# [CNET] Bitcoin virtual heist shuts down bitfloor; $250k stolen.



## BlackOmega (Sep 5, 2012)

> Bitcoin exchange BitFloor has shut down operations while it investigates the theft of nearly a quarter million dollars' worth of the virtual currency.



source


Not sure if this is where I'm supposed to put this, but it is security related.


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## PVTCaboose1337 (Sep 5, 2012)




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## TheMailMan78 (Sep 5, 2012)

People still invest time into this Bitcoin scam?


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## cadaveca (Sep 5, 2012)

TheMailMan78 said:


> People still invest time into this Bitcoin scam?



Yes, and I don't see it going anywhere. Ever.


But not because of Bitmining with GPUs.


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## D007 (Sep 5, 2012)

lol... Anyone dealing with this currency should be prepared when it folds.. At this rate it's only a matter of time. It is insecure and constantly under hacker attack.. FAIL...


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## PVTCaboose1337 (Sep 6, 2012)

cadaveca said:


> Yes, and I don't see it going anywhere. Ever.
> 
> 
> But not because of Bitmining with GPUs.



Pfft.  GPU's are so 2011.  Bitcoin miners use FPGA machines now.  When the Butterfly Labs Jalapeno comes out, people will increase the hash rate of the bitcoin network by nearly 100x.  Bitcoin is going to CRASH when that happens.  At least until the difficulty is upped.


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## cadaveca (Sep 6, 2012)

PVTCaboose1337 said:


> Bitcoin is going to CRASH when that happens. At least until the difficulty is upped.



Silk Road will make sure it stays active.  



Crash = 



If you don't understand why, well...then you don't understand Bitcoin, IMHO.


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## Steevo (Sep 6, 2012)

I supposedly get 36 hours of cloud server time per week from Microsoft, not sure of the hardware, how much would even a decent 4 core machine net in 36 machine hours per week, assuming they don't catch on to my "app".

Isn't the power use still a waste for most people? Or are they still not aware that mom and dad pay for the stuff in the walls like water and power?


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## PVTCaboose1337 (Sep 6, 2012)

Steevo said:


> I supposedly get 36 hours of cloud server time per week from Microsoft, not sure of the hardware, how much would even a decent 4 core machine net in 36 machine hours per week, assuming they don't catch on to my "app".
> 
> Isn't the power use still a waste for most people? Or are they still not aware that mom and dad pay for the stuff in the walls like water and power?



At this point, unless you have an FPGA, you are losing money.  The difficultly is too high for miners with GPUs or CPUs to make money.  When I was living in dorms and electricity was free I was able to mine Bitcoins for no investment.  Made a ~$2k USD in a 3 month period when each BTC was $5 each.  Not bad for only having to replace a failed fan.  Makes no sense to do now with the FPGAs however.  

As far as I know, this is going to be one of the biggest uses of FPGAs for the commercial market (PS3 being big, as well as some cellphones!).  That is why I'm interested.  Too bad these purpose built machines are built for a dumb purpose!


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## AphexDreamer (Sep 6, 2012)

Bitcoin was great if you did it early on. I made $600 through it. Stopped for a while now though ever since I forgot to back up my last wallet after a reformat... I just stopped.


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## OneMoar (Sep 7, 2012)

and nothing of value was lost


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## TheMailMan78 (Sep 7, 2012)

cadaveca said:


> Silk Road will make sure it stays active.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Ha Silk Road. I haven't heard about that place in a while. Same level as 4chan right there only software related.


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## Easy Rhino (Sep 7, 2012)

bitcoin is retarded. gee, let's trade electricity for virtual currency. if you don't see the scam then ive got land on the moon to sell you. oh, and i don't accept bitcoin.


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## AphexDreamer (Sep 7, 2012)

Easy Rhino said:


> bitcoin is retarded. gee, let's trade electricity for virtual currency. if you don't see the scam then ive got land on the moon to sell you. oh, and i don't accept bitcoin.



Your still on this... Jeez. 

Did it not occur to you that maybe some people don't pay an electric bill, that maybe it is included in rent and that even still the conversion rate used to have its moments. 

