How To Create Your Own Cryptocurrency

mspohr writes "Since the code for Bitcoin is open source, we have seen the creation of various Bitcoin clones and enhancements (Litecoin, Dogecoin or Coinye West, anyone?... There are about 70 listed on this site.) This article explains the process of making your own. Thanks to Matt Corallo, a veteran Bitcoin developer, you can easily create your own at coingen.io. He has automated the process of modifying the source code to create custom currencies. Just enter in the name for your new currency, a logo image and set a few parameters (or accept the defaults), and you can have your own cryptocurrency. Source code and some customizations cost a bit extra. Once you have your own 'coin,' you just need to convince people that it is worth something."

Comments

There's one born every minute.

[Animats]

As I noted on Bitcontalk to someone who bought Bitcoins for over $1000 each, "Great! We need suckers like you to keep this thing going!".

Re:There's one born every minute.

[davidhoude]

I'm no sucker. I only buy coins named after celebrities.

Re:There's one born every minute.

[hguorbray]

reminds me of large scale IT projects I used to do at HP in the '90s/00s

'Do we have a cool name and T-Shirt for the project?'

was often the most important question

-I'm just sayin'

Re:There's one born every minute.

[cold fjord]

I'm no sucker. I only buy coins named after celebrities.

Are coins named after celebrity twins worth double or half?

Re:There's one born every minute.

[noh8rz10]

Ice Cream Coin

Re:There's one born every minute.

[bob_super]

50 shades of Coin, or 50 Coins of Gray?

because another worthless piece of data pushed by an exceptionally successful marketing campaign should be the reference.

Re:There's one born every minute.

[ClioCJS]

Be that as it may, there's not been a time when investing in bitcoin wouldn't beat the stock market over the course of any given 2 year peroid.

Re:There's one born every minute.

[buchner.johannes]

Lets ignore the point of the website -- creating similar source codes from a template -- for a moment.

The *business model of this website* is interesting. Could it be the future of revenue for developers? You set up your Software as a Service, and ask for payment in a quick and painless form (BitCoin, or what Mozilla tries to do with WebPayment). With the rise of electronic currencies that can handle small transactions without friction, is everything going to be online, and commercial?

All these "convert your image to another format" websites that are frontends for ImageMagick, the "video effect" websites, the themes for Facebook websites, promoting posts on Facebook, additional filter effects for Instagram, sounds, game levels, etc.
All these are useless to a poweruser, but neat fun for the average computer user, who could be milked 1 cent per person. There is large money to be made from their large number?

If so, the AGPL is more important than ever.

Re:There's one born every minute.

[Oligonicella]

I'd have to suspect you're cherry-picking the stocks. Got any hard information on that?

Re:There's one born every minute.

[ClioCJS]

I'm cherry picking the moment of the year, but for any 2 year combo since inception, I think I'm right.

What, you think I conduct a study and write up an abstract to leave a slashdot comment? Bitcoins were 8 cents. Now they're $920 or so. The stock market certainly didn't beat it since inception, regardless of cherry picked intervals.

Anyone whining that it's a bad investment just comes off as sour grapes. If I'd put $100 in back when I thought it was a cool thing, I could have paid off my house last year.

Re:There's one born every minute.

[Filter]

This seems weird to me, why would you bother to do that?

Re:There's one born every minute.

[slater86]

I'm no sucker. I only buy coins named after celebrities.

Like 50 Cent?

Re:There's one born every minute.

[flappinbooger]

50 shades of Coin, or 50 Coins of Gray?

because another worthless piece of data pushed by an exceptionally successful marketing campaign should be the reference.

where's the slashcoin?

Re:There's one born every minute.

[VortexCortex]

where's the slashcoin?

In the couch of parents' basements everywhere.

Re:There's one born every minute.

[Cryacin]

You can create your own currency at will! You don't need bit coins, you just need to print a stack of bills. Marketing groups do it all the time, frequent flyer miles have been doing it for years. At the end of the day, your currency/cryptocurrency/method of using clamshells for trade's value is still in the eye of the seller.

Re:There's one born every minute.

[ShaunC]

where's the slashcoin?

I think they're called dice instead of coin, but it's a gamble either way.

Re:There's one born every minute.

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

While such corporate scrip is almost invariably structured to feel more valuable than it in fact is (through a variety of expiration schemes, redemption limitations, odd allocation blocks that make getting worthwhile rewards require atypically heavy purchasing, limitations or outright restriction of transfer between customers, etc.) they really behave rather differently from currencies: They are directly pegged by the issuer to given values in a good or goods, and are frequently not transferable between 3rd parties, only 'earned' and 'redeemed' from the issuer.

Currencies, by contrast, tend not to be pegged to much (and even if they are some gold-bug special, they are pegged to a less-printable thing valued mostly as a medium of exchange and storage, not to a good or service) and are explicitly intended for transfer between third parties, with the issuer using them for seignorage and taxation but otherwise just replacing physical bills and coins as they wear out.

Re:There's one born every minute.

[Anonymous Coward]

You sound like an emotional trader.

Re:There's one born every minute.

[CapOblivious2010]

I'm no sucker. I only buy coins named after celebrities.

Like 50 Cent?

And Nickelback?

Re:There's one born every minute.

[Dunbal]

You're going to look like a fool when Bitcoins are worth $100,000 each. But then the guy who buys them for $100k is going to feel like a fool when they're back to $0.30.

Re:There's one born every minute.

[Dunbal]

50 Coins of Gray?

Sasha coins? Why not.

Re:There's one born every minute.

[NotQuiteReal]

I like the fact that US 1963 50 Cent pieces could buy you lunch in 1963, and in 2013 are will still worth lunch money.

A1965 or later 50 cent piece? not so much.

We'll see how BitCoin does over the next 50 years...

Re:There's one born every minute.

[guacamole]

Nothing wrong with paying $1000 per bitcoin if the intention is to spend them. Paying $1000 for a bitcoin as an investment is of course a dangerous idea.

Re:There's one born every minute.

[Flammon]

I don't know where the price of a Bitcoin will eventually settle to but there's one thing I do know for sure; the Bitcoin protocol and network isn't going to disappear anytime soon.

Re:There's one born every minute.

[MrNaz]

What was Bitcoin's value two years back from today? And which stock index, mutual fund or hell even stock has outperformed that?

Re:There's one born every minute.

[ClintJaysiyel]

It was like $30, and now it's $900. So the answer would be: Whatever stock went to 3000% of its original value. The stock market itself does not go up 3000% in 2 years.

Re:There's one born every minute.

[g0bshiTe]

My vote would have been for CmdrTacoin

Re:There's one born every minute.

[g0bshiTe]

I'll bite

Pennywise

Re:There's one born every minute.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm cherry picking the moment of the year, but for any 2 year combo since inception, I think I'm right.

A few weeks ago I went through the BTC value of the past 2 years and worked out that if you had bought bitcoins during the first 16 months and held on to them for 8 months, you would have made a 100% to 1000% profit, regardless of when you bought them during the first 16 months of that 24 month period (obviously this claim can't be made yet for bitcoins bought less than 8 months ago). Usually closer to 1000% than 100%, unless you sold at a particularly bad time.

It is in fact quite amazing to see such a regularly formed exponential increase in value over such a long period. The reason people don't trust it is exactly because it is exponential - people have a hard time believing exponential growth, in anything, can last. On top of that very short term (day to day) fluctuations can be large, which increases the nervousness of investors. Fact is that so far, it did last, and everyone who calls bitcoin a bad multi-year investment can be proven to have been as wrong as any investor can be with nothing more than a cursory look at a graph showing BTC/USD exchange rate.

Re:There's one born every minute.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, like the man who jumps from a 100-story skyscraper and after falling down 70 stories, he thinks that the fact that nothing bad happened yet proves that his jump is safe.

Here's a hint: The crash always happens at the end of the exponential growth. However, unlike falling from skyscrapers, you don't know when the crash will come. But it will come, inevitably. No exponential growth goes forever.

California Gold Rush

[Anonymous Coward]

The only ones making money are the ones selling the tools.

Re:California Gold Rush

[Ralph Wiggam]

No. The people who mined or bought bitcoin more than a year ago have made a shitload of money.

Re:California Gold Rush

[PopeRatzo]

So did the guy who bought the winning Lotto ticket last month.

Do you know why all those financial services commercials on the radio and TV always include "past performance is no predictor of future earnings"?

Re:California Gold Rush

[Ralph Wiggam]

What does that have to do with anything?

The parent post was "The only ones making money are the ones selling the tools."

Which is contradicted by the 3 people I know who have made tens of thousands of dollars off bitcoin and one friend who's made over $200,000. Like a thousand other financial instruments, the people making money are the ones that got in front of the herd.

Re:California Gold Rush

[Algae_94]

Since you want to be so strict about what the AC originally posted, he also titled his comment "California Gold Rush". I find it hard to believe you know 3 people that were involved in the California Gold Rush, and even harder to believe that they mined bitcoins during it.

Re:California Gold Rush

[PopeRatzo]

Which is contradicted by the 3 people I know who have made tens of thousands of dollars off bitcoin and one friend who's made over $200,000.

This is the tech geek version of "My mother makes $800 a day from her laptop computer. She just bought a new Corvette and you can do if you just learn this one weird trick. Let me show you how! http://bit.ly/barnum"

Like a thousand other financial instruments, the people making money are the ones that got in front of the herd.

See, the problem is built right into your statement: the herd has already passed.

