Open source and "disguised" cannot describe the same thing. Bitcoin is open source. Inspect the code for yourself and get back to us whether it purports to disguise itself and where the conspiracy really lies. Otherwise, please stop this nonsense.

More importantly look at the choice of source code control. Using GitHub means that every contribution is publicly tracked. Also, git ensures that the source can't be arbitrarily modified in transit - doing so would invalidate the hashes that make up the history (and it is transmitted over HTTPS).

You may consider that your compiler has been compromised so that although clean source goes in, corrupted executable code comes out. That's OK, you can check your output files and even reverse engineer them since that's allowed in the non-existent license.

You may decide that you don't trust anything that comes out of that team at all. That's OK, you can use the Protocol Rules to make your own implementation. So long as you follow the same rules as everyone else then your transactions will be accepted on to the network along with everybody else's.

It should be noted that git itself is open source. In fact the languages it is written in are open source too. If you run git and bitcoin under linux then there is nothing that you can't inspect and audit for yourself.

C is a language that all of the above use primarily. A fun fact about it is that the compiler gcc is also written in C. To make a new version of gcc it must compile itself. So its C all the way down, and you get the initial one by a process known as bootstrapping.

Bitcoin is just digital cash, nothing else. You can buy it from a guy on the street and later buy drugs online at Silk Road

What else do you want??

You can buy anything online, just send a seller your encrypted address and nobody will ever know what are you into.

The bitoin ATMs are coming, complete anonymity! You don't want to pay taxes? No problem, nobody can prove, that you have any income if you work for bitcoin. You have problems with authorities and even hide in Thailand? No problem, you friends can send you money via bitcoin every month.

Enjoy!

I believe the Feds recently announced that AML procedures will soon apply to Bitcoin transactions (which probably means transactions that are in the $5k-$10k range and above).

Good luck enforcing that rule. A simple foreign VPN will make it untraceable.

..or Tor.

edit: ..if you do choose to use a VPN, make sure you pay for it using Bitcoin though. ;)

That just means businesses are required to gather some information on the people they sell Bitcoins to.

This likely means that USA will never see a Bitcoin ATM, unfortunately.

Not true. FINCEN deals with US Dollars, so their regulation only applies if you sell bitcoins for dollars, ie. act as an exchange.

Buying for $10,000 worth of electronics with bitcoin is not the job of FINCEN to keep an eye on; they don't care. Now the IRS might care, since they want to know if you have paid your taxes on it, but FINCEN's only mandate is to prevent money laundering via the US Dollar.

Let me help you with that initial hard step...

+bitcointip $1 verify

^{[✔] Verified: gary_rowe ---> ฿0.01290156 BTC [$1 USD] ---> meditative [help]}

nice guy!

For the love of God, why don't you try learning about something for 5 minutes before you start applying such excessive portions of paranoia?

Bitcoin is open-source. You could have learned that in 30 seconds.

well the bitcoin algorithm is known - there is no federal reserve in bitcoin. that is impossible in bitcoin

that doesn't mean it doesn't offer the opportunity of control, even with the cryptographic functions

It is NOT decentralized.

edit: Dammit, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralization

Because there is a functional, central "paper"trail, it is NOT decentralized.

In what way is it not decentralized?

an explanatory detour: decentralized != distributed. gnutella, cjdns, freenet is decentralized and distributed, bittorrent is decentralized but not distributed, BC is distributed, but centralized. Surely I am wrong, but there is a fundamental difference between gnutella and Co. and BC.

In what way is it centralized?

As I said, that everyone has to know everything about the network. This is the definition of centralization. Not geographically, but methodically. The effect is that it can't scale up and it is prone to disruption.

If you have a centralized tracker, but hold it private between or within a student body, nobody from the outside can disrupt it. Or a disruption in another student dorm does not harm your operation. If you know a way to disrupt a technique so that everybody can't use it, it is central or centralized.

So your "centralization" argument is based on the fact that there is only one version of the universally accepted blockchain, which is what makes bitcoin centralized?

Or is your centralization argument based on the fact that one has to be part of the "in-group", and therefore the in-group is the centralizing point?

Please correct me if I am wrong.

yes, theuniversal block chain. this is in my eyes a weakness.

Explain how it is even theoretically possible to have a p2p money system that doesn't have a universal ledger then?

What are its weaknesses coming from the supposed centralization?

I am not a mathematician, but look at DHT itself and if anybody would have thought its possible lets say during the 90ies.

The problem stems from "polluting the namespace". If the MPAA tries to pollute the swapping of film X, then either there is a new torrent, or, much more likely, every peer just ignores/bans/permabans them.

Btw, do you know http://nightweb.net/ ?

Nightweb looks like just another implementation of i2p for android, nothing more.

You can't "pollute the namespace" in Bitcoin because every peer you are connected to will not pass the garbage on to other peers because every peer verifies the validity of a transaction presented to it. This is not a concern.

It is completely controlled by the issuer. The value of a bitcoin is in the ability to verify its transaction log/history. This is what allows you to track it from the miner, to the end-user. This is highly corruptible:

Imagine a single bank, that plays by the rules, but uses a predictable randseed generation. They would be able to predict valid hashing before they are calculated, forcing money away from legitimate owners, or selling money that doesn't "exactly" exist yet.

It's bad news bears...

Sorry but it doesn't work that way. The issuer is the whole network at once, and at least 51% of the network must agree that a block is valid in order for it to actually become valid.

Exactly. By controlling potential hash generation, you can predict valid counts. It's like you're all tards or something.

It doesn't work that way.

