Crypto-currencies and Alt-coins

codemonkeymike · 09 Jun 2017, 14:57

Anyone else into Cryptos and Alts here? I am fully bought into sia coin right now.

Mechboards · 09 Jun 2017, 16:08

I've got a small stash of ETH and BTC at the moment.

Redmaus · 09 Jun 2017, 17:17

Lol, I'm actually talking with my friend right now to sell his RX 580 so he can upgrade other parts of his PC. All the Ethereum mining has gone insane.

gogusrl · 09 Jun 2017, 20:33

I had 250-300 BTC back in 2012-2013. Bought Borderlands 2 for 4 BTC. Bought hot peppers from some mexican dude for 5 BTC. Bought hand made wool socks from some canadian dude for 10 BTC. Wanted to do my part with circulating it, I bought a lot of dumb stuff with it.

Shit still hurtz

codemonkeymike · 09 Jun 2017, 20:59

gogusrl wrote: I had 250-300 BTC back in 2012-2013. Bought Borderlands 2 for 4 BTC. Bought hot peppers from some mexican dude for 5 BTC. Bought hand made wool socks from some canadian dude for 10 BTC. Wanted to do my part with circulating it, I bought a lot of dumb stuff with it.

Shit still hurtz

I feel it, I gambled away about 100 BTC back when it was in the teens. Bought some green herb for about 20BTC at about the same price as well. Kicking myself hard, but I wont let it happen again so I am shoveling every penny I can afford to loose into alt-coins

Scarpia · 09 Jun 2017, 22:18

In early 2013 (before the first $1000 spike) I bought a single Bitcoin just to own one, paid around $165. Been selling and buying Bitcoin (and Ripple since Bitstamp added it - made a killing on those actually) for that same initial $165 and my balance is around $2k now. So it's nothing like the dozens or hundreds of bitcoin some other DT users have owned, but I am still pretty happy with the return on my investment.

codemonkeymike · 09 Jun 2017, 22:42

Scarpia wrote: In early 2013 (before the first $1000 spike) I bought a single Bitcoin just to own one, paid around $165. Been selling and buying Bitcoin (and Ripple since Bitstamp added it - made a killing on those actually) for that same initial $165 and my balance is around $2k now. So it's nothing like the dozens or hundreds of bitcoin some other DT users have owned, but I am still pretty happy with the return on my investment.

Invest it in Siacoin!

Scarpia · 13 Jun 2017, 21:07

Just checked my account, it's actually grown to a bit over $3k now (most of the gains came from grabbing a good heap of Ripple when they were at $0.01 and $0.02).. so I think I could look into some other alt-coins, even if I have to move some money to another exchange (Poloniex) to do it.

Why Siacoins though?

codemonkeymike · 13 Jun 2017, 23:47

Sia is the only working implementation of distributed storage. First to market and it works.

Scarpia · 14 Jun 2017, 07:20

Ah... and as we all know, the narrowly-defined 'superior' technology always wins in the marketplace...? :-/

Spoiler:

webwit · 14 Jun 2017, 08:05

Scarpia wrote: Why Siacoins though?

Because he has some? All those other currencies are build on the notion that the ones who started it missed out on bitcoin.

Belfong · 14 Jun 2017, 08:29

I have questions about mining though. It goes with the current price right? So my mining will yield me lower coins as the price increase. I'm not sure if I want to add hash power if that's the case.

Wodan · 14 Jun 2017, 08:31

webwit wrote: Because he has some? All those other currencies are build on the notion that the ones who started it missed out on bitcoin.

Spot on ...

cookie · 14 Jun 2017, 11:05

I never understood this and I was really trying... I don't see/understand what value a bitcoin has, what makes it so valuable that people mine them. It's just hard to obtain them but all the effort is for practically nothing. I've never read/heard that anyone was benefiting from the mathematical problems solved by miners?

seebart · 14 Jun 2017, 11:11

cookie wrote: I never understood this and I was really trying... I don't see/understand what value a bitcoin has, what makes it so valuable that people mine them. It's just hard to obtain them but all the effort is for practically nothing. I've never read/heard that anyone was benefiting from the mathematical problems solved by miners?

If you ask me it's a failed concept that has recently gained in value due to the current markets. The fact that bitcoin was used in various criminal cases doesn't help either.

wobbled · 14 Jun 2017, 11:16

Waste of time and electricity. The only people that truly benefited from it were those who collected it prior to its initial surge in popularity and price when its only place of use was on tor.

seebart · 14 Jun 2017, 11:23

wobbled wrote: Waste of time and electricity. The only people that truly benefited from it were those who collected it prior to its initial surge in popularity and price when its only place of use was on tor.

Right, and of course "fun" stories like these:

I Threw Away $4.8 Million In Bitcoin

https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2017/05/i-th ... n-bitcoin/

gogusrl · 14 Jun 2017, 11:33

Man, you guys are either working for banks / government or really haven't given it any thought / read about the advantages of bitcoin and other crypto currencies compared to regular fiat.

wobbled · 14 Jun 2017, 11:42

There are no advantages to bitcoin anymore, they are practically impossible to mine effectively. You need entire rooms full with machines dedicated for mining with multiple AMD gpu's at roughly 1k per machine or more. You'd need to be mining for years to earn back what you paid in and what you're paying for the electricity bill. Unless you started this years ago, there's no point.

cookie · 14 Jun 2017, 11:45

gogusrl wrote: Man, you guys are either working for banks / government or really haven't given it any thought / read about the advantages of bitcoin and other crypto currencies compared to regular fiat.