Bitcoins might go up and they might go down. Just don't use any money to buy them that you can't afford to lose.

On the other hand, if you send me $25, I'll teach you my sure-fire method for picking horses in parimutuel races. I make $800 a day and I just bought a new Corvette!

I'm not joking (well, I am about the Corvette, but not about the horses). I can teach you how to bet horses, and while you might not get rich, you will almost certainly be more able to limit your losses than you will on Bitcoins at > $1000 a pop.

Re:California Gold Rush

[guacamole]

Actually the OP was correct. The OP is taking about people who are making money _now_. Those miners who started mining bitcoins a year ago have already realized their gains. Bitcoin mining today is a different kind of business.

Re:California Gold Rush

[JeffAtl]

Do you know why all those financial services commercials on the radio and TV always include "past performance is no predictor of future earnings"?

They have to for legal and liability reasons.

To be clear, I agree with your overall point.

Re:California Gold Rush

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, if they found somebody buying at "market value".

Spoiler alert: the months-long wait to get real money from your bitcoins at MtG:OX is because they can't actually afford to pay out to everyone who wants to cash out now. They (and other "exchanges") are pushing the price increases to keep the Ponzi scheme going. The exchanges are frauds.

Namecoin

[Anonymous Coward]

Look into it before all of you scoff at this.

Re:Namecoin

[Anonymous Coward]

Mine will be peencoin. With a pic of Rob Malda in a gimp suit wanking off his 2-incher.

Re:Namecoin

[Anonymous Coward]

At least that's more visually appealing than the goddamn Slashdot beta site.

Re:Namecoin

[Anonymous Coward]

or the mobile site.

wait 10 years into the mobile revolution to make a mobile site. when all phones render desktop sites better already. slashdot logic.

Re:Namecoin

[psyclone]

The /palm or palm pilot site was the best. (I actually read it on my palm III)

Version 1 cryptocurrencies...

[mlts]

These new coins are great, but IMHO, these are just version 1.x of the coins.

What would be interesting would be a coin that would combine the obvious market value of eGold, the anonymity of a Chaumian currency, with the popularity of BitCoin. Someone does this, it has a better chance of becoming a currency of choice.

Of course, this would mean that mining and stuff wouldn't be a part of the process, but it would mean that the currency has some real world backing.

Re:Version 1 cryptocurrencies...

[lgw]

Mining is the same as "transaction authentication". If you have a better idea for incenting people to authenticate transactions without a central server, the world would benefit.

Re:Version 1 cryptocurrencies...

[Anonymous Coward]

Mining is the same as "transaction authentication". If you have a better idea for incenting people to authenticate transactions without a central server, the world would benefit.

The world would benefit (reduced carbon footprint) if stupid bitcoiners realized that authenticating transactions without a central server is a solution looking for a problem, not a revolutionary idea that will transform the world.

Re:Version 1 cryptocurrencies...

[mysidia]

What would be interesting would be a coin that would combine the obvious market value of eGold, the anonymity of a Chaumian currency, with the popularity of BitCoin. Someone does this, it has a better chance of becoming a currency of choice.

How about a Meta cryptocurrency? It would be similar to Bitcoin -- but instead of merely having the right SHA-256 hash as proof of work; the proof of work would also have to include a transfer of Bitcoin tokens, maybe some other tokens in different cryptocurrencies simultaneously, and -- potentially, proof of an external transfer event (such as a transfer of precious metals rights)

Different tokens in the Meta cryptocurrency might have different requirements to transfer, and therefore -- might have different value.

You might refer to "1 Gold Meta Bitcoin" or "1 Bronze Meta Bitcoin+Litecoin"

Re:Version 1 cryptocurrencies...

[Vintermann]

Change "meta" to "mega" and that idea already exists.

There are a lot of cool potential uses for the technology, and the folks at bitcointalk have discussed most of them at length already... That's one reason if a new cryptocurrency appears today, it's almost certainly a get-rich-quick scheme by the inventors.

Yeah No.

[Anonymous Coward]

Bitcoin. The best pyramid scheme since I can't remember when.

Re:Yeah No.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh no it's not. Obamacare is..

Re:Yeah No.

[Anonymous Coward]

social security?

Re:Yeah No.

[SuricouRaven]

You need to look up the definition. A pyramid scheme is one in which early investors are paid back using funds collected from later investors - thus the scheme can provide a return only so long as it maintains exponential growth. As exponential growth isn't sustainable, at some point the scheme must collapse and a lot of people lose their investment. Usually the scheme administrator sees this moment coming, packs up all the money a week before and heads off to some country he can safely disappear in.

Re:Yeah No.

[DanielRavenNest]

Unless you consider PayPal and Western Union to be pyramid schemes, then no, neither is the Bitcoin Network. All three are in the business of moving money from one place to another. The Bitcoin Network happens to use it's own internal accounting unit, the "bitcoin" unit, which is transferable once purchased. But if you buy some bitcoin units in the US with dollars, and send them to someone in Poland who exchanges them to Zloty, it looks just like PayPal or Western Union: money goes in one end, money comes out the other. Oh, and the Bitcoin Network is distributed, and the fees are lower than the competition.

So if you think it's a pyramid scheme, what's the false promise that was made? Making lots of money because you were an early adopter or investor is normal for technology business.

Re: Yeah No.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you need to look up the dedicated itiob as well. A pyramid scheme usually involves selling things and recruiting others to do the same. The only way for any person (other than the top) to make a profit is to recruit more and more people. Hence the widening pyramid.

Tl;dr I think you were thinking of a ponzi scheme

Re:Yeah No.

[dj245]

Last I checked, $1 sent by any other money transfer service was still $1 once it got to the other side (ignoring fees, which are fixed and known in advance). With Bitcoin, that $1 might be worth $1.2 or $0.7 by the time it gets to the other side's bank account. That isn't a very smart way to transfer money around unless you have a strong need to hide your transaction from someone.

Re:Yeah No.

[Anonymous Coward]

That doesn't make Bitcoin a pyramid scam. At most it makes Bitcoin a very volatile unit of payment.

Kimcoin?

[IonOtter]

Once Kim Dotcom gets that whole mess worked out with the US DOJ, he can make his own cryptocurrency.

And depending on how he ties it to his services, I bet people will use it and/or find it valuable.

Re:Kimcoin?

[santiago]

Sure you mean Kim Dotcoin, yes?

Re:Kimcoin?

[Ralph Wiggam]

Considering that Mega has bombed so badly that Kim was recently forced to resign as Director, I don't think the demand for his services is large enough to warrant a new currency.

Is he really a "sucker"?

[Anonymous Coward]

What happens when Bitcoin goes over $2000? Or what happens when it goes over $50,000? Or what happens when it goes over $200,000? And what if that all happens within the next year?

That "sucker" you were referring to could very well be a very astute investor.

Until sufficient time has passed, you won't know for sure the long-term value of that investment. While it could be a very poor one, it could also turn out to be a very, very lucrative one. Only time will tell, my friend. Only time will tell.

Re:Is he really a "sucker"?

[PvtVoid]

What happens when Bitcoin goes over $2000? Or what happens when it goes over $50,000? Or what happens when it goes over $200,000? [...] Only time will tell, my friend. Only time will tell.

Good luck with that.

Re:Is he really a "sucker"?

[Luckyo]

"Long term value" usually means over several years. Not what happens in a year.

Re:Is he really a "sucker"?

[Anonymous Coward]

That "sucker" you were referring to could very well be a very lucky gambler.

FTFY

Re: Is he really a "sucker"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, is he really sucker if he already spent it, and VISA skimmed 0% of that commerce?

Re:Is he really a "sucker"?

[z0idberg]

Which part of that suggests that GPs $1000 "sucker" can't make a short-term profit and get out by selling at the right time?

An investor who bought in at $500 and sold at $1000 isn't a sucker and it isn't necessarily dumb luck either. You don't have to believe in the underlying principles or long term prospects of a company/stock/currency/anything to be able to make a quick buck off it off the back of short term investor behavior or market conditions.

Re:Is he really a "sucker"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. What utter tripe that so called paper is.

Re:Is he really a "sucker"?

[SuricouRaven]

Bitcoin has many huge flaws as a currency, as the paper points out. I can see it finding a niche as a payment service for those distrustful of conventional finance. That's quite a lot of people right now.

Re:Is he really a "sucker"?

[Anonymous Coward]

> That "sucker" you were referring to could very well be a very astute investor.

You mean a lucky gambler. There's no rational basis for predicting the success of a fictional currency. All currencies fail and most fiat currencies fail quicker than proxies.

Re:Is he really a "sucker"?

[Anonymous Coward]

So you believe bitcoin will hit $200,000 this year? Are you serious or just trolling?

Re:Is he really a "sucker"?

[flappinbooger]

Bitcoin seems to be not a whole LOT more than a novelty* in the US but people in non-USA countries are using it for money and protection of wealth. That's what driving the dollar exchange rate up.

And, at $1000 a bitcoin, or $50000 per coin, I imagine people won't be buying whole "coins" but fractional amounts.

*aside from silk road equivalents.

Re:Is he really a "sucker"?

[Applehu Akbar]

When Bitcoin goes over $2000 yes, you'll be able to buy any tulip bulb you want.

Re:Is he really a "sucker"?

[Anonymous Coward]

What happens when Bitcoin goes over $2000? Or what happens when it goes over $50,000? Or what happens when it goes over $200,000?

