21K BTC after doing a few years of work. All the comments were wishing the OP well - in his wish to make horror movies(!) with the profits. I personally wish dryhat well with his gains. He made them by more honourable means than many of those employed in finance.

I too took a punt a while back and am resisting selling - though last night's peak made me think about recouping my original investment and freerolling with my remaining balance. I didn't. I'm not going to be devastated if I lose what I've invested - those are the rules in high-risk games such as these.

However, I also worry about the environmental impact.

Has anyone explored mining a currency that concurrently makes useful calculations? Very broad ideas would be in gene related computations of some kind. It would be incredible to think that while developing a cryptocurrency we were also discovering, say, genes that predisposed you to certain types of diseases.

To the moon! (as they say on Reddit, I believe)

Swafe

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24934786

They may not be so far away after all

Clearly these are not going to be developed by the Government who have a massive amount of money to invest in R&D, if the US gov developed one they could come after Bitcoin, Mastercard, ATMs, etc all of their security would be at risk too but the US has a vested interest, they dont like Bitcoin as it costs nothing to send, Mastercard, etc however they charge money which they'll see at some point through taxes, they wont crack the credit card system just because they can, theyll keep it under wraps and use it for their own gain.

Further to this, if one could be developed, and it had enough decrpypting capability if it did slow it down, or reverse it then the price of Bitcoins would drop off a cliff, with only 21M coins and hashing algorithms getting harder all the time so supply lasts, if the price of them dropped massively (while the difficulty stayed the same to ration them) it could lead to a lot of people not bothering, why would people pay 100s of dollars a month to rent server time or pay whatever the price the top end hashers cost when the gains drop off ?

[Deleted User]

Swafe wrote: »

they dont like Bitcoin as it costs nothing to send

Yesterday the US senate said the opposite: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKYkN2xDoZc

Swafe wrote: »

Further to this, if one could be developed, and it had enough decrpypting capability if it did slow it down, or reverse it then the price of Bitcoins would drop off a cliff, with only 21M coins and hashing algorithms getting harder all the time so supply lasts, if the price of them dropped massively (while the difficulty stayed the same to ration them) it could lead to a lot of people not bothering, why would people pay 100s of dollars a month to rent server time or pay whatever the price the top end hashers cost when the gains drop off ?

The cost of mining is already prohibitive to casual users.

I really don't understand what you're saying.

Swafe

hander wrote: »

WOW! This thread has got lively suddenly. And almost as aggressive as the fluctuations in BTC's value.

I was about to comment that it seemed some intelligent discussion but I've just read people asking others for 'proof' of their gains. How bizarre. Do they do that in the more traditional investment/trading threads? MSE ain't reddit, people. If someone wants to share their good fortune - made by honest means, shouldn't we just congratulate them?

There was an example yesterday from some forum (erm.. about guns) where someone told their tale of cashing out 21K BTC after doing a few years of work. All the comments were wishing the OP well - in his wish to make horror movies(!) with the profits. I personally wish dryhat well with his gains. He made them by more honourable means than many of those employed in finance.

I too took a punt a while back and am resisting selling - though last night's peak made me think about recouping my original investment and freerolling with my remaining balance. I didn't. I'm not going to be devastated if I lose what I've invested - those are the rules in high-risk games such as these.

However, I also worry about the environmental impact.

Has anyone explored mining a currency that concurrently makes useful calculations? Very broad ideas would be in gene related computations of some kind. It would be incredible to think that while developing a cryptocurrency we were also discovering, say, genes that predisposed you to certain types of diseases.

To the moon! (as they say on Reddit, I believe)

A system to work out gene and drug sequences does exist, I used to run it at uni on my computer but the name eludes me, there is also Seti@home which searches for Aliens but that seems like more of a waste of time...

At the end of the day, all the computing power in the world could do a lot of good, but without the financial incentives people are getting from Bitcoin, theres just not enough people to make it work...

csm888

Using hashing power for something useful would be a wonderful side effect of a Digital Currency. I'm sure the Bitcoin block chain could be modified to use a new proof of work after a certain block ID.
The waste of power is something I'm concerned about also.But Bitcoin is a beta technology, we are just starting to explore the whole Digital Currency Idea, and new solutions and ideas are hopefully coming along soon.

hander

Swafe wrote: »

At the end of the day, all the computing power in the world could do a lot of good, but without the financial incentives people are getting from Bitcoin, theres just not enough people to make it work...

Yes, there are numerous examples of complex maths being used in genetics. My wife's job is closely related to that. Will discuss with her. What shall we call the new currency? CureCoin?

But I don't get your second point (above).

[Deleted User]

csm888 wrote: »

The waste of power is something I'm concerned about also.But Bitcoin is a beta technology, we are just starting to explore the whole Digital Currency Idea, and new solutions and ideas are hopefully coming along soon.

You could argue that the power required to support the Bitcoin network is not wasted because of the value that Bitcoin can provide to the world in financial "freedom" from the supposed corrupt / broken / ineffective banking system. The net gain from that would far out weigh the power used.

Swafe

citricsquid wrote: »

Yesterday the US senate said the opposite: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKYkN2xDoZc



The cost of mining is already prohibitive to casual users.

I really don't understand what you're saying.

What they say and what they think are 2 different things

Do you think the US senate really would prefer the world to use a system that is free, costs nothing and allows money to be sent without being traced?

They lose money, they lose control and opens up the door to criminals and gangs to run riot without them being able to gain any evidence of wrong doing, and therefore being unable to prevent money laundering on a massive scale.

I feel they have OK'd it in principle to bring it to attention so it doesn't go too far underground, but be clear they would prefer it not to exist in any shape or form.



As for costs of small players being prohibitive already, I don't really know as I havn't investigated it thoroughly, but clearly any attempt to destabilise it at some point down the line, when crypts get harder and harder to crack (and therefore needing more computing power, and therefore higher costs to crack) will cause its price to crash, and then make it prohibitive for even big scale hashers.