You might benefit from viewing this infographic, specifically the upper-right corner.

http://thumbnails.visually.netdna-cdn.com/bitcoin-infographic_5029189c9cbaf.jpg

tl;dr you can't predict what would be a valid value for the next block because it depends on all the previous blocks (and transactions inside them) combined

Thanks for the infographic. Take a closer look at the portion under the Cryptographic Hashes, and the Nonces headings.

And it's essentially impossible to predict which initial data value...

...is just a random number...

I'm talking about controlling the pseudo random number generation, at least to the extent of knowing the result each call. From that, you will know the "impossible" and be able generate potential hashes from the total 21million possible coins. That's all I'm trying to say. Possible, yes...implementable...barely.

You see, I am a computer science masters student and I am currently taking Modern Cryptoraphy.

It is possible to guarantee computational indistinguishability of a pseudo-random number generator if it uses pseudo-random permutations for random number generation.

More info: http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~shelat/651/www/chap3.pdf (This isn't my university, but close)

It is possible to guarantee computational indistinguishability of a pseudo-random number generator if it uses pseudo-random permutations for random number generation.

It is also possible to make a generator that makes "random" numbers that are pre-determined. As long as the pre-determined list is never exposed, they are "random."

Those "random" pre-determined numbers will only be good until the next block is created, after which they are completely useless. That's the whole point. That's how bitcoin mining works in the first place.

To subvert the network, you need more than 51% of total hashing power.

be able generate potential hashes from the total 21million possible coins

I think I just realized what you are thinking. You are thinking that bitcoins are created by finding hashes that correspond to a specific coin. This is completely wrong.

The hashes generated by miners are for creating blocks of transactions. There is no unique identifier for a specific coin, it's just a balance on a specific account - a counter, nothing more.

The coins miners receive are a reward for generating a new valid page of transactions (block) in the transaction book (blockchain).

If you look at any specific block, you will see that the first transaction in the block is new coins generated - the reward (25BTC + sum of transaction fees). Note how they don't have an originating address.

Here is the freshest current block as an example: https://blockchain.info/block-index/368594/0000000000000056e0a2526984973e42abf2025a730e92f74c370cf04519fe70

Edit: you might also benefit from reading the wiki article on possible weaknesses: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Weaknesses

You sure showed us.

How in the world would you control potential hash generation? If you try to control it, someone else just gets the block before you do, and all your work means nothing. If you somehow control counts, that just means you're going to wind up in an orphaned chain and anything you do no longer affects the proper Bitcoin network. What ctzl fails to mention is that it isn't really the clients that give the block the OK - it's the miners, when they find new blocks based on the old block's hash. And that takes raw processing power.

It's like trying to poison a torrent by providing a bad file. You might affect some people who are trying to download, but all you'll do is inconvenience them for a bit and waste your bandwidth.

EDIT: Also, the very reason SHA256 is used is because it isn't predictable. Not yet, at least; if someone finds a hole, Bitcoin will probably move to a new hash method. There will almost certainly be a panic sell and the price will plummet... but that's for another discussion.

...it's the miners, when they find new blocks based on the old block's hash. And that takes raw processing power.

Why? Because they don't know what the "answer" is among the potentials created by hashing and nonce, which are under the domain of the miners random number generation. That is my only point. Controlling that among the miners would allow you to complete answers before their required hashes exist...because you know what they will become.

Sha-256 has already been found to not be perfect. Why is there a sha-512? It's hard to move an entire distributed implementation to a newer hash function, and by hard, I mean time consuming.

How do you control all the miners? If you find a hash and then sit on it, trying to find a second hash, someone else is going to find and publish one and you're up a creek without a paddle. Let's say one of your miners does find a hash, and then thanks to your meddling, you are beaten to the punch by someone else. The miner who found the block is not going to be happy with you for squandering his CPU time.

Sha-256 has already been found to not be perfect. Why is there a sha-512?

SHA-512 is just a 64-bit version of SHA-256. There is no flaw as of yet discovered.

You don't have to control all of them, though that would be the perfect scenario. The key is making a list of the end result by forcing what random numbers are plugged in. With those, the CPU intensive calculations, no longer are "intensive." When they aren't you can beat all the other miners to the punch. Sure it's not "technically" valid, but as long as the hashes check out and the miners agree that the log is valid (why wouldn't it be) then all is well.

Okay, let me see if I can explain a bit.

Every time a block hits the network, everyone's starting point changes. The starting point is non-predictable. Even though it is falling within a narrow band of the total possible hashes, that's still a range of one to one sexdecillion. (That's 10⁵⁴ ). If you calculated a bunch of hashes based off of one of those numbers, picked at random, the odds of that hash being found before the heat death of the universe are ridiculously small.

If you started trying to manipulate the blockchain by using hashes that didn't fit the range, every single non-corrupted bitcoin node is going to reject your blocks. You would cause a hard fork. Essentially at that point you would have two different Bitcoin networks - the one that you weren't manipulating, that all the big exchanges and online wallets were running on, and your own Bitcoin that accepted bad blocks. You would no longer be able to affect Bitcoin as a whole.

Even if you had a bajillion Bitcoin nodes that were all trying to broadcast your bogus blocks, you still would get nowhere. Bad blocks are rejected, no matter how many nodes send them. It's very easy for Bitcoin clients to determine what a bad block is and what a good block is; that's one of the major strengths of its design.

It's peer to peer, the definition of decentralized.

Then what is the required transaction log, that everybody has to have? This is centralization, even if the info is distributed.

Lol, good one.