Now though if your paying for electricity it probably doesn't have its moments and I don't know since I've stopped for a while now. 

But hey it paid off for me at the start.


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## Easy Rhino (Sep 7, 2012)

AphexDreamer said:


> some people don't pay an electric bill



do you really think a virtual currency based solely on the backs of people who don't pay electric is sustainable?


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## pantherx12 (Sep 7, 2012)

Easy Rhino said:


> bitcoin is retarded. gee, let's trade electricity for virtual currency. if you don't see the scam then ive got land on the moon to sell you. oh, and i don't accept bitcoin.



Actually even in the UK even when bit coins where only worth 1 usd each you can make yourself an extra £400 a year AFTER paying your electrical bills.

It's not really trading electricity is it, it's trading the use of your hardware to to do calculations, sure you don't know what they are for but it could be cheaper for X company to use distributed computing rather than you know, building a server farm them selves, paying employees to run said farm, running the air conditioning....


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## TheMailMan78 (Sep 7, 2012)

What are you calculating, and why? What numbers are you crunching and why? What "companies". For all you know you could be crunching for Al Qaeda.


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## pantherx12 (Sep 7, 2012)

TheMailMan78 said:


> What are you calculating, and why? What numbers are you crunching and why? What "companies". For all you know you could be crunching for Al Qaeda.



Could be! It's part of the fun!

It's kinda like paying taxes, sure we know where some of it goes, but the vast majority can go anywhere!


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## TheMailMan78 (Sep 7, 2012)

pantherx12 said:


> Could be! It's part of the fun!
> 
> It's kinda like paying taxes, sure we know where some of it goes, but the vast majority can go anywhere!



Yeah man you could be helping someone crack passwords to your bank accounts or credit cards. Yeah sounds like a great plan.


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## Easy Rhino (Sep 7, 2012)

pantherx12 said:


> Actually even in the UK even when bit coins where only worth 1 usd each you can make yourself an extra £400 a year AFTER paying your electrical bills.
> 
> It's not really trading electricity is it, it's trading the use of your hardware to to do calculations, sure you don't know what they are for but it could be cheaper for X company to use distributed computing rather than you know, building a server farm them selves, paying employees to run said farm, running the air conditioning....



you have to have a decently powerful computer to make that profit which means it is still a lose for the year since you probably paid around $800 bucks for it. Only after mining for 2 years would you start making any real profit. then of course, if everyone started mining coins the cost of electric would raise to meet the demand making it a moot point. bitcoins is a scam!


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## Solaris17 (Sep 7, 2012)

read the article still donjt understand. 

bit coins are kept in a bit wallet

he knows how much USD and bitcoin are in each persons wallet/account

how the fuck does someone steal bitcoins? I mean i guess i dont get it. were do they go? can you keep bitcoins on your PC and trade them on the site? how does he know what everyone has then if he can access their bitwallets? wouldnt the ability to save them on your PC totally undermine his record keeping?


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## Easy Rhino (Sep 7, 2012)

Solaris17 said:


> read the article still donjt understand.
> 
> bit coins are kept in a bit wallet
> 
> ...



ive created rhinoCoins. the more you pour into my paypal the more rhinoCoins i will give you. rhinoCoins are very valuable and can be traded back to me with "thanks"


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## Solaris17 (Sep 7, 2012)

Easy Rhino said:


> ive created rhinoCoins. the more you pour into my paypal the more rhinoCoins i will give you. rhinoCoins are very valuable and can be traded back to me with "thanks"



this sounds like a great idea! i cant wait to blindly burn 400kwh on it!


whats your PP?


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## TheMailMan78 (Sep 7, 2012)

Easy Rhino said:


> ive created rhinoCoins. the more you pour into my paypal the more rhinoCoins i will give you. rhinoCoins are very valuable and can be traded back to me with "thanks"



For every 15 rhinocoins Ill trade you 1 mailman.


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## TheLaughingMan (Sep 7, 2012)

I made actual money doing this for a few weeks, but it was too much hassel. The time I wasted finding the best exchange rate for real money was not worth the continually dropping return.

