Jun 20, 2017 update: this is part 1. part 2 is here. part 3 is here. I began to reply to this thread, but soon had a novel typed and decided to make this its own thread...here's how it all works in simple terms: the problems online purchases need to be verified by a "trusted 3rd party" today (think: paypal, your bank, credit card companies). this often incurs fees (paypal: 2.9% fee) real-world credit card transactions incur fees for the same reason, often picked up by the merchant, but the consumer ultimately will end up paying more to compensate (ccs: 1.5%-3.5% fee) today's money is centralized, meaning that all of the information is stored on a handful (probably quite a few, but nonetheless, limited in comparison to the below) of servers transactions today lack anonymity today's money, banks, etc. is controlled by the government the solution the "blockchain" is the technical basis for all things cryptocurrency & for all applications being built in that space right now. it gets really f---ing technical, but to put it in as simple terms as possible: the blockchain is a way to decentralize (remove "trusted 3rd parties", banks, paypal, etc. from the equation) transactions. rather than having a single entity work to confirm a transaction (this is a big portion of why fees are incurred -- to confirm a transaction, these 3rd parties and banks need to verify the identity of the parties involved in the, to verify that the person making the purchase has enough funds to cover it, and to ensure secure handoff of the monies...there's more effort to accomplish this than it may appear on the surface), the blockchain concept allows to put the burden of transaction verifications & handoffs on the masses. that is, anybody with a computer can participate and be rewarded (in bitcoin) for doing so. once the transaction (a "block") is verified, it gets added to the overall list of ALL transactions (the "blockchain"). With the blockchain being a public record (all anonymous, all encrypted, of course), there are suddenly millions of copies of all of the transactions occurring, stored on everyone's machines; ensuring that a.) the validity is perfect, & b.) that it's secure and no single entity can hack it or shut it down. Likewise, it also means that since millions of people are working together to validate these txs, the fees are very very cheap. here's a visual representation: update 1/18: this image is a little dated now -- due to bottlenecks and congestion, the fees for BTC are actually quite high these days applications being built on top of the concept i mentioned Siacoin in a post above. Sia is the application, while Siacoin is the currency that's used to pay for the application's services. i also mentioned that blockchain is the basis for all things in this space right now. Sia is an example of that, in the sense that it's attempting to decentralize large data storage (think: Amazon S3 & Google Cloud services). Rather than pay Amazon $100/mo to store 1TB of data in their cloud servers, the thought is that nearly every Joe Shmoe in the developed world today has a personal laptop/desktop with unused harddrive space on it. What if those willing to participate offered X amount of hard drive space to store other people's (companies, mostly -- this is a direct competitor to existing cloud computing services today and you and I would likely not be the target audience) data on their machines? The data will be redundant (stored across many of machines across the globe), fully encrypted, and fully anonymous. Ex: I'm company A and I want to upload my 1tb file to the cloud. I would do so through the Sia application. I upload just as I normally/always would, and the data get's partitioned, hashed, & encrypted and is simultaneously sent off to many Joe Shmoe's internet-connected harddrives. When I want to call that data to download/access it, I would do so in the same fashion as I always would, but with this decentralized system, a lot of smart tech s--- is going on to gather that data and piece it back together and unencrypt it again (all while it looking like nothing special is happening to me, the consumer). Those Joe Shmoes get rewarded (in Siacoin) for their participation, even though they really won't ever be able to tell the difference that their machine is working for them. And the companies will be rewarded due to the cost of cloud computing being 1/10th that of Amazon & Google today. soo...what the f---? i've watched a shitload of videos explaining this stuff just in the past few days, and these are the best 3 (plus 1 technical) to help break it all down in simple visual representations (again, it's pretty complex s---, and these are about as simple of terms as it gets...if you're still lost after watching, then