Yes but I don't get it, I don't understand bitcoins... The harder I try the less sense they makes to me. I am either too smart or to stupid (more likely the second).

Wodan · 14 Jun 2017, 11:47

I still consider crypty currencies predominantly an ambitious project by idealistic geeks which is used almost exclusively for child porn, drugs, blackmail trojans and other illegal transactions.

People paying for a coffee in a hipster pub for 0.003BTC is just a little style thing.

There is just hardly any legal, real world benefit for using them. In this community there is SO MUCH potential to use bitcoins for international money transfers but I have yet to see someone pay his artisans in BTC. Let me know if I miss an important use case here but to me, all these mighty, idealistic ideas from the late 90s/early 2000s with Tor and Bitcoin have just enabled so much criminal activity in the internet.

fruitalgorithm · 14 Jun 2017, 11:48

Bitcoin being used for crime is the only thing that really makes it useful and valuable. It's excellent if you want to hide money from tax collectors and law enforcement. It's also enabled the safest and most reliable way to buy drugs. Speculation and the built in deflation also contributes to the high value of Bitcoin.

People using Bitcoin for illegal transactions could switch to a different system at any time. All of the other alt coins derive their value mostly from speculation at the moment.

I own 0.2 Bitcoin I got for free off a faucet at some point.

read about the advantages of bitcoin and other crypto currencies compared to regular fiat

You seem to have bought all the hype and false promises. Bitcoin is a terrible currency compared to fiat currencies. It doesn't even have all properties of a currency. It's more like a public distributed cryptographically signed ledger than an actual currency. There's lots of propaganda with regards to Bitcoin, which targets the same fools who buy gold for its stability. The price of gold fluctuates a lot. Bitcoin is a total roller coaster. And Bitcoin might crash and burn at any moment. It certainly has lots of problems at the moment.

seebart · 14 Jun 2017, 11:55

Reagrdless of Bitcoin from what I read the "road" to a cashless society is quite long and difficult but may work in the long run. The Sweds are ahead as ususal but the arguments are sound for this type of change, the technology is certainly there to make it happen.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... ing-europe

fruitalgorithm · 14 Jun 2017, 11:59

Paying with and receiving Bitcoin is a hassle. You can't pay for any essential things of your file with it: rent, taxes, food, clothing, etc. The transfer is slow, buying Bitcoin is a hassle, risk of value fluctuation, no charge back, cost of converting to and from fiat etc.

Using for example PayPal is just safer and easier for private transactions. PayPal has lots of problems, but the thing it does right is, it makes it damn easy to send money to anyone in the world.

So you only use Bitcoin for things where the higher difficulty of using it isn't a problem.

People paying for a coffee in a hipster pub for 0.003BTC is just a little style thing.

A friend of mine did that last week because we were at a burger place that take Bitcoin. We had to have another round of beers just to wait for the transaction to confirm. It's very impractical for everyday use.

Khers · 14 Jun 2017, 12:22

seebart wrote: Reagrdless of Bitcoin from what I read the "road" to a cashless society is quite long and difficult but may work in the long run. The Sweds are ahead as ususal but the arguments are sound for this type of change, the technology is certainly there to make it happen.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... ing-europe

Interesting read! I for one can't remember the last time I used cash for anything. Still the acceptance rate of cash is higher than BTC here. The latter is not even infinitesimal, it's zero. Either that or I just don't know where to look and what for. Needless to say, it makes BTC and other crypto currencies useless for me and I have therefore, long since, lost interest.

seebart · 14 Jun 2017, 12:35

Khers wrote: I for one can't remember the last time I used cash for anything.

OK, so it's true then that you can pay for everything electronically in your daily life? No need for cash at all?

webwit · 14 Jun 2017, 12:43

Luckily ordinary money was and is never used for crime.

seebart · 14 Jun 2017, 12:45

webwit wrote: Luckily ordinary money was and is never used for crime.

: Cemc9mMXEAArUAE.jpg (45.03 KiB) Viewed 12081 times

Khers · 14 Jun 2017, 12:49

seebart wrote:
Khers wrote: I for one can't remember the last time I used cash for anything.
OK, so it's true then that you can pay for everything electronically in your daily life? No need for cash at all?

More or less, yeah. Shadier stuff has resorted to "swish" that is mentioned in the article, that serves more or less the same purpose as cash, without the need to have the correct sum on hand etc. also, directly connected to your bank account, so like a simpler less secure version of PayPal (no buyers protection and what not). Additionally, all businesses with some tiny amount of self-respect, even street salesmen, accept cards. Why would you want to carry cash around if it is like that?

seebart · 14 Jun 2017, 12:56

Khers wrote:
seebart wrote:
Khers wrote: I for one can't remember the last time I used cash for anything.
OK, so it's true then that you can pay for everything electronically in your daily life? No need for cash at all?
More or less, yeah. Shadier stuff has resorted to "swish" that is mentioned in the article, that serves more or less the same purpose as cash, without the need to have the correct sum on hand etc. also, directly connected to your bank account, so like a simpler less secure version of PayPal (no buyers protection and what not). Additionally, all businesses with some tiny amount of self-respect, even street salesmen, accept cards. Why would you want to carry cash around if it is like that?

No, I would not carry cash in that situation, I'm curious to see how long Germany will take to make this happen. My guess is several years.