What happens when the rate spikes is that speculators sell coins and run off with the cash, which causes the exchange rate to fall, and reduces the liquidity in the market as well. To prevent a "run" on an exchange, they set hard limits on how much real cash you can take out of the market within a certain timespan. Usually this limit will fluctuate based on how much real cash the exchange has available, the volume of trading, and whether the trend is to buy in or cash out.

So when the value hits $200k, a ton of people are going to try and dump their coins, which will make the value plummet. If it falls far enough and/or if confidence in the coin evaporates, this trend will continue until the exchanges either run out of cash assets, or decide to take whatever cash they have left and disappear in the middle of the night like those guys over in China did. Pro-Coin fanboys will try to claim that as the value decreases people will stop selling, and this might be true, but it's far more likely to trigger a panic where everyone sells as much as they can, as fast as they can, until it's worth so little it's not worth the time spent trying to cash them any more.

Re:Is he really a "sucker"?

[tftp]

That is very true. A wise speculator can make money on any asset, as long as the asset's price is moving. It was tulip bulbs, and it was shares, and it was metals, and it was houses... and now it is just long numbers.

It's just important to note that being money and being an object of speculation are two goals that are diametrically opposite. So far BTC is an excellent object of speculation - and the better it becomes at that, the less attractive it becomes as money. The BTC picked the speculation route, and as result it is now a bubble. "Buy now, the prices are guaranteed to grow into millions per coin, the prococol is designed for that!"

Re:Is he really a "sucker"?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Is suckertude really determined by the eventual outcome, or by the quality of the evaluation of the action at the time it is taken?

As perhaps the clearest extreme example, buying lottery tickets is an activity well known to have a negative expected value. However, if suckertude is determined by outcome, out of all the people who buy a ticket in a given lottery, an identical action, one or two will be massively non-suckers, a modest number will be slightly non-suckers, and the rest will be suckers. Does it make sense for suckerdom to be allocated according to a statistical process totally unconnected to the participants' behavior (aside from their initial choice to participate)?

Re:Is he really a "sucker"?

[Anonymous Coward]

A "wise speculator" stays the hell away from "assets" which have no intrinsic value and whose valuation depends entirely upon the actions of fools. If you plan to gamble on the markets, there are plenty of opportunities which aren't as risky as cryptocurrencies. They're "assets" whose value could collapse to its natural value -- zero -- at any time, without any warning, for no particular reason.

At least during the classic tulip runup, what was being bought and sold was an actual scarce resource -- beautiful tulip bulbs which didn't breed true because their color patterns were a product of infection by tulip mosaic virus. These tulip bulbs had real world value, because real end users of tulips would pay more for uniquely beautiful flowers. If I understand things correctly part of the speculation was based on futures trading, essentially gambling that particular growers would be able to outdo themselves in the next crop. The speculation did of course reach absurd levels, but at least it resulted from real demand for a real thing.

Bitcoiners have decided to skip the real product, have imposed a completely artificial and arbitrary scarcity on the virtual product (one which wrecks its utility as money, which is supposedly the end goal of the project), and have made the production of coins flagrantly wasteful of energy, setting piles of real resources on fire (and thereby polluting the atmosphere) for no reason beyond pretending that they're suddenly super rich. Each bitcoin therefore has negative real world value, not positive, and yet they're being traded as if they were precious metals. It's another tulip bubble but at warp speed, with missing steps, and far more delusional "investors".

Besides all that, it's also really hard to execute trades quickly (see: the infamous Mt. Gox lag that mysteriously kicks in whenever the price begins cratering) or get real currency out of the bitcoin marketplace. There is an enormous risk of losing your shirt even if you make nominally "correct" decisions about when to buy and sell.

Re:Is he really a "sucker"?

[mysidia]

So when the value hits $200k, a ton of people are going to try and dump their coins

That may be.... if Bitcoins hit $200,000, and I had some; I might start looking for someone who will let me buy a CFD, for an increase in value of US Dollars, with respect to Bitcoins. In other words --- rather than trying to liquidate $200K at once.... look towards opening suitable contracts to hedge out the price risk, and then sell the Bitcoins over time, before the contract expires.

Re:Is he really a "sucker"?

[dk20]

True in theory, but not in reality. How many "internet companies" are trading at high multiples? What is their "intrinsic value" and why are the multiple so high?

Take a look at companies you think have "intrinsic value" and note their relative low PE's. Now take a few you think dont have intrinsic value and the corresponding high PE's. Why do people pay that PE premium?

For example, here is the PE for facebook: 121.08

And for reference:
Google 32.71
Apple 13.63


How much advertising can you sell?

Somewhat correct about Tulips, but it was more a "economic bubble" something like the internet bubble in the early 2000's or the more recent "housing bubble"

Re:Is he really a "sucker"?

[dk20]

What happens when China bans it and the "price" tumbles like they did in early Dec?

What happens when all the "Learn FX trading now" guys move over from real FX to "BitFX" and saturate the market with potential "million dollar traders"?

Wont be long before its "played out" and everyone moves on to the next big thing.

Re:Is he really a "sucker"?

[tftp]

I can see it finding a niche as a payment service for those distrustful of conventional finance. That's quite a lot of people right now.

I understand that there are people (not too many, but some) that do not trust US banks, or Federal Reserve, or the US Government. However what in the world would make them trust Mt. Gox instead?

Re:Is he really a "sucker"?

[Dunbal]

a very astute investor.

Speculator. Investment is something else entirely. You have something at the end of the day when you are investing, there is simply no way to lose your capital. Risk is kept to a minimum. Speculation on the other hand is, well, roll the dice again let's see what happens... The difference is subtle - so subtle that most people don't get it. But it's the difference between buying a piece of land or a barrel of crude oil versus buying, well - Bitcoin... It doesn't matter if you made millions with bitcoin - you did it by speculating rather than rather than investing? Why? Because not a person on earth can tell you or me why exactly bitcoin is the price that it is today, or the price it will be next week. It's extraordinarily volatile, no one is sure how many bitcoins there actually are, no one is sure how many bitcoins to charge for a given product (why should I sell you something for 1 bitcoin today that you might have to pay 2 bitcoin for tomorrow?), etc. Until someone can work out that bitcoin is not responding simply to low volume, DDOS attacks on the exchanges, and price manipulation by a few wealthy people, it's just gambling plain and simple.

There's nothing wrong with gambling if you're into that sort of thing, but you have to be aware that it is very possible that suddenly end up with nothing at all. Like the guy who sold his house for one tulip, right before the tulip market crashed (forever).

Re:Is he really a "sucker"?

[z0idberg]

Speculator. Investment is something else entirely. You have something at the end of the day when you are investing, there is simply no way to lose your capital. Risk is kept to a minimum. Speculation on the other hand is, well, roll the dice again let's see what happens... The difference is subtle - so subtle that most people don't get it. But it's the difference between buying a piece of land or a barrel of crude oil versus buying, well - Bitcoin... It doesn't matter if you made millions with bitcoin - you did it by speculating rather than rather than investing? Why? Because not a person on earth can tell you or me why exactly bitcoin is the price that it is today, or the price it will be next week. It's extraordinarily volatile, no one is sure how many bitcoins there actually are, no one is sure how many bitcoins to charge for a given product (why should I sell you something for 1 bitcoin today that you might have to pay 2 bitcoin for tomorrow?), etc. Until someone can work out that bitcoin is not responding simply to low volume, DDOS attacks on the exchanges, and price manipulation by a few wealthy people, it's just gambling plain and simple. There's nothing wrong with gambling if you're into that sort of thing, but you have to be aware that it is very possible that suddenly end up with nothing at all. Like the guy who sold his house for one tulip, right before the tulip market crashed (forever).

A tulip is a "something", and no matter what the "something" is that you buy, you can most definitely lose your capital if the value of that something disappears to virtually nothing. Your entire argument is shot down by your last sentence.

Re:Is he really a "sucker"?

[zsmooth]

You don't have to trust Mt. Gox to use Bitcoin.

Re:Is he really a "sucker"?

[drooling-dog]

> What happens when Bitcoin goes over $X?

The basic problem is that this runup in perceived value is due to the prospect of it becoming an accepted currency, but it can never achieve that so long as its value isn't stable. Who will exchange X bitcoins for Y stuff if they think it will buy 2Y tomorrow or next week?

Re:Is he really a "sucker"?

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate that problem. I haven't bought a computer since 1995 because every time I shop around, I always hear about a <blink>new and better one</blink> coming out really soon.

Re:Is he really a "sucker"?

[tftp]

You have to trust some exchange. Otherwise where are you going to get your BTC, and how are you going to spend it? Mining today is not for common people. On the spending side, there are a few businesses that take BTC - but they rarely sell what you need (usually it's services that cost very little to provide, like hosting.)

Trusting the exchange means that you need to send your country's currency to a faraway country. The exchange there operates without any oversight, and it is only due to goodness of their heart that they send some BTC into your wallet. The same happens in the opposite direction: you send them your BTC, and in return, at some later time (soon or not so soon) they will send you the national currency - that you may have to explain to your country's tax authorities.

The exchanges are not immune from more common financial difficulties - here is one story as an example. Exchanges are not insured, and they can crash and burn at any time. Sending money to them always carries a high risk of never seeing the money again. This is far less of a concern with a bank, where you have a contract and where your money's path is traceable.

Note that both conversions (to and from BTC) cost you money; and the BTC transfers themselves also cost money. BTC was always claiming that fees are optional and symbolic, but none of that appears to be true today, as mining turned into a for-profit business with hefty investments and running expenses. In the end, the service (BTC or bank) will cost you something because the work has to be done, somewhere and by someone, and the BTC not a network of close friends anymore. People are in it for money, and guess whose pockets that money is supposed to come from?