This is a primer for RFID getting into your body by the way of vaccines and its link to global currency. No points for guessing its going to be an electronic global currency.

http://www.slideshare.net/DeepDude/rockefeller-reveals-plan-for-microchipping-all-people-to-aaron-russo-in-2000-14531598

you really don't understand how bitcoin wallet work.

you mean

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1azcb9/bitcoins_stolen_from_mt_box/

Thanks but no thanks.

you do not understand. they can hack the exchange, but they can't hack your long brain wallet.

you do not understand. they can hack the exchange

Is the exchange going to take the hit ?

The more I look at this, the more it looks like a scam.

sometimes, sometimes depends which one. Same as banks. But you don't have to keep the coins there. that's the point.

I guess your answer does not invoke confidence if I'm an investor looking to take up Bitcoin.

It may be best to avoid this wishy washy scheme

it's fine if you don't trust it. you should always read more about things before trusting or not trusting them and who knows, you may understand how it works and understand why nobody can steal your money with bitcoins if you don't reveal you key to anybody.

with the bank, look in eu, well, you have no certainty.

you may understand how it works and understand why

You understand how it works but can't give me an answer to a simple question if the exchange is going to take a hit ? Keep your preaching to lame asses.

who cares about a specific exchange ? it's just like talking about a specific bank. The problem is that in both your money can be stolen but if you keep it in your wallet ( or brain wallet) it can't be stolen.

who cares if for the rest you just act lame.

more wishy washy excuses.

The whole point here is personal responsibility for your money. If you decide that you trust no one, keep all your money in a wallet and not in a bank (there already exist services that keep your money for you), encrypt it and forget the password - no one can help you because it's mathematically impossible to break that encryption.

what's your problem?

You think I don't know about your monkey god Zeus and his affiliation to Cyprus ?

don't worry i'm not religious or from the country you think i am from ! ;)

You can run but you cant hide ಠ_ಠ

you can hide but you can't run.

guess 6000 years of planning is coming to a naught ... just like your failed attempt circa 1840's ? that must hurt. ಠ_ಠ

hiding is your best course of action ? I can see that you don't have much choice.

troll ;P

:L

is it paid for or just free time ?

nah just keep chaining topics. It seems there is not enough to hide your stupid plans to beguile the nations and the population anymore.

sometimes i think you are a bot.

[deleted]

Who needs a bank ?

or

Bitcoin

That's not a wallet, that's someone's Mt. Gox account. Someone probably got a hold of their password.

no doubt everything can be co-opted (see Anonymous group and LulzSec).

The point is that Bitcoin, by design, is a voluntary currency issued and administered in a distributed way without a central authority.

No one can implant you an RFID chip if you don't want because Bitcoin.

So although it doesn't make much sense because of its distributed architecture and all the overhead with mining (transaction processing and issuance in the hands of the users), yes maybe the establishment could "adopt" Bitcoin.

But guess what? Bitcoin is free open source software. It's easy to "fork" into a new underground Bitcoin2 system that will be in control of users again, so there'll always be ways to opt out. The cat is out of the bag, the pandora's box of crypto-currency is open.

Next you'll tell me the Internet is distributed architecture without a central authority :))))

Bitcoin, by design, is a voluntary currency

That's how its designed because no one in his right mind would opt for a currency which works outside his/her control.

The Internet was designed back then by the military to be distributed enough to withstand nuclear attacks. It's the best they could come up with back at the time.

Despite founded by the military, apparently the internet can also be used for positive things, like spreading information. Probably that wasn't planned. Without it, people would still be much more asleep and much more unaware of the scam of the FED and private banking. If you're against the internet, then what are you doing here?

Same with currency. Bitcoin was not planned. That currency goes digital is unavoidable. It's just technological progress. The dollar is already digital. The prophecies have already become true. Don't stay in dreamland. There's no reason to invent a new currency unit like Bitcoin to chip everyone, they can use dollars as well. Bitcoin is a counter-movement to this, the idea has been around in cryptographical hacker, activism and anarchism subculture for quite a while already for exactly those reasons. Just read about the roots! Bitcoin is the currency of resistance!

The internet has some weak (central) spots yes, but Bitcoin may well enable and incentivize further development of mesh networks.

You haven't proven anything. Bitcoin being distributed doesn't add to the value anymore than the network it's riding on.

Bitcoin was not planned.

Right. Just like OWS was not planned :(

take a peek on r/owswatch

That currency goes digital is unavoidable.

What are you trying to say ? That man survived thousands of years and now is in peril because if he don't adopt bitcoin ....

There's no reason to invent a new currency unit like Bitcoin to chip everyone, they can use dollars as well.

Bitcoin WILL be replace by a more 'secure' solution at a predetermined moment. Just like Aaron Russo revealed.

proven? Well what do you want me or anyone to "prove"?

Right

yup

That man survived thousands of years and now is in peril because if he don't adopt bitcoin

I'm talking about the future and not the past, about a scenario where we don't destroy ourselves. Of course, if we bomb ourselves back to the stone age, then we'll have other problems. Similarly, for the future, I'm not saying that Bitcoin will stay around forever in the current form. It's just a project. It may bring us into an age of post-scarcity where money becomes largely superfluous anyway. No one knows what the year 3000 will look like. But we should take control of our fate, and not condemn technologies like Bitcoin as evil witch craft, without evaluating its properties with scrutiny and judging it by those alone without superstition. Only this is the path that can bring us into a better future.

Bitcoin WILL be replace by a more 'secure' solution at a predetermined moment. Just like Aaron Russo revealed.

Well in that case I and many others will not move to this allegedly more "secure" solution.

Well what do you want me or anyone to "prove"?

That somehow Bitcoin is better than the current system because its decentralized ?

Well in that case I and many others will not move to this allegedly more "secure" solution.

Hasn't that been the plan all along ?