you're likely not alone): what is bitcoin: non-technical how it works: the most dumbed-down technical explanation of the blockchain: technical: how do i get in on this? it's really as simple as exchanging your "fiat" money (dollar/euro/etc... basically, legal tender) for cryptocurrency. to do this, i've began using coinbase.com (use this link if you're going to sign up -- we both get $10 once you make a $100 investment). Coinbase will need to link to your bank account, credit card, or paypal to make the exchange. Once linked, you basically trade real-world monies for these "online monies" (if this sounds scary, it is: the value of these cryptocurrencies are in high fluctuation right now, and it should be looked at as investing in a rocky stock market, rather than exchanging one money type for another). Coinbase allows you to input realworld monies, in exchange for Bitcoin, Ethereum, or Litecoin. Bitcoin & Ethereum are arguably the biggest 2 right now, and Litcoin is on the rise. However, that's where Coinbase's variety of cryptocurrency limitations end. To invest in any of the many others on the rise right now, you'll need to exchange your newly purchased Bitcoin for what you're looking to invest in. To do that, I've began using Bittrex.com. Essentially, you exchange your real-world money for Bitcoin via Coinbase. Then, you transfer your newly converted Bitcoin from your Coinbase account to your Bittrex account. From there, you can invest in pretty much all of the cryptocurrencies being developed right now. Think of Coinbase as a Currency Exchange at an airport. Think of Bitcoin as the USD. Think of Bittrex as E-Trade. And think of all of the cryptocurrencies on Bittrex as highly volatile stocks. update 1/18: i would recommend using Gemini (gemini.com) or GDAX (gdax.com) over Coinbase due to them having cheaper fees. I still use Bittrex as my main exchange, but use Binance as well. As of 12/16/17 Bittrex is no longer accepting new sign-ups until they update their infrastructure. Please use my Binance referral link if signing up there. mention me, rather than quoting this whole thing, if you have questions...I'm at a place where I think I can speak to some of the in-depth aspects to all of this. shameless plugs: BTC: 1ByE3HDdqCQZKj45zfnCMkqTf3qCB9anb8 ETH: 0x3B2287769566C2bBB1d6a98bc363160C177a6098 LTC: LRmCyDLA6qKN3z5xFj1qxfUKWQ8fPJTsSN
Jun 20, 2017 Unless you purchased or mined some bitcoins long ago you'll probably find it's not worthwhile for you, you can purchase rigs which need no manual intervention and will mine bitcoins all day long yet to make enough you need to spend enough in the first place. The higher the spec of rig or hardware your computer has, the better chance you have of making more bitcoins. If you bought bitcoins before they got popular you'll have made an amazing investment since a single bitcoin is worth around €2000 currently. The issue with them is they are highly unstable, one week they could be worth €2000 and the next they could drop severely, it's not a way to make quick money. Unless you already have a high spec computer I probably would pass, not to mention you'll need to leave your rig or computer on all month which most would find a drain on bills unless you get free electricity.
Jun 20, 2017 You can't say a currency is unstable while also saying there isn't any money to be made. The mining isn't where people are making money anymore. It's buying low and dumping high. @ThatDudeD12
Jun 20, 2017 Bitcoin mining really isn't that good of an idea, unless you plan on buying infastructure for it. Like, you can use your CPU/GPU but it's not efficient/no longer viable because it's competitive now. It's a bit hard to explain, but a quick google search and; The bitcoin mining is like, you get a share dependant on your how much power you offer sorta thing (again, hard to explain) This is why it's kind of not viable, because people have bitcoin mining farms set up, like entire rooms filled with hardware dedicated to mining them
Jun 20, 2017 He's kind of right though. Like it's difficult to say for certain whether you will profit. Ofc, if you buy like 5 coins at $3000 each (or whatever their worth) then sold them for $3200 say, a few months later... Yeah, you'll profit, but it's not some get rich/big investment scheme, it's much too risky. The value could plummet any day with internet policing a big issue atm... Theres so many other factors too, like selling bitcoins isn't a instnat transaction, when you put the coins up for sale, it may take a few days for the transaction to process and in that time price can still fluctuate. You can make a bit of money off Bitcoin for sure, but you have a much better chance at getting rich or a decent amount of money on stock markets. less risk.