Re:Is he really a "sucker"?

[goose-incarnated]

I hate that problem. I haven't bought a computer since 1995 because every time I shop around, I always hear about a <blink>new and better one</blink> coming out really soon.

You need the computer but you can wait for the bitcoins

Re:Is he really a "sucker"?

[rioki]

Although I would never invest in any of the mentioned companies (stock value above real value), they retain intrinsic value. For example Google owns land, hardware and employs thousands of people. This can either be sold or contracted and are means of production. By owning stock you own a little bit of this.

If you trade stock for differences in market value, then go ahead and trace BTC, it makes no difference. (And I think you are a fool.) The real advantage of owning stock is that inflation is almost meaning less and you get a slice of the companies real profits in the form of dividends. Value based investment has paid off well in the past and I am looking forward to retiring with 40.

Re:Is he really a "sucker"?

[Dunbal]

Only if you're pedantic. By all means, keep "investing".

Re:Is he really a "sucker"?

[g0bshiTe]

What about the guy that purchase $25 dollars worth of them 5 years ago and just remembered and bought a $250k house with that $25 investment.

Re:Is he really a "sucker"?

[Anonymous Coward]

The only "flaw" that the paper attempts to point out is actually a feature of Bitcoin: it's deflationary nature.

Re:Is he really a "sucker"?

[Cigarra]

That paper is so bad that no journal would publish it.

Re:Is he really a "sucker"?

[Anonymous Coward]

A "wise investor" stays the hell away from "assets" which have no intrinsic value and whose valuation depends entirely upon the actions of fools. If you plan to gamble on the markets, there are plenty of opportunities which aren't as risky as cryptocurrencies. They're "assets" whose value could collapse to its natural value -- zero -- at any time, without any warning, for no particular reason.

FTFY.

In speculation, high risk means a potential for high rewards. Low risk makes the commodity interesting for long term investment, but useless for short term speculation.

If the person who paid 1000 USD for their bitcoins did so at the right time, they made 20% profit in 1-2 days time, which is a big win by any standard. Funny how the anti-cryptocoin attitude on slashdot goes so far that it makes people ignore/forget basic maths.

Re:Is he really a "sucker"?

[Anonymous Coward]

MtGox was originally a Magic the Gathering card trading site (hence "MtGox" for "Magic The Gathering Online eXchange"), and started as such in 2009. I haven't looked at the game for over a decade but I used to play it in the 90s, and when I sold my cards around 94 or 95, some of them were worth several hundred USD, with complete collections (of a single release, by 2009 there must haver been dozens of them) going for 5 figure sums. Their trading volumes probably weren't as high as they are now with bitcoins even though the game was massively popular, but they surely had enough even back then to provide an early retirement for quite a few owners/administrators. The fact that they never did makes them at least as trustworthy as any democratically elected government, who royally screw their subjects every 4-5 years as a matter of principle (and usually a lot more often as a matter of practice).

Trust is earned, not promised, deduced or proven. They earned it. People trust MtGox for the same reason as people trust Amazon or any other web shop with their money: because they deliver on their promises.

Re:Is he really a "sucker"?

[Anonymous Coward]

and the BTC transfers themselves also cost money [bitcointalk.org].

This is either uninformed, or - more likely - FUD. In any case it is entirely false. The only time I have ever paid tx fees was when I had to be sure the transaction would be included in the next block. This is only when I exchange my bitcoins for real money in which case I use a site that requires the BTC to be transferred within 20 minutes after making the reservation. The tx fee in those transactions is very small compared to the total amount (my bank charges more for exchanging USD to Euro for example). Whenever I want to transfer BTC to or from an exchange, I do not pay any tx fees, and the transaction will take maybe 30 minutes to an hour, instead of 5 minutes, which is perfectly acceptable.

I'd say it is working exactly as intended. If you want fast service, you pay for it, if you can live with the average service level, you don't pay.

Re:Is he really a "sucker"?

[tftp]

The fact that they never did makes them at least as trustworthy as any democratically elected government

Unfortunately, people, companies, and governments change over time. You cannot trust any of them, long term. Even if you are looking at a very short term, you still can be screwed. A person may lose all his money overnight and become unable to pay you; a company may bet on a wrong horse, and one fine morning a competitor releases a product that turns the company into a history record. A government can be elected and turn on a dime.

What you need to look for is braking forces. What stops a man from declaring a bankruptcy? Very little; he only loses his pride and some of his credit rating. What stops a company from stopping outgoing payments? The company may be seriously damaged, or destroyed - but the owners will be just fine. What stops the government from devaluing the currency? The inevitable prospect of massive riots, loss of control, and ultimately of defenestration of the minister of finances. The latter is a serious counterbalance to frivolous ideas of playing with nation's money. But a BTC exchange risks nothing - a new one can be put up in a day, by the same people.

There is also a question of competence. Bankers generally get good financial education, and get trained at their job, so that they are not as likely to sign up for an obvious fraud. (That still happens, banks are first in every bubble.) However how competent are BTC exchange operators? Where do they store the money until the transaction clears? How secure is that deposit? Is it sufficiently insured? Is the whole exchange backed up, and geographically distributed, to ensure nonstop operation, or at least atomic transactions? There are many questions, and BTC exchanges are known to manipulate availability of exchanging BTC into cash as it suits the current moment.

Re:Is he really a "sucker"?

[tftp]

This is either uninformed, or - more likely - FUD. In any case it is entirely false.

This is something you have to debate at bitcointalk.org, per the link that I provided, directly with people who made those statements. I only read them.

But my personal experience is not favorable. I obtained some time ago a fraction of a BTC for playing with the software. I cannot transfer it anywhere because the sum is too small, and if I pay the transfer fee it will amount to the entire sum that I want to transfer (so nothing will arrive at the destination.) This is not a usable feature of money. This is more typical for an investment instrument.

To compare, regular cash has no payment fees, can be paid in the minimum denomination, and the payment is instant. I do not need to wait 30 minutes to an hour for my c/c payment to go through. I understand that BTC is operating on a different principle; but it does not make that principle more convenient than centralized banking and centralized payment processors. As a customer, I do not want to care for millions of nodes that must see my transaction. As a customer, I want the full attention of the payment system. Additionally, I do not want to share the details of my payment with the entire world.

Re:Is he really a "sucker"?

[Flere Imsaho]

I'm one of the "suckers" that bought an ASIC miner. I've already cashed up enough BTC to cover the costs of the miner. I'm keeping the rest I earn as a long term speculative investment. As the next wave of more efficient miners hit the market my miner will probably be useless, but I still got something for nothing, and potentially it could end up being a lot of something.

Re:Is he really a "sucker"?

[rdnetto]

On page 10, the inability to have reserve banking is discussed. Could you explain why reserve banking is useful? As far as I can tell, it simply inflates the perceived amount of money present in the system beyond that actually present, introducing a potential failure mode (a bank run).

I'm in the process of making a coin!

[chris200x9]

I'm in the process of making a coin! I named it HLC or HighlanderCoin, it's halves every 500000 and has an initial block value of 0.000001 HLC. Best part is, there can be only 1!

Re:I'm in the process of making a coin!

[R3d M3rcury]

I'm going to make my own currency! With Blackjack! And Hookers!

Re:I'm in the process of making a coin!

[Anonymous Coward]

you know what, screw the currency!

Re:I'm in the process of making a coin!

[Anonymous Coward]

and screw the blackjack!

Re:I'm in the process of making a coin!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm going to make my own currency! With Blackjack! And Hookers!

you know what, screw the currency!

and screw the blackjack!

then screw the hookers!

Re:I'm in the process of making a coin!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah screw the whole thing!

Re:I'm in the process of making a coin!

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one don't want to have to carry 100,000,000 hookers to the bank to exchange for one blackjack. It'll do my back in.

Re:I'm in the process of making a coin!

[capebretonsux]

It's been done: http://www.coinwarz.com/cryptocurrency/coins/casinocoin

(Not my creation, of course)

It's a nice idea.

[gallondr00nk]

I imagine for most people in the future, the point of crypto currency is not to speculate or profit from mining, but to facilitate a sort of cash analogue online. Having a load of different currencies might introduce an element of stability which is lacking in Bitcoin.

It might be interesting to see these new currencies made completely fiat. Mining seems to just waste energy, since the scarcity (unlike say, gold) doesn't actually stabilise the price, as Bitcoin has demonstated.

I imagine the problem then is converting the myriad of cryptocurrencies back into "hard" money.

Re:It's a nice idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

We already have fiat currencies which act like cash online: USD, EUR, GBP, JPY, CHF, ...

The can all be converted into "hard" money at various online bullion dealerships.

Re:It's a nice idea.

[Velex]

The problem it solves as I see it is being able to pay someone else without needing them to be a merchant or needing to send a check or money order in the mail or needing to hit them up at their place and give them some USD.

Paypal attempts to solve the problem, but as we all know here on /. is not to be trusted.

Bit/doge/prime/lite/whatevercoin have almost the same characteristics as gold. Those calling them a pyramid scheme might as well call gold a pyramid scheme. It's not. It's simply a scarce resource with a nearly finite supply.

I'm sure the first man with a gold vein in the back of his cave got accused of starting a pyramid scheme, too, when folks started switching from barter or seashells or what have you to gold.