The New Hegelian Dialectic- Dollar vs. Gold Kids Edition This week we will be looking at the new Hegelian Dialectic of two false choices between Gold and the Dollar. The solution is competitive currencies, real wealth and decentralized power. You cannot settle for something that has part of the answer.

That somehow Bitcoin is better than the current system because its decentralized ?

Well what would you accept as proof?

Hasn't that been the plan all along ?

I don't care about anyone's plans.

Hegelian Dialectic

Your definition of "Hegelian Dialectic" would fit any kind of innovation and progress then. That's a different beast than when a problem/reaction/solution is created on purpose.

Well what would you accept as proof?

/r/circlejerk is that way =>

I take it you have run out of arguments.

see my reply here

http://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/1b16tz/can_we_discuss_bitcoin_a_bit_what_if_it_is/c92rvh0

which is why every other currency is forced upon us.

http://www.thedailybell.com/28549/Barter-and-Alternative-Currencies-Growing-in-Greece

I'm not sure they need injected microchips anymore when everyone is for all intents and purposes, surgically attached to their smart phones.

all microchips carry a unique identifier which makes all your transactions traceable by big brother.

So does your credit card and anything you buy online. A microchip just seems superfluous at this point. No need to use force on the populous when there are more efficient means available.

Outright slavery doesn't work. Slaves see whats going on, they know who to kill, they revolt, so on. It's also more expensive to keep slaves, you have to provide everything for them.

But now, thanks to the brilliant social engineers of today, we have a much more advanced and sophisticated system in place. Make the slave not only work for you, but actually pay you to survive. This is great because the slave believes he has freedom of choice, he is given a nice allowance of sorts that he can use as he sees fit. And if he isn't able to survive, then it's his fault and he will believe that to be so.

Want to track the slave? No need for invasive and forceful injection of microchips as if he were a farm animal. Give them a "smart phone", let them play with the new cool toys, let them have technology and feel as though they understand it and are the ones using it instead of being used by it. GPS, keylogging, microphones and cameras in everyone's lives and in everyone's homes.

Facebook, Twitter, hardly a need to spy at all when the people are just giving it all up.

It's a beautiful mixture of Orwell and Huxley. The keepers of men advance with the times.

How do I know Bitcoin is a scam and covertly funded by hidden interests ? The question is how is Bitcoin acceptable to the feds but Liberty Dollar is not ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Dollar

On March 18, 2011, von NotHaus was pronounced guilty of "making, possessing, and selling his own currency".

Until July 2009, the Liberty Dollar was distributed by Liberty Services (formerly known as "National Organization for the Repeal of the Federal Reserve and the Internal Revenue Code" (NORFED), based in Evansville, Indiana. It was created by Bernard von NotHaus, the co-founder of the Royal Hawaiian Mint Company.[3] In May 2009, von NotHaus and others were charged with federal crimes in connection with the Liberty Dollar and, on July 31, 2009, von NotHaus announced that he had closed the Liberty Dollar operation, pending resolution of the criminal charges.

Because again, Liberty Dollar ran on one server by one guy. That's really not hard to shut off. Bitcoin is decentralized. It runs on countless machines. You'd have to shut down the whole internet to shut it down.

So its illegal but the feds don't know what to do about it ? Your bs views are not shared by the feds.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324373204578374611351125202.html

legal != technical. They can also try to tax or outlaw gravity. But yes, exchanges are vulnerable spots. Better try to stay within Bitcoin, earn and spend them, without having to exchange them.

legal != technical.

Keep deluding yourself.

Better try to stay within Bitcoin, earn and spend them, without having to exchange them.

By golly, that literally spells it out. SCAM <=> BITCOIN

you can also spend them on precious metals.

I take it you have run out of arguments.

Are you trying to change the subject jackass ?

[deleted]

If you read the sections of the penal code that they indicted him on, they basically nabbed him for counterfeiting.

Your friend already made it clear that bitcoin is illegal and is a scam. No point going over the same argument. Guess all those fake accounts come in handy. 1 link karma 1,594 comment karma . really ?

http://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/1b16tz/can_we_discuss_bitcoin_a_bit_what_if_it_is/c92qr3i

[deleted]

So Bitcoin is not counterfeit and Liberty Dollar is ? :-O

I'm stoked.

I think you meant to reply to someone else.

... and they're promoting it to the people who should be most against it. I've said this the whole time. Once Kokesh started pushing it, I realized it was a bad idea. Kokesh, I believe, is controlled opposition.

edit: WOW the bitcoin fanatics are out in full force here. Definitely a cult mentality.

Who should we not be promoting it to, and conversely, who should we be promoting it to?

The fanatics are here because we're interested in discussion about it. We know how the system works, we know (within reason) the pros and cons, so we are uniquely qualified to clear up misconceptions. Dunno how that makes us cultish.

Personally, I don't foresee Bitcoin overturning banks. Loans are really a bank's bread and butter, and Bitcoin has no inherent structure for loans. On the other hand, I am gleefully waiting for the day that Paypal is toppled.

I understand how the system works its like mined code that is used as currency and that there can only be so many of them ever created blah blah yes I know how it works.

My point is this: The banks will co-opt it if it gets too big, the banks can then promote it as the "new digital currency", everyone gets chipped out of convenience and "privacy" and blam control grid complete.

You can't really find someone's private key by their addresses though. You'd have to convince everyone to stop using the 'bare minimum' approach and agree to start using the banks' trackable chip authentication approach.

If the protocol doesn't change significantly, which I doubt it will, you'll still be able to use bitcoin-qt (or whatever equivalent smartphones will have) in order to send transactions - neatly avoiding having to get chipped. You'll still need your private key, sure - but that's all you need, no one else needs to know it, and you can't associate sending/receiving addresses to a single private key except by virtue of the fact that only the private key can sign it.

tl;dr: don't give your private key to the bank and you're still alright.