I thought Bitcoins died already when individuals could not like make money doing it.


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## TheMailMan78 (Sep 7, 2012)

The fact that none of you know what bitcoins really are or where the calculations go and for who makes me think this is gonna end in an FBI or Interpool raid eventually.


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## TheLaughingMan (Sep 7, 2012)

You can't raid someone for selling people dreams and BS. If that was the case, every advertising firm on the planet would be on their most wanted list.


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## Easy Rhino (Sep 7, 2012)

TheMailMan78 said:


> For every 15 rhinocoins Ill trade you 1 mailman.



hrm, but what does 1 mailman buy me? 15 rhinoCoins are good for several "thanks" which make you look cool on tpu. what is more valuable than that?


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## TheLaughingMan (Sep 7, 2012)

Easy Rhino said:


> hrm, but what does 1 mailman buy me? 15 rhinoCoins are good for several "thanks" which make you look cool on tpu. what is more valuable than that?



A custom TPU title which is work several thousand thanks.


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## cadaveca (Sep 7, 2012)

Solaris17 said:


> how the fuck does someone steal bitcoins?



Bitcoin works like Prime95. You run calculations in the hopes that you get a "prime" number. That "prime" number is then saved, in it's original hash, to your bit wallet. your client tells the main server "Hey, I found a prime, here is the first few numbers"...and you then get a bitcoin assigned to the "prime" you "found", or calculated.

Those numbers are then encoded into your "wallet", which forms a numerical ID when encrypted. That means your wallet is an encryption wrapper for your numerical coins.

Should you lose the numerical value that associates with that coin, you lose the coin(or you trade those numerical values in for real money). So, to hack bitcoin, you steal the info for those coins, then delete them out of the repository.

Since each wallet is encrypted, what's actually inside is safe, kinda, but find out the numerical value of the coins, then add thsoe values to your own wallet, and you've created couterfit bitcoins. Transfer them around and cash out before the original coin holder, and you've successfully ripped someone off.


Of course, it's 100% trackable, yes millions of $$$ worth of bitcoins have been stolen so far, and not a single person has been busted for it yet, that I know of.

It's funny, becuase i mentinoed long ago that all it would take to drop the value down form the like $25 a coin it used to be to near nothing woudl be a successful hack, and that did happen just three days after. The value of the coins dropped ot like $8 a peice, and has hovered around there since.

HOlding onto bitcoins is not a good idea...crunching for them, and immediately cashing out...OK, maybe a half-way decent way to generate some funds, if you do not pay for electricity.


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## Solaris17 (Sep 7, 2012)

Easy Rhino said:


> hrm, but what does 1 mailman buy me? 15 rhinoCoins are good for several "thanks" which make you look cool on tpu. what is more valuable than that?



looking cool is pretty valuable. but seriously. can you even make $$ I thought they were way harder to get now because GPUs we gobbling them up in the beginning? how do you steal them?


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## TheMailMan78 (Sep 7, 2012)

cadaveca said:


> Bitcoin works like Prime95. You run calculations in the hopes that you get a "prime" number. That "prime" number is then saved, in it's original hash, to your bit wallet. your client tells the main server "Hey, I found a prime, here is the first few numbers"...and you then get a bitcoin assigned to the "prime" you "found", or calculated.
> 
> Those numbers are then encoded into your "wallet", which forms a numerical ID when encrypted. That means your wallet is an encryption wrapper for your numerical coins.
> 
> ...



Ok fine but who is paying for these crunched "prime" numbers and why?


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## cadaveca (Sep 7, 2012)

TheMailMan78 said:


> Ok fine but who is paying for these crunched "prime" numbers and why?



Don't care, I don't "mine" bitcoins.

It's probably RSA codebreaking or similar shit. But really for all anyone knows, F@H or any other DC app could be just as nefarious.


I think I'll ask W1zz to change your name to Chicken Little.


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## Solaris17 (Sep 7, 2012)

TheMailMan78 said:


> Ok fine but who is paying for these crunched "prime" numbers and why?



i just realized you only live an hour from me (s. tampa) im going to come bother you soon.