Getting back on topic, I've been looking into cryptocurrency more lately. I just got my first 500 DOGE (no, it's not worth much of jack shit other than me mucking around and getting familiar with the practical aspects) the other day. Looking around exchanges and the other currencies supported by my mining pool, I found myself scratching my head at the idea that there are SO MANY different cryptocurrencies.

I think what it'll come down to is that a currency that's new will remain worthless because mining is trivial. My 500 DOGE won't even get me an appreciable fraction of a bitcoin. Why? Bitcoins are much, much harder to mine. I suppose it boils down to the question of why we value gold and silver so highly, then copper to an extent, but not aluminium or iron. (Assuming all metalurgical aspects being equal, which they aren't obviously.)

Also one thing that's constantly discussed on dogecoin's freenode channel is that as the price of BTC continues to rise, the price of DOGE declines. What's really happening is that the price of DOGE is remaining steady in terms of USD, but most (all?) exchanges will only exchange BTC or LTC to USD, so if I want to get my penny's worth of DOGE, I'd need to convert to BTC first.

Re:It's a nice idea.

[DanielRavenNest]

> Mining seems to just waste energy,

No, mining is "proof-of-work" to enable reaching consensus on the order of transactions. This is necessary to prevent spending a balance multiple times. Only the first spending event counts. It is done by searching for hard to find hashes for a block of transactions + the hash of the previous block + a random number you insert until you meet the hard-to-meet condition (a low hash value). Using the hash of the previous block as part of the data for the current block puts the blocks in sequence, so you can know the order of transaction events. Attempting to change any block contents, such as altering transaction values or adding another transaction will change the hash, so it no longer matches the value stored in the next block. If you attempt to find a matching hash for your altered block, now the second block will no longer match the value in the third block. You end up having to find hashes for every block after the altered one up to the last one.

By making finding hashes so hard that the entire mining network can only succeed every ten minutes, you force everyone to collaborate on the search, leaving no computing power to generate an alternate history of transactions. The longest chain of blocks had the most work put into it, and thus represents the consensus of events.

If you can figure out another way to ensure digital transaction data isn't altered, great, you can become famous. Nakamoto's big invention is chaining hashes + requiring work to find the hashes, so that altering the data would require even more work. As long as a majority of the network is honest, a hacker can never catch up.

Re:It's a nice idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

>Mining seems to just waste energy, since the scarcity (unlike say, gold) doesn't actually stabilise the price, as Bitcoin has demonstated.
Gold is rare but is being mined by the hundreds of tons per year. (This could change obviously.) Its price is more stable than bitcoin because it is so much more liquid, with innumerable traders and billions of dollars worth traded a day in physical or paper gold. The big currencies are even more liquid and stable, with over a trillion dollar's worth of volume traded a day.

The more time passes, the more volume bitcoin is used for trade, the less volatile its price will be.

Re:It's a nice idea.

[complete loony]

You want price stability? Remove mining for new coins all together. Though you can keep transaction fee based mining I suppose.

Create a trusted "mint" key that is allowed to create transactions with no inputs, or no outputs. Have this mint key in the possession of an institution with a strong reputation.

The mint should be forced to buy and sell coins at fixed prices denominated in a specific currency, with say a 3% split on transactions and perhaps a minimum transaction size. eg they sell coins @$1.03 USD, and buy @$0.97 USD.

The finances of the mint should be audited with their usual SEC filings or similar financial regulations. The log of the mint's creations and deletions of coins is public and can be audited by anyone.

Everything else can be absolutely identical to bitcoin.

Re:It's a nice idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

> Mining seems to just waste energy,

No, mining is "proof-of-work" to enable reaching consensus on the order of transactions. This is necessary to prevent spending a balance multiple times.

In other words, mining wastes energy. We have a fielded and well-proven (~50 years, I think!) system which prevents spending a balance multiple times without needing to burn gigawatts of power on "proof-of-work". You may have heard of it; it's implemented by all conventional banks. It's called a "database" running on a "server" in a "secure location". Despite all the problems with banking deregulation related scandals in recent years, one thing none of them ever do is fuck with account balances, permit double spending, etc.

The only people who define ludicrously wasteful "mining" as a necessary evil are libertarian cultists who hate all forms of central authority. Normal, sane people see cybercurrency "mining" for what it is -- a total loss.

Re:It's a nice idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

> The more time passes, the more volume bitcoin is used for trade, the less volatile its price will be.

The difficulty of mining gold has gone down and scarcity is only challenged when it starts outpacing the deflation. Usually resulting in a reduction in scarcity as mining starts anew. Bitcoin is only inflationary. The stabilizing effect of bitcoin mining is a bad bet.

Re:It's a nice idea.

[justthinkit]

Bit/doge/prime/lite/whatevercoin have almost the same characteristics as gold. Those calling them a pyramid scheme might as well call gold a pyramid scheme. It's not. It's simply a scarce resource with a nearly finite supply.

No. BTC is a scarce resource that has no value. While gold is a scarce resource with incredible value, due to extreme ductility, almost unmatched inertness/luster and near top-of-the-class conductivity.

Re:It's a nice idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

no need to do it centralised: git basically does exactly what all these crypto currencies do.

proof of work has only one purpose: to slow down the introduction of new coins - so one cannot generate infinite amounts of coins within seconds.
If you could solve the problem of introducing new coins, noone would need any energy wasting proof of work garbage.

Re:It's a nice idea.

[guacamole]

In a perfect world, bitcoin is supposed to be sort of like any other currency, say like Euros and Dollars. So it shouldn't be something you invest in, but something that enables you to sell and buy goods, potentially in a way that's not possible through traditional currency methods.

Mining isn't a waste since it keeps the whole system going. The problem with the extreme volatility of the bitcoin price is that the size of the bitcoin economy is still relatively small, and the number of bit coins that are regularly traded is also small. There is also no central bank. In many economies, at least one of the central bank's functions is to maintain a stable price level and exchange rate. Because of the presence of bunch of speculators can really affect the volatility. The only way to stop this is to grow the size of the bitcoin economy, that is the vendors and buyers that conduct transactions in bitcoin. But there is a chicken and egg problem, because people and businesses don't really like dealing with a volatile currency.

Re:It's a nice idea.

[TubeSteak]

While gold is a scarce resource with incredible value, due to extreme ductility, almost unmatched inertness/luster and near top-of-the-class conductivity.

In 2012, India and China made ~54% of global gold purchases.
The vast majority of that 54% was for jewelry or investment.

In 2013, India created some rules to massively restrict gold imports,
since it was fucking up their import/export balance and depleting foreign currency reserves.
Meanwhile, China's purchasing accelerated and, again, it was mostly in the form of jewelry or investments.

Gold is at least 50% speculation.
That's not a good market to be in if you have legitimate industrial needs for a raw material.

Re:It's a nice idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

> The more time passes, the more volume bitcoin is used for trade, the less volatile its price will be.

Yes, the only conditions I need to use Bitcoins for exchange of goods and services are:

1) seller accepts Bitcoins
2) I have Bitcoins to burn

So far, neither condition has been met in any satisfactory way... but I keep hoping.

Re:It's a nice idea.

[TranquilVoid]

I suppose it boils down to the question of why we value gold and silver so highly

There's a direct relationship to supply here (relative to copper, then iron and aluminium), however with gold it was used to underpin currency, so the total supply was worth the total of all goods and services in existence, sort of. I suspect society still has remnants of this thinking inflating the price of gold (while acknowledging that gold is very useful and pretty).

Re:It's a nice idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh? What? Why? Why would you want to tie the value to dollar? The whole damn point is to get away from nation state currencies controlled by big banks and "trusted" institutions. If there actually were enough coins being used as a trade medium instead of speculation instrument the valua would stabilize. Now everyone is speculating and hoarding and trying to convert their coins into something else at the top, so the value looks like a rollercoaster ride.

Re:It's a nice idea.

[complete loony]

I'd just be happy to build a digital currency that can be used for micro-transactions internationally with minimal fee's. Once it's value is firmly established you could float it.

Re:It's a nice idea.

[Flammon]

Bitcoin is a programmable and on open protocol. Proof of work can easily be changed to SETI@home, Rosetta@home or any of the projects listed here

Re:It's a nice idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is, if you changed the proof-of-work to something useful like protein folding, there would already be a number of research institutions with specialized hardware and software ready to take a large chunk of the network.

(Although perhaps there's a group that finds the current proof-of-work, namely finding SHA-256 collisions, useful?)

Re:It's a nice idea.

[Cigarra]

"BTC is a scarce resource that has no value"

The value is being able to use it in transactions. And it's pretty much inherent to it.

This should be enough

[Xeno-Root]

To educate people into not using altcoins.

Re:This should be enough

[Anonymous Coward]

To educate people into not using altcoins.

I'm going to invest more, because I can get first mover advantage over and over again now!

Re:This should be enough

[gatfirls]

If the fact that pretty much every "legitimate business" that has been involved with bitcoin has either gotten royally screwed or has royally screwed its customers hasn't dissuaded them this surely won't.

I wouldn't be surprised if the coin client linked in that article has some trojan.

Re:This should be enough

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd suspect the guy running the service is taking the first x coins for himself if he has the seed keys etc. - even if only one of these coins takes off he is set.

Lame.

[MiKM]

The article is pretty lame. It doesn't describe how to create your own cryptocurrency. It just tells you how to pay some guy to do it for you.

Re:Lame.

[Anonymous Coward]

The article is pretty lame. It doesn't describe how to create your own cryptocurrency. It just tells you how to pay some guy to do it for you.

