BitCoins - Anyone understand it? Mine them? Or use them?

Just seems like a crazy concept to me - a virtual currency that is usable in real life.

I started to read about BitCoins today and can't really get my head around the whole idea - So I'd like to know do you use BitCoins?

I've looked at it a bit, but the currency is very unstable, and could basically be devalued at any time. So I'm staying away, at least for now.

I think you get the coins by mining and getting your computer (or a group of computers) to find a code, once the code is correctly found you get 25 bitcoins (currently) - worth about $1000, again currently.

It's really hard to find one of these codes with your PC alone so people mine for these in groups and split the money - there are websites that actually do this too:
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-mine-bitcoins-2013-3?op=1
- That article tells you all about it.

Interesting, could try this but I don't think I'd bother

I'm kind of the same, I think it would be really hard to make a decent amount of cash.

I heard about these once. The context was ways to gamble online as I believe this may be illegal in America.

NEver heard of them. Not interested lol.

Interesting. I'm all for making easy money, but something about this seems off. Who is providing the IRL cash? Whose idea was this to begin with? I'm a bit suspicious, but I'm going to do some more research.

I've heard of these, mostly in the deep web, and commonly used in the hiring of hitmen and purchasing of drugs online, etc.
Never used them, terrified something would go horribly, horribly wrong

Yeah I'd have to agree with Chik.

In addition, bitcoins seem like they'd be really easy to lose, and the value fluctuates so much that I just wouldn't do it. I'm more likely to go the cash-for-gold route, when I become a conspiracy theorist who doesn't trust money anymore.

I'll stick to my good old cash and plastic.

Yeah. I've been doing some research, and it's an interesting idea, but I don't think it'll catch on.

They are only easy to lose of you don't encrypt your wallet. And the Cryptography behind them is so sophisticated the system itself can't be hacked. That's not to say you couldn't fall victim to a scam or something.

That said the current value of 1 Bitcoin is ~90 USD, so I've actually been trying to find ways of mining or getting them for free.
It's not working so well

This vid is a bit long but explains them pretty well.
Spoiler:

« Last edited by Ju Ju Man on Apr 1st 2013 »

Lol, I read the fine print. I wouldn't trust a site like that, even if people said it was alright.

I was suspicious too, but I figure, if you don't put any money into the system, then you have no money to lose if something goes wrong.

Still, I would really recommend staying away from it.
I don't really know about the overall system used, but you might end up stealing from people you do not want to steal from.
There are some very, very dangerous people on the deep web, and they can track your IP address easily

Ohai Eoin, didn't see you appear back here.

But yeah, deep web stuff can get very bad very fast if you screw up. Doing more research into the thing. I'm guessing the currency will be worthless in a year or 2. While money is mostly in electronic form, I just don't see the idea of it going fully electronic appealing. And definitely not with a totally new currency.

How ya doing?
I just pop on every now and again
Can't say I was expecting your promotion, first time I seen you in a while and you're a SMod?
Fair play though, well deserved

I'm good, but yeah, I lot of things happened. As you may be able to see with the other threads :P
How are you? You should come here more often.

Yeah it was a bit of a shock alright.
I popped into some guy's returning thread, and somebody (Might have been you) said it may as well be there, since there was no SCT anymore, and I kinda freaked out...
And to think that there's no more Mods, and we've had more Admins in the past year or so than the rest of the site's history put together....
I'm good though, exams coming up in June, so gotta study for that, so that'll be the main focus till then, then I'm going interrailing with some mates, which'll be class.
You play bass don't you? Got a nice aul 5 string fretless a while back, it's beautiful.

How've you been though?

Yeah all the changes happened very fast, including the staff shuffle and forum integration. But all this should make the place better, and that's what I want. Staff shuffling around this dramatically did catch me off guard, but makes sense in a way. That red tag under Alfie's name is scary though, don't you agree? O.o

And yeah, I'm good, have had a huge amount finals recently, one of which I should prolly be studying for right now, but meh.
And yes, I do play the bass, I gotta go dig up the old thread for this so you can post a pic of yours ^.^


Bitcoins R fun