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## Easy Rhino (Sep 7, 2012)

TheMailMan78 said:


> Ok fine but who is paying for these crunched "prime" numbers and why?



good question. i have written a program that builds out massive prime numbers so they can be used for deciphering an encyption algorithm. obviously my program only deals with numbers smaller than 128 bits. if you could get tens of thousands of people to give you a bunch of 512/1024 bit prime numbers you could use those for some pretty powerful decryption programs...


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## Solaris17 (Sep 7, 2012)

Easy Rhino said:


> good question. i have written a program that builds out massive prime numbers so they can be used for deciphering an encyption algorithm. obviously my program only deals with numbers smaller than 128 bits. if you could get tens of thousands of people to give you a bunch of 512/1024 bit prime numbers you could use those for some pretty powerful decryption programs...



its official bitcoins are a joke. hes actually having people build rainbow tables using distributed computing.


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## TheLaughingMan (Sep 7, 2012)

TheMailMan78 said:


> Ok fine but who is paying for these crunched "prime" numbers and why?



Original several people invested real money with the idea they would horde a bunch of the Bitcoins for themselves at the beginning. Then using their real money to create an exchange rate, try to push Bitcoins into being a universal digital currency. Basically trying to us $20,000 to engineer a new market space where they have $2 million dollars worth of the BS they are sell. Then when Bitcoin became independent of their financial backing, they cash out and make a huge profile. Issue was only private people joined into the idea and with no major corporate backer for the concept like ebay accepting Bitcoins or something of the like, the house of cards is crumbling.


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## TheMailMan78 (Sep 7, 2012)

Solaris17 said:


> i just realized you only live an hour from me (s. tampa) im going to come bother you soon.



Not sure you wanna do that good sir.  Ever seen "What about Bob"?


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## Solaris17 (Sep 7, 2012)

TheMailMan78 said:


> Not sure you wanna do that good sir.  Ever seen "What about Bob"?



oh imma getchya. Chief. Even if you dont tell me were to meet you or your address ill drive around crystal river screaming bit coins are SO AWESOME! and the first person to scream "your wrong" is you.


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## TheMailMan78 (Sep 7, 2012)

Solaris17 said:


> oh imma getchya. Chief. Even if you dont tell me were to meet you or your address ill drive around crystal river screaming bit coins are SO AWESOME! and the first person to scream "your wrong" is you.



You buy the beer you can say pretty much anything you want.


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## Solaris17 (Sep 7, 2012)

TheMailMan78 said:


> You buy the beer you can say pretty much anything you want.



I hope you like non filtered it aint beer if its not cloudy.


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## Easy Rhino (Sep 7, 2012)

Solaris17 said:


> oh imma getchya. Chief. Even if you dont tell me were to meet you or your address ill drive around crystal river screaming bit coins are SO AWESOME! and the first person to scream "your wrong" is you.



since mailman is a troll, more than likely he lives in Serbia and just tells people he lives in Florida so when they try to find him he can laugh.


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## TheMailMan78 (Sep 7, 2012)

Solaris17 said:


> I hope you like non filtered it aint beer if its not cloudy.



I like Bocks.


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## Nordic (Sep 7, 2012)

TheMailMan78 said:


> Ok fine but who is paying for these crunched "prime" numbers and why?



A single bitcoin is worth more than the electricity to create it right now, and through most of its short history. The value of bitcoin is solely based off of the perceived value that the market puts on it. It has little practical purpose other than a store of value. There will only ever be 21million bitcoins, making it a deflationary currency. So in theory the price should trend higher. The people who pay for bitcoins is mostly speculators practicing currency trading and market arbitrage.

Some people say bitcoin is like the internet before the browser. I am not that optimistic but I am going along with the ride trying to make a little extra money.

There are many other digital currencies like bitcoin. I expect many of them to have started just like easyrhinos joke rhino coins. My favorite is bbqcoins. All of the alternate digital currencies have fallen flat except litecoin.

For those who want to know a bit more about bitcoin here is an easy to read source of information. http://bitcoinmagazine.net/category/bitcoin-newbies/.
There is even a forbes contributor practically dedicated to bitcoin.