That's how you create your own. Don't you understand how capitalism works?

Re:Lame.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's better than that! The guy running this operation has no clue how to do it; he just pays some genius teenager in a 3rd world country to do it for him.
So you pay someone to pay someone to do it for you. :)

Re:Lame.

[shakezula]

Might I recommend this one instead: http://www.devtome.com/doku.php?id=scrypt_altcoin_cloning_guide Written by yours truly back in May. Source is no longer on line for the examples (foocoin) but there's so many clones out there, one can use any of them.

Re:Lame.

[Blackknight]

git checkout the bitcoin source and run a few sed commands. Tada, new currency.

open source == costs more?

[Obfuscant]

The code is open source but getting the source "costs extra"?

Re:open source == costs more?

[Galatamon]

Bitcoin and its imitators are open source. The web app that the article is about allows one to generate their own altcoin for 0.01 BTC, with the release of the source code for your custom altcoin costing extra. I'm not sure if the licensing of Bitcoin allows you to distribute a derivative without source, but even if it did no one would take it seriously. Even Dogecoin provides source.

Re:open source == costs more?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's ridiculous to generate source code based on templated parameters. This guy should create one generic altcoin source code, which becomes a custom currency by loading parameters from a JSON file at runtime.

Great

[easyTree]

He has automated the process of modifying the source code to create custom currencies. Just enter in the name for your new currency, a logo image and set a few parameters (or accept the defaults), and you can have your own cryptocurrency.

Crypto-currency kiddies > Script kiddies ?

and now:

[king neckbeard]

Dickcoins in 3...2...1...

Peercoin PPC

[Anonymous Coward]

There are endless clones and there's a few that actually offer something new. Peercoin was the first to offer a hybrid PoW/PoS system. So many Bitcoin and Peercoin clones, it's ridiculous.

Perfect for Company Scrip

[Forever Wondering]

- Saves on printing costs
- Makes direct deposit easier
- Helps attract trendy brogrammers
- Helps corporate tax avoidance without such plans as "Double Irish Dutch Sandwich"
- The new hot topic in boardrooms

"inciting"

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no such word as "incenting".

Re:"inciting"

[Fluffeh]

There's no such word as "incenting".

I for one, am incented by your incenting statement about incent!

Re:"inciting"

[lgw]

There doesn't seem to be a great alternative - it's more specific than "motivating" or "encouraging".

Re:"inciting"

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I've heard people use the word 'incentivizing'. However, those people were econ majors who probably rape puppies and whose mothers do not love them.

Re:"inciting"

[Anonymous Coward]

incensed

Re:"inciting"

[Fluffeh]

See also:

Whooooosh.

Re:"inciting"

[lgw]

That always sounded like "utilizing" to me - adding extra syllables just to try to sound smart.

Just in time for my Crowdsourcing Currency!

[Idou]

Instead of hashcash, it would use proof-of-work like "cat"aloging lolcat pics. The masses of homeless people would "mine" lolcat pics all day instead of panhandling ("I canz has a coin,man?").

Seriously, though, hashcash needs to be replaced with something more useful. Prime coin seems to be on the right path, but I am sure this area is still way under tapped.

Re:Just in time for my Crowdsourcing Currency!

[SuricouRaven]

It has to be a function which can be verified in much less time than it can be computed. That limits the selection of potentially useful functions.

Re:Just in time for my Crowdsourcing Currency!

[Idou]

Yes, I understand that. However, certainly there are more possible functions that meet this verifiability requirement than just meaningless hashing algorithms and Cunningham chain searching algorithms.

Crypto-currency is a technology that taps into the limitless supply of human greed. Surely there is no more noble geek cause than hacking the most destructive force of man to do good.

Euro

[pesho]

At the end all these currencies will join the Euro.

Re:Euro

[Hognoxious]

If they let the drachma in they're obviously not choosy.

"Source code and some customizations cost a bit +"

[csumpi]

Now _THAT_ is how you make the big bucks.

SlashCoin?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can use your SlashCoin in place of moderation points. Earn money with clever posts!

Joe owes me $1

[kwerle]

Write "Joe owes me $1" on a piece of paper and use it instead of $1.

Done.

Nobody will accept it. Nobody knows who joe is. Nobody knows where the paper has been or why.

Just like all the e-currencies. Just a little more anonymous and transparent.

Re:Joe owes me $1

[Anonymous Coward]

Write "Joe owes me $1" on a piece of paper and use it instead of $1.

Done.

Nobody will accept it. Nobody knows who joe is. Nobody knows where the paper has been or why.

The US Mint writes $1 on a piece of cloth and claims that it's valuable for some reason.

I haven't found bank to be very nutritious, nor do they seem to have any real utility. Well, other than tricking some sucker into giving me food in exchange for the worthless paper.

All you need to create a currency is a store that only sells things in exchange for that currency, that's how you get "receive wages as credit at the company store" to work. The US government uses the "pay tax or we'll take your stuff" approach to make US dollars valuable (you need dollars because the government demands it be given them to pay off your tax bill, that's the only reason they're useful).

I don't get it

[dave562]

Flame away, but I think the whole trend of digital currencies is stupid. It basically comes down to people tasked their computers with solving math problems. Okay, big deal. Whoopie for those people. Their math problems are not worth anything. The inverse of the old saying, "Nothing of value was lost." fits here. Nothing of value was created.

People want to trade one fiat currency, for another? Okay. What's the point?

Our economic challenge is one of resource scarcity. Coming up with schemes to trade compute time for fiat paper is not doing anyone any good.... With the exception of those few who are fortunate enough to convince some suckers to trade their paper for solutions to complex math problems.

Re:I don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

Bitcoin is valuable because of its properties as a payment system. The complex math problems are just the means to achieve the goal.

Re:I don't get it

[lister king of smeg]

you say that as if you think that green papers with pictures of dead people and masonic imagery on them are inherently worth anything. as for the math problems not be worth anything they secure and process the transactions so are of great value to currency.

Re:I don't get it

[Okian Warrior]

Flame away, but [...] People want to trade one fiat currency, for another? Okay. What's the point?

Our economic challenge is one of resource scarcity. Coming up with schemes to trade compute time for fiat paper is not doing anyone any good.

Your post was neither inflammatory nor derisive. Ask, and it will be answered.

Crypto currency has three major advantages over state-issued currency: reduced transaction fees, no counter-party risk, and lower barrier for use.

1) Counter party risk in this case is where some agent involved in a transaction does something which is not in the interests of the participants.

For example, consider the parties involved in making an eBay purchase: eBay can sell your purchasing habits to advertizers, PayPal could take your money and not give it back, ChoicePoint can lose your identity info, VISA can sell your buying habits, and your bank can give all your history to the government.

Each party adds a little bit of risk to your transaction without any benefit to you and without your consent.

Cryptocurrencies eliminate these risks entirely.

2) Transaction processors charge a hefty fee for their services - upwards of 5% in total cost, with a high minimum charge.

Crypto currency transactions have much smaller fees. With no employees or physical cards or credit scoring mechanism, there's very little overhead - just a few cpu cycles per transaction.

This will push prices down (or profits up) by 5% or more for anyone who uses the new system. A merchant could lower prices by 5% for crypto-currency transactions, and make the same profit with a competitive advantage over their competitors.

That's huge.

Lower fees will admit micropayments. That's also huge.

3) Crypto-currencies increase market liquidity in two ways: the reduced fees allow micro-transactions, and they have no barrier to use.

Anyone can use cryptocoin without a credit check, permanent address, or bank account. Cryptocoin is similar to a "prepaid" credit card with no fees. If you have the money, you can use it... there's no need to connect to government or the financial system. Anyone with a cell phone and the money can make transactions online, which will be popular in poor nations. The world economic market could skyrocket.

That's also also huge.

Overall, crypto-currencies hold a lot of promise for being more valuable and easier to use than traditional systems. Whether this added value is enough to foster widespread adoption is up for debate, but there's enormous incentive to do so.

Re:I don't get it

[CauseBy]

I mostly agree with you but are you saying Bitcoin is a fiat currency? It is not a fiat currency.

Re:I don't get it

[man_ls]

The interesting stuff starts to happen when enough people accept credits of computer time that you don't need to worry about converting it to fiat paper anymore.

Re:I don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, the coloured pieces of paper usually have a nation state with a standing violence machine backing them up. That's the bottom level of the worth pyramid. Basically big sticks. On the mid level of that worth pyramid sits the said countrys law enforcement, that usually tells you you need those pieces of paper, or they will lock you up. Small sticks, and you don't _have to_ do as they say, you just won't be included in the next level of the pyramid, which is the everyday usage of those pieces of paper. They hae worth because people are willing to do things for them, or give you things you can actually directly use for making your own life somehow better.

Bitcoin could do with just the topmost layer of this, the active economy. It's just hard to get there without big sticks and smaller threats. It might work. The current speculation phase wil lend at some point, after that nobody knows how it will turn out. The ones holding their coins might want to use them before they die. Or they may just sit on them untill they are lost forever.

Re:I don't get it

[el jocko del oeste]

Having a nation state to back up your currency isn't necessary. Back in the early 19th century the United States depended primarily on private banks issuing currency (banknotes) on the basis of deposits (hard currency--metal, usually in the form of gold or silver coins). There were problems, like they often over-issued, putting out more banknotes than they should have relative to the deposits. And the banknotes circulated well away from the banks that initially issued them--making it difficult to know if the bank was still solvent.