Jun 20, 2017 The point is there is barely a way to break even, if you want to buy bitcoins then go ahead but at €2000 each thats not exactly a beginners investment by any means. Are you saying buying low is €2000 per bitcoin? And right now you won't be able to say with certainty that you'll even be able to sell because there could be a point where they just won't go up. I'm not saying they won't but be careful, it's a gamble and you can lose badly just like any investment.
Jun 20, 2017 from what I understand, most people don't buy whole bitcoins and usually buy fractions of bitcoins. so like $400 for 0.2785459345634905 bitcoins or some s--- like that
Jun 20, 2017 Rig = Infrastructure I'm not sure if you fully read into my post but I know a fair amount about bitcoins. Personally I feel if you're going to do it, invest in another cryptocurrency, sure bitcoins are big right now but theres always going to be a competitor and right now they will be cheaper with less risk factor. I just don't see average Joe buying €2000 of bitcoin just to make a few hundred because unless you plan to sit on them for a year or two it's really not worth it short terms.
Jun 20, 2017 Then I would say it's still not worth it and even more so, it's like saying go big or go home to cut it short. Like most money making investments you need to put in enough to make your return worthwhile. If you're happy with a couple hundred back then great, but you could probably earn it faster or you know, gamble. After all, Al investments are a gamble, it just depends on how confident you are, how well versed you are in the field.
Jun 20, 2017 Yeah I know, I'm just saying mining bitcoins with your rig these days is a s--- idea because of the infrastructure people have made as in like, entire rooms filled with rigs running custom Bitcoin ASIC chips. it's like 10,000x more efficient than your at home rig. And considering those rooms don't profit much, it's just not worth it
Jun 20, 2017 Id recommend looking into ethereum. If you invest in bitcoins now you'll have to wait years to make profit off them, or just wait for a drop.
Jun 20, 2017 I keep hearing ethereum is a good looking investment right now but that makes it seem so easy and that makes me weary
Jun 20, 2017 yeh at this point you're just going to be chasing your tail, trying to make back the money you invested into your rig, and if you're lucky enough to do that, then you'll have done it just in time to purchase more hardware....which will be just in time to try to make that money back again... there's actually mining calculators out there which will tell you how much you can expect to make back, depending on your hashing power (primarily driven by GPUs, as GPU = 100x's more efficient at mining than CPUs): https://www.cryptocompare.com/mining/calculator/btc?HashingPower=4730&HashingUnit=GH/s&PowerConsumption=1293&CostPerkWh=0.12 this, along with the fact that the mining market is saturated (and getting oversaturated), plus the fact that the difficulty of "solving" the hash self-adjusts (increases) every 2 weeks, means that it's pretty late in the game. EDIT: i stand corrected. @Mike Tyson just got into mining (january 2018) and seems to be doing well so far... i'll eat my words.
Jun 20, 2017 I have heard ethereum is looking good as an investment. keywords that it's looking good. I haven't looked into it, but i have heard they are in talks to have ethereum accepted by some banks/credit card companies or something along those lines... Basically, imo, it'll only be worth it when big name corporations say "yes we will accept crypto currency in place of cash" Because until then you have 2 options 1. find people that want crypto currency and sell/trade with them 2. use the darkweb to buy drugs and s--- like compared to my mastercard which works online for any kind of monetary transaction, crypto currencies are incredibly limited.
Jun 20, 2017 Duno if I agree with that. All cyptos can be converted to btc. And bitcoin acceptance is already on the rise. h---, there's bitcoin ATMs near me right now.
Jun 20, 2017 what the f--- i didn't know that? holy s---. well bitcoin is definitely looking a lot safer
Jun 20, 2017 In the US however, Congressmen are trying to introduce a law allowing the Federal Government to check in on your bitcoins and even seize it whenever you leave the country if you don't disclose how many bitcoins you have when leaving the country http://www.coindesk.com/forfeit-bitcoin-congressional-bill-draws-fire-border-check-rules/
Jun 20, 2017 Great info guys, especially @Slyk . Are there any pros or cons to linking Coinbase to your bank account vs. a credit card?