It's fiat currency just like everything else. It might be a reasonable way to protest against the banks for a while, but it's never going to be wide-spread enough to actually solve anything, and even if it did become wide-spread, you'd still eventually end up with the exact same problems we have now.

Doesn't matter what you call it - dollars, pounds, yen, bitcoin; none of it actually has any value. And this "digital currency" term seems overused; everything is digital currency these days anyway.

not fiat. Read up the definition of fiat. Thanks. also, it has value in the sense that it is rare, people want it, they use them to buy anonymously or send money on the other side of the world for practically no fee (optional too).

money without intrinsic value.

fiat money's value is unrelated to the value of any physical quantity.

Not sure what i'm missing there.

And rarity of something that is imaginary does not make it valuable. Oil has value. Gold has value. Numbers on a computer screen don't have value.

what ? you do know that only 7% of the dollars in circulation are printed and the rest is on a screen ? virtual money. You live in it.

Bitcoin have mathematical properties that mean there can only be 21 millions and at the moment we should just below 11 millions in circulation via mining.

It's like gold in some ways but better in others. You are right it is not physical, just like patents, copyrights, IP in general in some ways.

Thing is nobody can create btc at wish other than within the limits and by a specified process called mining. They can't be copied, because the network detects and stops double spends and they can't be used anywhere else because they are only valid withing the bitcoin network guaranteed by cryptography.

It is not very easy to understand, but then again most people here probably don't understand how the credit card system and banking system works internally.

And it is all open source.

And this "digital currency" term seems overused; everything is digital currency these days anyway.

Yeah...

You're completely missing my point anyway. I don't need to understand the inner workings of the bitcoin system, just the same as nobody needs to understand the inner workings of the dollar to understand that piece of paper with '20' written on it, isn't worth $20. I understand Bitcoin in the sense that you can use them to buy things, and therefore it has value while people believe it has value, but that's the same as every other currency.

I'm not saying it doesn't have it's advantages, but people talk about it like it's some sort of long term solution to the financial system.

I don't need to understand the inner workings of the bitcoin system, just the same as nobody needs to understand the inner workings of the dollar to understand that piece of paper with '20' written on it, isn't worth $20.

While you make some good points, understanding the bitcoin system is important to understand why bitcoin actually has "gold like" properties. The math behind it ensures that a bitcoin cannot be copied or counterfeited like another digital number. If someone claims to be able to make up bitcoin outside of the mining process, they are similar to people who claim to be able to transmute gold from lead. If you had unlimited energy you could probably do it. Just like if you had unlimited energy and computing power, you could fake bitcoins.

If you have a trusted friend with a math background you could consult with them and have them explain the inner workings of it.

because it is deflationary and decentralized and anyone can jump in. It can be trusted more than the banks (looking at you EU!)

It might be a reasonable way to protest against the banks for a while, but it's never going to be wide-spread enough to actually solve anything, and even if it did become wide-spread, you'd still eventually end up with the exact same problems we have now.

I'll just keep repeating myself, don't worry.

Yes, it's a good current alternative. No, it's not a viable long-term system.

[deleted]

That has no bearing on what i'm talking about. Gold is not a currency, it is a precious metal. Even gold-backed currency isn't of any intrinsic value - only the gold it is backed by is.

Please explain why gold has value. You can't burn it, eat it, build shelter with it, drink it, use it as fuel, make anything practical with it, etc.

You mean after the obvious ones like jewelry? Sure, that's a superficial value, but it's also not going to change in the foreseeable future.

There's this cool site called Google. You should check it out sometime.

You can make jewelry out of seashells, shiny rocks, silver, and rope. Somehow gold is much more valuable than all of these things. I wonder why that is. Being intellectually dishonest is fun, you are really good at it.

Did you even click on the link? Or are you just ignoring that because it's convenient for you?

[deleted]

I'm not sure why i'm not getting this point over... You cannot compare gold to bitcoin. Gold is a physical, precious metal with use and therefore intrinsic value. Bitcoin is a currency, with zero intrinsic value. It is not "rare", because it's an idea, not a commodity.

Is it a good system to adopt for a while? Yes. Will anyone give a shit about it if/when the rest of the global currencies fail? No.

[deleted]

Are you hearing what you are saying? "Physical 1s and 0s" - what? So gold has no other value except we think it's pretty and therefore give it value? It's of no other use right?

Jesus...

[deleted]

You didn't answer the question. Gold has no properties other than it's rarity and it's use as a currency? It's not widely used in industry and therefore isn't a useful good in it's own right?

[deleted]

Sure, but lets look back at jewelry - it's still of value because people want it as an end product. Nobody wants Bitcoin for it's own sake. Is gold overvalued in our society? Most probably, but it's always going to have some value. Bitcoin only has value because we've decided it does - it might be physically written to a disk, but that's the same principal as that piece of paper with $20 written on it. Sure, you might not be able to inflate/deflate/print more etc, etc, but that doesn't mean it's actually of any value in itself.

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Bitcoin is finite because someone has decided it is finite. If someone decided there was only 1 trillion dollars ever allowed in the world, then it's the exact same principal. And stop with the "rare" bullshit. What is rare? Programming? 1s and 0s?

And yes, we've decided gold looks nice, and therefore want it... (wait for it) ...As. An. End. Product. If/when people stop wanting it as an end product, it will have less value.

Music has value because people want it as an end product. Art is valuable because people want it as an end product. Bitcoin is a MEANS to getting an end product. It is a currency. It is not a resource.

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people will buy my bitcoins off me for goods or cash

Right there. You got it.