But it worked. At the macro level it was because people needed some kind of currency to keep the economy rolling and there just wasn't enough coinage to support it. At the micro level, it was all about a kind of group acceptance of the banknotes as being legitimate. Would you accept a particular banknote as payment for something? Well, if you were reasonably certain that the next person down the line would accept it from you, then yes.

Coming back to today, the question to ask is, "Does BitCoin have enough volume of currency in circulation to meet the demand?" Or to rephrase it, "Is the BitCoin money supply sufficient to meet the needs of this particular part of the economy?" If the answer is yes, then there really isn't a reason for other, similar currencies to be created. But if the answer is no, then other currencies might be viable.

Re:I don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

1) While there may not be counter party risk, doing any sort of transaction with Bitcoin is an issue because there is no reversibility, there are good reasons that Paypal/transfers/cheques has the ability to charge back and return the funds. E.g. you send payment in Bitcoins and someone does not send you the goods, you have no ability to get your Bitcoins back. If I pay with a credit card I have avenues to get my money back, with Bitcoin I do not, so to get the same service a third party is required, then all of a sudden you have your counter party risk back.

2) Transaction fees are lower because Bitcoin does not provide the same sort of fraud prevention/consumer protection that for example credit cards do.

3) At the moment there are huge barriers to using Bitcoins, dubious exchanges, dubious third parties, complexity in securing your money, huge volatility which means that the only way someone pays for anything using bitcoins is to immediately transfer into a Fiat currency.

Diluted legitimacy

[Okian Warrior]

Well, here's a new section for my "beating down democracy" book.

Suppose you want to discredit crypto-currencies, or at least dilute their effect. What can you do?

You can start a raft of new currencies with sketchy names and origins. Currencies based on celebrities, currencies based on businesses, sports (such as Nascar commemorative plates - good as gold in many US locations), and even personal currencies!

"We can't stop people from using BitCoin! What can we do?"

"Let's generate alternatives - so many that people won't know which ones to use."

"You mean like software standards?"

"Yes - exactly like software standards."

"Heh. They'll never see that coming..."

Re:Diluted legitimacy

[lister king of smeg]

Well, here's a new section for my "beating down democracy" book.

Suppose you want to discredit crypto-currencies, or at least dilute their effect. What can you do?

You can start a raft of new currencies with sketchy names and origins. Currencies based on celebrities, currencies based on businesses, sports (such as Nascar commemorative plates - good as gold in many US locations), and even personal currencies!

"We can't stop people from using BitCoin! What can we do?"

"Let's generate alternatives - so many that people won't know which ones to use."

"You mean like software standards?"

"Yes - exactly like software standards."

"Heh. They'll never see that coming..."

i think at this point they are to late and the network effect will stop most most of the truly pointless "new" cryptocurrencies which are really just new block chains, i think there is still room for a truly new cryptocurrency as long as it actually brings something new to the table better algorithm, new features, integration with other existing blockchains, stronger cryptography, better anonymity, new paradigm.

I would like see for example a currency that uses more that just a double sha2 or just scrypt in case they it get broken like md5 did, so use like scrypt, sha2 and sha3 on the same block.

Re:Diluted legitimacy

[QuasiSteve]

Doesn't that only makes sense if there isn't already an established set of defacto projects?

Let's use Photoshop as an example. The GIMP team can't hope to take down Photoshop anytime soon, so instead they foster an environment where more and more graphics editors are created. As of now, I've probably at least installed and ran 25 of them.

Yet I still know that Photoshop is what I need if I need to work with other companies, The GIMP is my main go-to, Paint.NET is what I might recommend to those who don't like The GIMP for whatever reason, and if you're not really editing images but just messing around with them, cropping, scaling,etc., then IrfanView will do quite nicely.

There could be 75 more authored out there, and it would be very hard for any of them to break into that 'top' list.

The same applies with Bitcoin/Litecoin. Yes, there's alternatives - but none of them are being seriously looked at as something to contend so strongly with either of them, that btc/ltc were to wane in popularity, let alone be discredited, as a result. Even if you take something like Dogecoin - which some claim was created to basically make fun of cryptocurrencies - it does little to discredit btc/ltc - if anything, it just got people more interested, while having a good bit of fun on the side.

Now the differences between the graphics software packages tend to be vast and quite measurable on the technical end - while for cryptocurrencies, you could make a 1:1 (almost, need a different identifier) clone which would be technically the same thing. But you'd have to somehow get everybody currently backing the popular options to at least add yours, and then somehow get people to actually prefer yours.. at which point you have added only 1.. not much of a dilution.

Re:Diluted legitimacy

[Anonymous Coward]

How I Would Kill Bitcoin
By Ben S. Bernanke
I suppose there may come a time when those who are charged with protecting our currency, the US dollar, might begin to feel that “bitcoin” threatens that very dollar. In fact, it is probable I think.
So, what can we do about this when we begin to feel this threat? I think it is impossible to shut down bitcoin globally – after all, bitcoin only needs a single cooperating country, international bank, and the Internet to stay in existence. Of course, it doesn’t even need the first two once the minions realize they can just stay within that currency. That development would be our biggest threat since it implies a measure of legitimacy for bitcoin, not to mention its complete independence. Bitcoin would then be “priced” in gold, I suppose. In other words, were we to successfully ban exchanges world-wide (admittedly not likely), bitcoin would need a new point-of-reference, and I could imagine gold becoming the de facto choice. But before that day comes, it would be pretty easy for the Fed or the Treasury to completely discredit this “crypto-currency” as well as its copy-cats and presumed successors.
A hurdle to becoming widely accepted in commerce that the bitcoin advocates correctly identify is its volatility with respect to real currencies. This, I think, will be a difficult problem for them to overcome. The Federal Reserve Bank or the US Department of the Treasury could easily make the price of bitcoin much more volatile. For example, all that we would have to do is begin buying bitcoin to drive the price up, way up. Then we would let it stabilize for a while (while supporting it if necessary), and then drive it up more. Suddenly, we would sell – fast and furious. We would use every available exchange to do this and would use our computers to implement the most optimal crash. Many people would panic, sell all of their coins, and be finished with bitcoin for good. Many would not. Those people would be treated to another round, not as high as the first, but with a faster crash. Then another. Etc., with random peaks and troughs, mercilessly and violent. This would cost us little to implement, but would inflict great harm to the reputation of all crypto-currencies. And the thing is, we could use that tool in the future as needed.
Will we do this? For all you know, we may have already tested it. I don’t know if my successor will use this tool or not. Good luck to you. I hope you get out in time.
Ben S. Bernanke
PS. Of course Mr. Bernanke did not write this – I did. I wish to see bitcoin succeed. Don’t go thinking that I’ve given them any ideas. You can be sure that they had considered this before most of us even heard of bitcoin. What can be done? The bitcoin lobbying groups, associations, and organizations, as well as individuals should begin approaching members of congress with the idea of passing a relatively straightforward law: Make it illegal for any federally chartered financial institution, private investment bank, hedge fund, mutual fund, the Federal Reserve Bank, and any agency of the federal government to buy, sell, distribute or accept bitcoins. When first announced, such a restriction would seem to be harmful to bitcoin (oh no, they are restricting bitcoin). But the law would also specifically authorize exchanges as long as they do not hold bitcoin for their own account. Other “non-bank” businesses would also be free to use bitcoin. The law could also set up the IRS directives governing how bitcoin should be taxed (see Singapore). All of this would combine to legitimize bitcoin and remove the potential for increased volatility caused intentionally by those feeling threatened. Make no mistake – bitcoin is vulnerable to intentional volatility – we don’t have a lot of time. Bitcoin advocates in every country should be getting onto this.
For your consideration,
Leonhard @ 13zhwmK8yBqbf5wuRBJw2CsR4vYokjeYqc

Errors in Paper

[DanielRavenNest]

I found mutiple errors in the first paragraph of the paper. That does not engender trust in the quality of the authors work. The first paragraph of the paper states:

> Every four years the number of bitcoins created is scheduled to be cut in half until 2040

The correct date is approximately 2140 AD. The reward per block started at 50 BTC and is cut in half every 210,000 blocks, which nominally takes about 4 years. After ~130 years you have done 33 halvings, so the reward is 50 / (2^33) = 0.58 Satoshi, where 100 million Satoshi = 1 bitcoin. Since the smallest unit in the bitcoin transaction system is 1 Satoshi, the reward becomes too small to measure, and thus mining for new coins stops.

> Mining is done by volunteers who operate servers running bitcoin software.

Three errors in one sentence. Most miners do it for income, not volunteering. They earn a share of the block reward by participating in mining pools. They don't use servers, they used to use graphics cards until that became too difficult, and now mostly use custom hardware (ASICs). Neither are servers in the client-server sense, they are nodes in a peer-to-peer network, because they have to receive new transactions and send completed blocks to the other nodes. Miners generally don't run "bitcoind", the default client, or other wallet software. They run custom mining software for the kind of mining hardware they use.

Re:Errors in Paper

[Anonymous Coward]

Most miners do it for income, not volunteering. They earn a share of the block reward by participating in mining pools. They don't use servers, they used to use graphics cards until that became too difficult, and now mostly use custom hardware (ASICs). Neither are servers in the client-server sense, they are nodes in a peer-to-peer network, because they have to receive new transactions and send completed blocks to the other nodes.