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## AphexDreamer (Sep 7, 2012)

TheMailMan78 said:


> The fact that none of you know what bitcoins really are or where the calculations go and for who makes me think this is gonna end in an FBI or Interpool raid eventually.



Its just calculation. Not for any particular thing. Your stuff just does a lot of hard math for the sake of doing it... cause hard math takes longer to do than easy math and is harder to crack.

What is mining?

Mining is the process of spending computation power to secure Bitcoin transactions against reversal and introducing new Bitcoins to the system.
Technically speaking, mining is the calculation of a hash of the a block header, which includes among other things a reference to the previous block, a hash of a set of transactions and a nonce. If the hash value is found to be less than the current target (which is inversely proportional to the difficulty), a new block is formed and the miner gets the newly generated Bitcoins (50 per block at current levels). If the hash is not less than the current target, a new nonce is tried, and a new hash is calculated. This is done millions of times per second by each miner.

Is mining used for some useful computation?

The computations done when mining are internal to Bitcoin and not related to any other distributed computing projects. They serve the purpose of securing the Bitcoin network, which is useful.

Is it not a waste of energy?

Spending energy on creating and securing a free monetary system is hardly a waste. Also, services necessary for the operation of currently widespread monetary systems, such as banks and credit card companies, also spend energy, arguably more than Bitcoin would.

Why don't we use calculations that are also useful for some other purpose?

To provide security for the Bitcoin network, the calculations involved need to have some very specific features. These features are incompatible with leveraging the computation for other purposes. 

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/FAQ#What_is_mining.3F


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## ShiBDiB (Sep 7, 2012)

AphexDreamer said:


> Its just calculation. Not for any particular thing. Your stuff just does a lot of hard math for the sake of doing it... cause hard math takes longer to do than easy math and is harder to crack.
> 
> What is mining?
> 
> ...




I call complete and absolute bullshit. It's either being used for something or its a currency backed by nothing at all, which in return isnt a currency and would already be dead.


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## TheMailMan78 (Sep 7, 2012)

ShiBDiB said:


> I call complete and absolute bullshit. It's either being used for something or its a currency backed by nothing at all, which in return isnt a currency and would already be dead.



Exactly. Those calculations are valuable to someone.


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## cadaveca (Sep 7, 2012)

ShiBDiB said:


> its a currency backed by nothing at all, which in return isnt a currency and would already be dead.



It's a currency backed by the illegal sale of drugs. Did you not know this?



The calculations are just BS to cover it.


The real backing is the drugs.


How come no one gets this?


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## Nordic (Sep 7, 2012)

cadaveca said:


> It's a currency backed by the illegal sale of drugs. Did you not know this?


The silk road helps keep prices up yes, but it isn't all there is. There is super heavy speculation. The makers of the silk road also have a less popular gun seller to gun buyer service also. There are other businesses if you will call them that also. Several people sell honey, and honey based candies. Alpaca socks and other alpaca products. People sell coding and related services for bitcoins. ... and so much more.
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade
Those are only the ones people added to the wiki.

Bitcoin is a very highly speculative market. The silk road is only the biggest business.


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## Kreij (Sep 7, 2012)

Bitcoins, Rhinocoins, Mailmen ... BAH !!

Everyone knows that the real money is in KreijKoins.
It's simple. You enter one of my contests and you get one KreijKoin.
If you win the contest, that coin is immediately coverted to the prize and it's sent to you.
If you don't win the contest you lose the KreijKoin and have to start over with the next contest.

Don't be fooled by cheap imitators. Get your KreijKoins whenever you can !!!


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## Solaris17 (Sep 8, 2012)

Kreij said:


> Bitcoins, Rhinocoins, Mailmen ... BAH !!
> 
> Everyone knows that the real money is in KreijKoins.
> It's simple. You enter one of my contests and you get one KreijKoin.
> ...



this sounds shifty i mean i want to keep my koins.


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## AphexDreamer (Sep 8, 2012)

Guys Bitcoins isn't even the first of its kind. Their have been similar things done in the past. 