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You are completely missing the point of what i'm saying. I'll be here until i'm blue in the face and you still won't get it.

Person -> Dollars/Yen/Pounds/Bitcoin -> Product/good/service/resource.

Bitcoin is a scam that will be coming to a close very soon as the coins mined when processing the transactions of users will be worth less than the electricity used to mine them much less the machines themselves.

At this point the only way to sustain the system will be for worthwhile transaction fees to be posted, taking away how "free" Bitcoin is.

Reduced participation in Block verifying will make Bitcoin less safe.

Bitcoin was never anonymous.

You are worried about nothing.

What a load of shite. Educate yourself before commenting on something. Bitcoin is the Napster of Banking!

Bitcoin will do to Banking what Torrents did to copyright holders. ;-)

Bitcoin will do to Banking what email did to postal services ;)

Bitcoin will do to itself what Kurt did to himself.

Maybe not Napster since that got busted to hell, more like what email is to the postal system, just against banks.

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I wouldn't be surprised if Bitcoins in their current incarnation didn't survive.

On the other hand, I'd give the Internet 50/50 odds that whatever actually supplants Bitcoin will honor Bitcoins.

The bitcoin protocol is the bitcoin-qt client, a p2p decentralized, self regulating, purely digital currency exchange. Litecoin is a derivation of bitcoin built on the bitcoin protocol, but different from bitcoin. It uses the the same principals from the bitcoin open source client, and adds its own features. Bitcoin is just the first version, if someone were to come along with bitcoin 2.0 and build on and fix the currently unseen inherent flaws with the current system of bitcoin then I implore them to do so.

Consider the possibility that I know more than you.

Consider the fact that I reccomend not buying Bitcoins, which could lower their price (having a negative impact if I was an investor) whereas preaching confidence and safety could lead to increased sales and thus, profit for me.

Now why should you trust someone who profits off of your choice over soemone who has nothing to gain?

There is clear motive for lying to you if I was an investor myself and I wanted you to by Bitcoins.

The only motive for warning you that it is a scam is simply that (I hope) fewer people get scammed. I have nothing to gain or lose either way, my audience does.

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/u/dasstrooper has a rather small submission history, primarily focused in Bitcoin with 9 posts to /r/conspiracy in for 5 and a half years.

Well, more accurately 9 posts in /r/ conspiracy in the past few days, 8 of which pertained to bitcoin.

Trying to move that price just a bit higher?

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He also recognizes an ad hominem

I apparently do not.

Consider the possibility that you may not know more than me. I have read extensively around the topic and am well aware of the risks, benefits and technology involved in Bitcoins.

I am not trying to convince anyone to buy Bitcoins, there are over 5000 people waiting for their accounts to be verified at MtGox, we certainly don't need more people jumping in to make profits... the price is rising too rapidly in my opinion anyway.

If you cant see the huge potential of a friction-less global, decentralized currency / payment system that makes transferring value as easy as sending an email that's cool... don't get involved. Bitcoin is cheaper than any current solution (PayPal, VISA etc). Your account cant be frozen by any entity (Such as accounts in Cyprus!). I see it as a truly game changing technology. It's also open source and fully transparent, so if you have the technical ability by all means examine the protocol.

Claiming it is a scam without any argument is ridiculous. Your argument seems to be 'I just know its a scam'. Seriously? State your reasoning! I find it insulting to my intelligence that you think I am a sucker... I am a professional accountant! I know the risks and certainly wouldn't suggest anyone gets involved without extensive research to make their own informed decisions. If I had listened to you 'warners' a year ago I would have missed the boat completely. Its still not even reached the 'early adopter' phase! So either state your 'inside knowledge' that it is a scam or be quiet. You are saving nobody, and time might prove you to be an idiot. Many people thought the Internet was a scam and thought digitized music would never replace physical music mediums. Look how ridiculous they look now. The only scam is FIAT currency, our Governments print Billions each year devaluing our savings... the internet has found a superior solution!

So, please... (with less arrogance) tell me why you believe it is a scam? If your reasoning is the early adopters set to profit that is invalid. Were the early investors in Apple stock scammers? How about the first people to find Gold?

the price is rising too rapidly in my opinion anyway.

Said every investor ever.

Noteworthy: /u/snakemcgraw has only ever posted in /r/bitcoin (392 posts) or about bitcoins (8 posts, 2 in conspiracy, in this thread, in response to my posts) in over a year.

Struck a chord?

I don't get your point, just because I like reddit for my Bitcoin news (like you like reddit for your paranoid tin foil hat bullshit) it must be a scam? That's no argument. Please give your reasons you believe it's a scam. I'm open to new information...of which you seemingly have none. Just a hunch...a paranoid hunch.

I don't get your point

Each of our accounts seems suited for a purpose, that is all.

Mine to tell people that they are wrong, and yours to hype bitcoins.

What brought you here to my comment on your first trip into "tin foil hat bullshit?"

I read as much about Bitcoin as possible... regardless of the source. I'm not hyping anything. The mainstream press (BBC, DIGG, Lifehacker, Bloomberg, CNBC, techcrunch etc. etc.) are doing a fine job the last couple of days.

So you have nothing to substantiate your claim its a scam then?

Thought not.

Thanks for the pointless warning.

What brought you here to my comment on your first trip into "tin foil hat bullshit?"

I wonder, again.

So you have nothing to substantiate your claim its a scam then?

At this point the only way to sustain the system will be for worthwhile transaction fees to be posted, taking away how "free" Bitcoin is.

When operating costs can't be covered by the block creation bounty, which will happen some time before the total amount of BTC is reached, miners will earn some profit from transaction fees.