The miner is volunteering to add nodes to the bitcoin network. No one is requiring it, there is no central authority saying MINE NOW. Just like bittorrent nodes are users volunteering their resources. Servers have 16x PCI-E slots too, and usually multiple slots so you can load up multiple graphics cards in a 4u server. Also power is free (as in beer) in a datacenter. Techincally each node is a client and a server. The client connects to other servers and exchange data. The server listens for connections and initiate the handshaking connection. The client makes an outbound connection and initiates a handshaking connection. I can run an http server on two systems and turn them into a peer to peer network, however one client (say written in PHP or Perl) has make an outbound http call to another http server running software to accept the connection.

Three flaws in one paragraph, your comment has been ignored

Re:Errors in Paper

[Anonymous Coward]

When you I read defensive bitcoiner statements on forums, I always imagine in their head, this song plays and drives them:

I want money, lots and lots of money
I want the pie in the sky
I want money, lots and lots of money
So don't be asking me why

I wanna be rich, ohh
I wanna be rich, ohh
I wanna be rich, ohh

Calloway - I Wanna Be Rich Lyrics

Re:Errors in Paper

[JeffAtl]

The miner is volunteering to add nodes to the bitcoin network. No one is requiring it, there is no central authority saying MINE NOW.

Using that bizarre definition of "volunteer", employees of Google are also volunteers since there is no central authority saying that they have to work there or even work at all. The same for a real estate agent listing a property for sale.

Like a real estate agent, the bitcoin miners are not volunteering their services. They're providing the service in the hopes of financial return.

Re:Errors in Paper

[subreality]

The correct date is approximately 2140 AD. The reward per block started at 50 BTC and is cut in half every 210,000 blocks, which nominally takes about 4 years. After ~130 years you have done 33 halvings, so the reward is 50 / (2^33) = 0.58 Satoshi, where 100 million Satoshi = 1 bitcoin. Since the smallest unit in the bitcoin transaction system is 1 Satoshi, the reward becomes too small to measure, and thus mining for new coins stops.

This is closer but still incorrect. All accounting in Bitcoin is performed with integer arithmetic. The reward per block started at 5,000,000,000 satoshis and is right shifted by one bit every 210,000 blocks. The reward does not become too small to measure - it becomes precisely zero.

Sounds good for some cases

[nurb432]

It sounds like a good idea for some cases, like for custom in-game currencies, and for 'private groups' of people.

Re:Sounds good for some cases

[Anonymous Coward]

In-game currencies have absolutely no need for this. The game creators can make any type of currency they wish, so why include any crypto at all? The amout of "money" in game can be altered any way they want. Yes, they usually fuck it up royally by inflating it beyond belief, and then some other game item takes the place of it as a trading medium. This also happens in real life in places like zimbabwe, where the people running the currency have absolutely no idea what they are doing. "lets make some more for the dictator, fuck yeah!". At least US only "prints" kinda small amounts, and so keeps the inflation in check.

cryptocoin marketplace

[Anonymous Coward]

The viability of traditional currencies exchanged on Forex markets is already marginal to critical. Having a crypto currency, or a hundred normalized to last used price would work. Especially if volume and float were published numbers. Like penny stocks!

JJ

Re:cryptocoin marketplace

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would you exchange your Bitcoin for USD or GBP if you could get Joe's Crypto?

Re:All

[Ralph Wiggam]

I've been hearing for a long time about how the Big Evil Government is going to make all kinds of shit illegal- handguns, bitcoins, encryption. But they keep not doing anything like that.

Have you considered the possibility that you're a paranoid nutball?

Only 70?

[laxisusous]

The site com-http currently lists 175 alt-coins. com-http is a cryptocurrency directory, but it looks more like a periodic table of alt-coins.

Inflation.

[Forty Two Tenfold]

Ahhh, yes. A method to introduce inflation to an inflation-proof scheme...

Self-fulfilling...

[osu-neko]

Once you have your own 'coin,' you just need to convince people that it is worth something.

And if you succeed, it will be worth something.

My new currency is

[Anonymous Coward]

Starbucks!!! Trademark, Copyright, etc. etc...

You saw it here first people. Before you know it you'll all be lining up to buy things with my starbucks :)

Money creation

[manu0601]

Such clones do not address the point of money creation control. It is always a technical question, while it should be a political question, controlled by the citizen for the general interest. Why should money creation policy be more technical and shielded from citizen will than any other policy or law?

One could answer that central banks of developed countries are independent, so that their money creation policy is also a technical question, and the article notes that. Indeed bitcoin and friends are as undemocratic as the Euro, which is not an achievement.

Re:Money creation

[Prune]

Mod parent up!

Gridcoin

[Cruciform]

I mine Gridcoins. They're not currently traded on any exchanges but I imagine once they catch on they will have some value.
The reason being, they are tied to BOINC. The Gridcoin wallet verifies that you're working on BOINC projects and trickles coins to you as a reward.
I don't even need to run the dedicated mining tools to get some coins on the side. I just work on the research projects that BOINC is dedicated to and the coins add up.

Is it worth anything right now? Nope. But it might be in the future. And it's a reward for contributing to real-world research, not just verifying transactions.

That's the kind of coin I think will have a future. Ones that are tied to tasks of value, rather than just a clever name and a pump and dump scheme.

I've been hoping to see a coin for Render Farming as well. It would be great to be able to dedicate CPU time to works, earn coins, and either sell them off to people who want them, or use the coins within the system to buy higher priority when rendering out animations.

Re:Gridcoin

[Kris_J]

I love the idea of Gridcoin, but the implementation is shocking. For a start, way too much trust is placed in the client to identify BIONC and increase rewards. This will get hacked so you don't have to run BOINC. Also, it only cares about CPU usages. I have a 2000-series ATI card that's no good for hashing, but will accelerate SETI@home. The Gridcoin client doesn't consider I'm doing work if I'm using a GPU, so I'm encouraged to drop GPU accelerated work and use a less efficient CPU. Not to mention that mining with the wallet is the only way to earn a bonus, making a range of hardware useless, plus making pools unattractive.

Need a soverign power to back one..

[xtal]

Preferably a small one that's already a tax shelter, and will back the currency with gold. Or a large one who wants to cause some shit. Can you imagine if China got behind something like that?

You have no idea the crapstorm that would cause internationally. I hope someone does it..

The acid test for a currency is can you buy an ounce of coke with it. If you can, it's currency. If you can't, it's not..

Currency and Your are Mutually Exclusive

[Anonymous Coward]

Currency is only good if people accept it as having value. You can't just pull shit out of your ass, and expect people to assign any value to it. Currency has to be shared to have any value.

In this particular case...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not, since the software is being distributed, thus, unless the guy wrote an 'original' implementation (unlikely given the two lame hashing options), it's already being distributed under the GPL and regardless of whether you paid him for the source code, you could demand it as a user of the provided binary.

That said, if I want to start my own bitcoin/litecoin distro I'm pretty sure a diff -c on each of bitcoind/litecoind would provide me with all the salient changes I need to make just like his website does.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Martingale theory says he can't, in the long run, unless there's an underlying upward trend to begin with.
Which is why, if you're actually interested in making money, you need to speculate / invest in areas that are actually gaining in value, rather than just having high volatility. Currently, bitcoin has a decent number of rather naive speculators who haven't lost everything yet.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

It's more accurate to say that when you invest in something, you expect it to generate real value, whereas when you speculate, you expect the price to fluctuate (usually upwards) for no good reason other than demand from other speculators.
A tulip bulb is a thing, but it doesn't gain any real value - it just sits there. Buying property to let is an investment; buying it to leave empty and then sell at a profit later is speculating.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

"Masonic imagery"... And how is the Dan Brown collection coming along?

purpose

[Tom]

The purpose of Free Software is not to fork it and create your own. The possibility is vital, but just like nuclear weapons, it works best if you have it but don't have to use it.

You can also print your own currency (technically - legally it is actually illegal in many western countries). The same problem: Convince others that it's worth anything.

Fiat currency is a strange beast. It is worth exactly what someone else is willing to pay you for it. A stable currency needs a large market. Someone paying you $10 for a banana won't change the price of bananas if there are millions on sale in thousands of food stores. But if there are only 3 on sale, the other two guys will much more likely change their price.

That's why micro currencies are bullshit. They are too volatile and too useless. If you have 1000 currencies, you are essentially back to the barter system problem that led to the creation of money in the first place: Finding someone to exchange with becomes a challenge.

The world can take another currency, no problem. And Bitcoin actually serves a purpose and closes a gap: It's a non-national currency, independent of politics, borders, governments and central banks. But that gap is closed now, and if you want to improve upon it, use something that has more value, not just the same thing with a different name. Because, you know, plugging the same hole three times doesn't work.

Andy Warhol was right

[bkmoore]

"In the future, everyone will have their own currency for 15 minutes."

Re:All

[MrNaz]

Just because the government hasn't immediately confiscated something from you does not mean that there is no long term plan to do so.

Furthermore, the aim of the powerful is to preserve their power. If their agenda is met without sparking malcontent by taking toys away then they will let you have all the toys that don't matter.

What are the toys that matter? Well the tools, lobby group connections and access to finance required to run a presidential campaign for starters.

Cool!

[justthinkit]

I didn't know there were important transactions that needed bitcoins. Excluding anything related to bitcoins, of course, what might those transactions be?

Re:Cool!

[kumanopuusan]

Converting Renminbi to foreign currencies is a big one. There's a hard limit on the amount of RMB that can be exchanged for foreign currency per person per year, enforced by the Chinese government. Much of the European usage was supposed to be in the same vein.

Of course, you can feel free to dismiss them as unimportant if they're not important to you.