DigiCash went bankrupt in 1998 and then sold their assets to Ecash which was bought out in 2002 by infospace. 

That is only a bit of history of just three other out of like 6 other attempted virtual currencies. I'm not trying to defend them but its other peoples jobs to find out if they are doing something sinister. Otherwise their really isn't any proof or past history suggesting it is in fact the work of something sinister.


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## Nordic (Sep 8, 2012)

It is no more a ponzi scheme then the US money system. At least there is a limit to how many bitcoins there will ever be. The government/federal reserve can print how ever much they want.

I don't want to come off too pro bitcoin. I do use bitcoin. I have made money from bitcoin. I am still making money from bitcoin. Whatever happens with it, I am only in it for the ride, and will never be in so far I could lose what I gained.


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## AphexDreamer (Sep 8, 2012)

james888 said:


> It is no more a ponzi scheme then the US money system. At least there is a limit to how many bitcoins there will ever be. The government/federal reserve can print how ever much they want.
> 
> I don't want to come off too pro bitcoin. I do use bitcoin. I have made money from bitcoin. I am still making money from bitcoin. Whatever happens with it, I am only in it for the ride, and will never be in so far I could lose what I gained.



I come from this exact same stance except I stopped a while back.


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## scaminatrix (Sep 8, 2012)

TheMailMan78 said:


> What are you calculating, and why? What numbers are you crunching and why? What "companies". For all you know you could be crunching for Al Qaeda.





pantherx12 said:


> Could be! It's part of the fun!
> 
> It's kinda like paying taxes, sure we know where some of it goes, but the vast majority can go anywhere!



I was just sitting here wondering what my bank does with my money. Oh yea, that's right, lending substantial amounts of money to Iraq for "oil farming equipment"


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## Nordic (Sep 8, 2012)

scaminatrix said:


> I was just sitting here wondering what my bank does with my money. Oh yea, that's right, lending substantial amounts of money to Iraq for "oil farming equipment"



You are your own bank with bitcoin


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## Kreij (Sep 8, 2012)

james888 said:


> You are your own bank with bitcoin



No at all. You are simply moving your money from a centralized banking authority to a decentralized one. For better or for worse.


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## Nordic (Sep 8, 2012)

Kreij said:


> No at all. You are simply moving your money from a centralized banking authority to a decentralized one. For better or for worse.



I keep my bitcoins in my wallet. I am the only person in control of those coins.


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## Steevo (Sep 11, 2012)

james888 said:


> I keep my bitcoins in my wallet. I am the only person in control of those coins.



Until it gets.

Shut down.
Stolen.
Devalued.


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## Nordic (Sep 11, 2012)

Steevo said:


> Until it gets.
> 
> Shut down.
> Stolen.
> Devalued.



It would be tough to shut down bitcoin because it is decentralized. The core developers could quit, but it new developers would take over. You would have to get everyone to stop using it. It would be much easier to devalue bitcoin. If bitcoin gets devalued enough, people will leave, and possible end bitcoin. Still though, I am in control of my bitcoins. Even if they arn't worth anything.

My bitcoins could get stolen, but so could my dollars. My dollars are FDIC insured, if in the bank. You could even go as far as a paper or brain wallet so that no one can hack you to steal your coins. It could be tough to remember all those characters so I suggest a paper wallet for very safe storage.

My dollers are being devalued every day, generally, with inflation. People are getting into bitcoin to escape their currencies. Especially in Europe.


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## Steevo (Sep 11, 2012)

But once everyone has them..........



Thing about precious metals and rocks, there are only so many and so much.


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## Nordic (Sep 11, 2012)

Steevo said:


> But once everyone has them..........
> 
> 
> 
> Thing about precious metals and rocks, there are only so many and so much.



Not sure what you are saying exactly. I think you are getting at how bitcoin is deflationary. There will only be 21million bitcoins, and there will only ever be so much. Many bitcoins will be lost, and or destroyed, making the number in circulation even less. My bitcoins, with time, should always increase in value. There are other factors that contribute to the price too, but the value should generally go up with time.


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