Reduced participation in Block verifying will make Bitcoin less safe.

There is less of a guarantee that the amount of mining being performed will be sufficient to maintain the network's security.

Bitcoin was never anonymous.

Potentially Anonymous is close enough right? Like a Potentially bullet proof vest or a potentially earthquake proof dam?

Source? Bitcoin.

Well none of that really explains why it is a scam?

OK what is your point?, in 2030 and beyond small fees may be mandatory? That's no issue for myself, I willingly pay small fees now. I would even mine just to help the network. Still way cheaper than bank / Paypal costs.

Computing power is growing rapidly, I'm pretty sure the network will be safe (Its safe enough now on the relatively primitive ASICs and rigs etc used already)

Who said it was anonymous? Its pseudo anonymous... who is this 1HVpyjYEPwQhvRQ3dL8tGe9kiydti616sX

??? You DONT KNOW.

PayPal and Visa know exactly who you are and who you are sending money too. Bitcoin is between two parties only. A 3rd party would have to associate you with an address (hard). You can also use a different address for every transaction, and there are already anonymity 'tumbler' services to make tracking impossible.

Still no argument for it being a scam... just an argument for your stupidity :)

Well none of that really explains why it is a scam?

I Bitcoin indicates the the professed greatest strengths of Bitcoin either do not exist or are in fact their greatest weakness.

Anyone trying to encourage new participants or hyping the value would therefore be a scammer.

in 2030 and beyond small fees may be mandatory?

Could you share the source you found this number?

Still way cheaper than bank

It costs me nothing to hold money in my bank, withdraw money from my bank, or spend money from my bank.

So, wrong.

Computing power is growing rapidly

Source for this (less than 4 years old)?

The major drive for researching quantum computing is because we can't physically make processors any smaller, having reached construction on the atomic scale (we can still make them cheaper in time). Certainly we can make larger processors, but the additional costs (storage, cooling, maintenance) need to be factored in.

who is this 1HVpyjYEPwQhvRQ3dL8tGe9kiydti616sX

I don't know, but I also lack incentive to find out. The same can't be said for many organizations and the fact remains that it is NOT anonymous.

PayPal and Visa know exactly who...

So does Bitcoin, in a very literal and technical sense. The only difference is that the former record the identity explicitly (which is not even a bad thing).

just an argument for your stupidity

I already made it this far, so I will go ahead and submit my post.

However, there is nothing to be gained in a conversation where you ignore my points and attack my character; so enjoy getting the last word in and we will both move on with our lives.

It costs me nothing to hold money in my bank, withdraw money from my bank, or spend money from my bank.

LOL, if you hold money in your bank due to inflation it is worth less each year. Thanks to our Governments printing machines. As a UK citizen it also costs £25-£35 to send money abroad and takes days... If you cant see Bitcoin as a far superior alternative I don't understand!

So does Bitcoin, in a very literal and technical sense. The only difference is that the former record the identity explicitly (which is not even a bad thing).

Seriously? This is a Conspiracy forum and you have no problem with organizations and Government knowing every little part of your life? PayPal froze my account once... and the poor people of Cyprus are finding out that they are literally slaves to their Governments.

Even if you had the incentive you couldn't find out who's address that was! ha

Could you share the source you found this number?

Pretty lame, but it was Google. It surprised me as I though the last coins would be mined next century. I'll get back to you on that... but its kind of a small point. I dont mind paying tiny fees to be my own bank :)

Anyways, apologies for calling you stupid. I am sure you are not.

due to inflation it is worth less each year.

Due to inflation Bitcoins will be "worth more" each year. There is no actual change in value of goods.

As a UK citizen it also costs £25-£35 to send money abroad and takes days

I am a non-UK citizen who has nothing to ever send abroad.

I imagine I am in the majority.

knowing every little part of your life-

-Is morally neutral, how that information is used is besides the point.

PayPal froze my account once

I don't use Paypal, Caveat Emptor.

the poor people of Cyprus are finding out that they are literally slaves to their Governments

Therefore: Bitcoin? Non-sequitur.

Even if you had the incentive you couldn't find out who's address that was!

Yes you could, in the exact same manner which leaves Tor entirely useless to the truly curious party.

it was Google

Google is not a source. I can't believe I just typed that.

I dont mind paying tiny fees to be my own bank

You could also just posses your mediums of exchange and a means to protect them rather than relying on (and paying) another party.

Anyways, apologies for calling you stupid.

Well ain't you cordial? Accepted, I get that.

Edit: aw fuck, I wasn't supposed to respond to you anymore. Well played...

Cool, I see value in it, you do not...time will tell. If TOR is so insecure how come they can close the Silk Road?

Cool, I see value in it, you do not

It's not that simple, you are lying to people, possibly yourself.

If TOR is so insecure

This is just one way to render Tor defunct.

One should also keep in mind how Tor came to be in the first place before installing it, much like any software.

Speaking of knowing how software came to be, wasn't Bitcoin created anonymously and the creator "disappeared" from the internet?

how come they can['t] close the Silk Road?

Why would they want too?

Just looked it up... coin production is set to end in 2140. So we have some time to iron out the issues. Give us time :)

Just looked it up... coin production is set to end in 2140. So we have some time to iron out the issues. Give us time :)

So, no?

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it's more like .. the internet. Decentralized.

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I see what you are saying.

But hey, is worth trying. A different kind of fight from Libya surely. Decentralised fights are harder.

Do you think they will be as successful as with p2p networks like emule and bittorrent ? Perhaps they can make it hard to spend them in the USA first and then in the controlled western world, but i think we have a chance.

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This is not counterfeit money.

This is just something that people decided to freely accept as something of value. I'm sure they will fight it, but it will be a new fight.

