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daveh
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I have looked at Wikipedia and I am even more confused but perhaps that is simply because I am in my mid-60s.

 

Can someone please briefly explain, without getting technical, what a bitcoin actually is?

 

I wouldn't buy any, as I prefer money in the bank or hard cash, but I have seen some for sale on ebay.

 

Is it all a con, perhaps?

 

 

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This is skimming over it but, effectively:

 

It's a digital cryptographic currency; a finite resource through a mathematical formulae consisting of 21 million 'bitcoins'. You 'mine' them using a rig consisting of specialised hardware, for instance, and once you break a 'block' in the 'chain' it is registered to you with a private key and stored in a digital 'wallet'. The mining itself is done through a 'distributed consensus system' (peer-to-peer) ensuring the validity of the 'blockchain' and entire bitcoin environment. You then use your private key for exchange purposes.

 

Check out https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Main_Page

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Thank you.

I have just read what you have written 3 times and I thus presume it is my advance years that are precluding me from understanding what it is about. I just cannot follow what you have stated but I appreciate you taking the time to do so,

My earlier visit to the Wikipedia page didn't help either.

 

I ask again: is it all a con?

Are there loads of people making a lot of money out there, somewhere, having taken advantage of the gullibility of others?

I can see money in my bank account but, if the relevant computer systems crash out there in the cyber world, what proof do people have that they had the bitcoins?

If I have a £10 banknote, the governor of the issuing bank promises to pay me (the bearer) the designated £10. If I have a bitcoin out there wherever "there" is, I can't walk into Tescos and buy my groceries with it and get change.

 

Maybe I was just born too early for this sort of thing !

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Selkie - thanks for that.

 

What is to stop you and I agreeing to pay each other, in the example, maybe 10 digital apples each "for services rendered"? Why not 1,000 or more digital apples instead?

We would then have them in the worldwide ledger and be able to use them to pay for goods and/or services provided by others signed up to the system.

 

I must be really dumb here because I still don't get it. I think it is all open to abuse and that some people are making loads of money whilst many others will lose loads when it all crashes.

I think I'll stick to real apples and real money for now although I do use a credit card to get loyalty points. However, with the credit card, I am usually being provided with the goods and/or services up front before I have to actually part with my apples or cash in payment.

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I suspect this exact same debate raged when somebody suggested little bits of paper with pictures, numbers and writing on them had "value" dependant upon the specifics of the writing, numbers and pictures, and could be successfully used to store and transfer wealth, replacing the previous cumbersome barter system.

 

Is it a con? I don't think any more, or less than any other currency system, which doesn't give it much to live up to.

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I think what Ghostie says is fairly accurate. I looked at this a couple of years ago with a view to mining them - which basically means you are outsourcing your hardware to a 3rd party to, for example, process medical research (Similar to the SETI project). They in turn pay you with fractions of bitcoins which you can then spend.

 

At some point in the last few years the algorithms for processing developed so that graphics processors rather than cpu's were the most efficient method and some of the heavy miners were building what were essentially high powered gaming pc's to mine bitcoins on. The currency has been volatile as it was a bandwagon for a while, and then there were security questions which caused fluctuations, but it sits outside any tax regime which has obvious attractions. Is it a con - no more than any currency is, maybe even a little less.

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That's the thing. I'd conjecture early adopters of 'mining' operations were in a better position; more blockchains, less people mining. Though the hardware now has jumped leaps and bounds in it's potential since companies are investing in the development of chips designed for the exact purpose of 'mining'.

 

With that said, one has to weigh up the cost of said equipment alongside the electricity consumed to how many blocks one will actually manage to crack. One way around this is as jambo6 points out is to join in a collective to pool resources in cracking blockchains and sharing the bounty. No absolute guarantee and income spread between x number of people.

 

It is interesting as an aside to watch/read governments attempt to regulate this new community opensource peer-to-peer currency. As is rightly pointed out it currently isn't 'controlled' nor 'governed' by any government and is backed entirely on a mathematical formula against market fluctuations; including right down to peaks/troughs of commodities required to create the hardware from which the 'mining' takes place.

 

@daveh, there is every possibility of starting ones own currency as long as there are adopters that recognise it and accept it as a form of payment. The Brixton Pound is a real world example.

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I've just been having a look on the web to see what the accounting world says about Bitcoins. HMRC are looking at accepting it as curency.

 

http://www.accountingweb.co.uk/article/hmrc-exploring-bitcoin-vat-treatment/552697

 

At least one accounting software provider gives you the option to accept it a payment, converting it to sterling for you at the point of sale.

 

http://support.quickfile.co.uk/bitcoin.htm

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  • 3 years later...

At the very beginning of this year 1 Bitcoin was worth around about £600. Two or three weeks ago it was valued at about £14,800 and since then it has dropped to £9,135.75 as I write. What will it do now? Will it stay down in value over Christmas and start going up in value again as we get into the new year or will it go back to what it was worth, possibly less, and stay there? Will the other cryptocurrencies stay with us, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, IOTA and the rest of them, and there are a good few more to be found that people are investing in and trading with, what does everybody think the result will be?

 

When will Tesco accept Bitcoin as payment in full, and the bill paid for by linking their till to your mobile phone?

Edited by George.
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