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One observation is that Bitcoin technology is actually rather useful for banks. Free and instantaneous money transfer over a global network that they don't have to pay to maintain - hey that boosts the bottom line.

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Honestly tell me step by step how you take down a decentralized network, short of censoring the internet.

Make it illegal. Start arresting people who participate in it. Conflate the currency with drug dealers, terrorists, money laundering. Put people who use it on watch lists. 51% attacks with government funding (would be ridiculously expensive, but look at how much money the govt spends on War on X's).

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Okay I guess my question was in relation to a world that didnt mirror 1984.

Well, that's no fun then. We ARE on /r/conspiracy aren't we? :)

On another point the 51% attack can be mitigated by implementing into the code the requirement of the attacker to also control 51% of the bitcoins, something i read about not long ago(on phone will try find later)

Hmm. That does sound interesting. Would be interested if you had a reference.

Bitcoins aren't pretending to be dollars. The comparison to Liberty Dollars is not applicable. It's a commodity.

It will be very difficult for banks to crush Bitcoins; legislation will simply cause it to become encrypted traffic. DoS attacks will become filtered. 51% attacks, same. As long as there is interest in Bitcoin, it will survive; the only attack that could realistically work is making it unappealing to everyday users.

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But that part is correct, by solving blocks you get BTC, blocks are the way of processing people's transactions...

Are you under the impression that mining is a separate "game" that produces coins? It is "payment" for computing and maintaining the ledger.

like gt7 said read up a bit. look up the definition of scam, understand what scams are and then understand what bitcoin is. when the block rewards are no longer profitable(which I am not sure if they will ever be, because as the reward halves and the influx of coins become more scarce so will the value of the coins increase. you may only get 12.5 coins next halve but each coin will be worth way more.) then the transaction fees will take over and be main income. and for the moment transaction fees are negligible sure, but the fees will go up and a balance will be found. Transaction fees too high? if that happens then they will increase the amount of transactions per block so the amount of fees per transaction can remain low they just process more at a time to makeup for it. The system is pretty fluid and can change based solely on demand of its users. for better or worse its a majority rules type deal.

Also bitcoin is sort of anonymous. you can be anonymous, but it takes great effort. but really a person with unlimited time and funds can always trace and work the system to find the information they seek. the only thing about encryption or being as anonymous as you can is to make the search prohibitively expensive to the point where most just leave the trail alone. Dont you think?

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If I needed that kind of service(i put alittle thought into it), say I got 100,000 dollars given to me and I didnt want to pay taxes on it (just for the sake of argument) I could send half, or 50,000 usd worth through a mixer which will split it up taking a small %. then i will just do that multiple times. the mixers, the good ones will pay back the the 50,000 in random amounts to pre supplied addresses.

So does your credit card and anything you buy online. A microchip just seems superfluous at this point. No need to use force on the populous when there are more efficient means available.

Outright slavery doesn't work. Slaves see whats going on, they know who to kill, they revolt, so on. It's also more expensive to keep slaves, you have to provide everything for them.

But now, thanks to the brilliant social engineers of today, we have a much more advanced and sophisticated system in place. Make the slave not only work for you, but actually pay you to survive. This is great because the slave believes he has freedom of choice, he is given a nice allowance of sorts that he can use as he sees fit. And if he isn't able to survive, then it's his fault and he will believe that to be so.

Want to track the slave? No need for invasive and forceful injection of microchips as if he were a farm animal. Give them a "smart phone", let them play with the new cool toys, let them have technology and feel as though they understand it and are the ones using it instead of being used by it. GPS, keylogging, microphones and cameras in everyone's lives and in everyone's homes.

Facebook, Twitter, hardly a need to spy at all when the people are just giving it all up.

It's a beautiful mixture of Orwell and Huxley. The keepers of men advance with the times.

It doesn't work that way.

You might benefit from viewing this infographic, specifically the upper-right corner.

http://thumbnails.visually.netdna-cdn.com/bitcoin-infographic_5029189c9cbaf.jpg

tl;dr you can't predict what would be a valid value for the next block because it depends on all the previous blocks (and transactions inside them) combined

You sure showed us.

How in the world would you control potential hash generation? If you try to control it, someone else just gets the block before you do, and all your work means nothing. If you somehow control counts, that just means you're going to wind up in an orphaned chain and anything you do no longer affects the proper Bitcoin network. What ctzl fails to mention is that it isn't really the clients that give the block the OK - it's the miners, when they find new blocks based on the old block's hash. And that takes raw processing power.

It's like trying to poison a torrent by providing a bad file. You might affect some people who are trying to download, but all you'll do is inconvenience them for a bit and waste your bandwidth.

EDIT: Also, the very reason SHA256 is used is because it isn't predictable. Not yet, at least; if someone finds a hole, Bitcoin will probably move to a new hash method. There will almost certainly be a panic sell and the price will plummet... but that's for another discussion.

yes, theuniversal block chain. this is in my eyes a weakness.

Explain how it is even theoretically possible to have a p2p money system that doesn't have a universal ledger then?

What are its weaknesses coming from the supposed centralization?

I am not a mathematician, but look at DHT itself and if anybody would have thought its possible lets say during the 90ies.

The problem stems from "polluting the namespace". If the MPAA tries to pollute the swapping of film X, then either there is a new torrent, or, much more likely, every peer just ignores/bans/permabans them.

Btw, do you know http://nightweb.net/ ?

Nightweb looks like just another implementation of i2p for android, nothing more.

You can't "pollute the namespace" in Bitcoin because every peer you are connected to will not pass the garbage on to other peers because every peer verifies the validity of a transaction presented to it. This is not a concern.