The Bubbly Bitcoin Thread -- Merged Threads

[Eddie_George]

Yes utterly pointless on PC even with a decent GPU. Managed to crank mine up to 14 Mhash/s which means... its not even a contender. Also getting stale/invalid now so its not actually mining anything.

Interesting though. Bit of fun.

Yeah, it's a shame (although inevitable) that GPUs have lost out to ASICs now. At least GPUs could be used for other things. I guess it's too late for GPU manufacturers bother to optimize their cards for hashing as ASICs will always be one step ahead.

[miggy]

Yeah, it's a shame (although inevitable) that GPUs have lost out to ASICs now. At least GPUs could be used for other things. I guess it's too late for GPU manufacturers bother to optimize their cards for hashing as ASICs will always be one step ahead.

There are no asics you can buy and get delivered in time right now that will make any money at all compared to just buying Bitcoins, and that's if you even get your money back. The hash rate may stabilise somewhat in a few months but right now it's a mug's game due to huge amounts of new hardware coming online.

As for CPU or gpu mining, you just can't do it any more for bitcoin. You can for other currencies though.

[@contradevian]

There are no asics you can buy and get delivered in time right now that will make any money at all compared to just buying Bitcoins, and that's if you even get your money back. The hash rate may stabilise somewhat in a few months but right now it's a mug's game due to huge amounts of new hardware coming online.

As for CPU or gpu mining, you just can't do it any more for bitcoin. You can for other currencies though.

Don't know I might just buy some of these USB ASIC Block Erupter things as suggested by Eddy George for a bit of a laugh (as that is all it would be) and plug them into my Ubuntu netbook (or even a raspberry PI. Power consumption would still be quite low.

http://www.ebay.com/...+miner&_sacat=0

It would scare me to spend thousands on hardware though. Think I'd rather buy the Bitcoin directly, or even gold or just blow it on the Forex markets

Given up mining on the PC, running into software/hardware stack problems and its a nice day.

Edited November 3, 2013 by aSecureTenant

[Traktion]

Yes, visit localbitcoins.com, bitbargain.co.uk, or bittylicious.com

You can arrange to meet people in person through localbitcoins.com as well as buy online.

Probably more sites, but I don't know 'em.

If you don't mind doing a European/SEPA transfer, Bitstamp is pretty decent too. I had money with Bitstamp within 2 days and the fees were low (free from my bank + some small FOREX fees at Bitstamp's end).

[AteMoose]

it does look like a wild ride.... buy some on the next low in about 6 months time?

[markyh]

Don't know I might just buy some of these USB ASIC Block Erupter things as suggested by Eddy George for a bit of a laugh (as that is all it would be) and plug them into my Ubuntu netbook (or even a raspberry PI. Power consumption would still be quite low.

http://www.ebay.com/...+miner&_sacat=0

It would scare me to spend thousands on hardware though. Think I'd rather buy the Bitcoin directly, or even gold or just blow it on the Forex markets

Given up mining on the PC, running into software/hardware stack problems and its a nice day.

Plenty of UK Ebayer sellers dumping BFL Jalepenos. You can get one to £200. 5G/H for 30 watts USB. I have three on order since 22/4/13 that cost £600 direct with BFL. They should be here in about 10 days but now they will never make an ROI unless BTC rises to £400 a coin in the next few years.

Even £200 is way to much to make an ROI in under 1 year. These should be about £50 now so don't get suckered into overpaying.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/121206601886?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649

Still 15G/H for 90watts they will not lose money running yet so will hash them for fun and hold the coins waiting for BTC to rise in price.

M

[Traktion]

it does look like a wild ride.... buy some on the next low in about 6 months time?

It may be quite brave to wait. Considering the potential of Bitcoin and the current level of interest, the price seems to be like a coiled spring.

Ofc, the last 2-3 weeks have seen a near doubling in price and you would normally expect some sort of correction. However, Bitcoin is a difficult beast to second guess, as it's very hard to figure out what a fair price for Bitcoins is... $2.5bn is still a very small market cap considering the potential.

[LetsGetReadyToTumble]

If you don't mind doing a European/SEPA transfer, Bitstamp is pretty decent too. I had money with Bitstamp within 2 days and the fees were low (free from my bank + some small FOREX fees at Bitstamp's end).

I use Bitstamp, no problems. I direct my bank at say 3am (I'm a night owl) and the money is with Bitstamp the next working day.

But this looks interesting, but do not see when they are starting to exchange.

https://coinfloor.co.uk/

EDIT

BTW, with Bitstamp you have to send Euros, so I get a poor conversion to Euros from the bank, and then Bitstamp convert them into US dollars, but with very little hit. They seem to want to make their commission from actual dealing, and these commissions are low anyway.

Edited November 4, 2013 by LetsGetReadyToTumble

[Traktion]

http://invezz.com/news/equities/6527-ebay-share-price-e-commerce-giant-to-accept-more-digital-currencies

iNVEZZ.com, Monday, November 4: eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY) has plans to expand the range of digital currencies it accepts, a move that may one day result in a tie-up of the company’s PayPal business and Bitcoin. In an interview with the Financial Times yesterday, the company’s Chief Executive Officer John Donahoe said that the use of digital currency in e-commerce would be a “very powerful thing”. eBay’s initial plans include incorporating reward points from retailer loyalty programmes into its PayPal wallet. In Friday’s trading, eBay shares declined 1.46 percent to close at $51.94.

...

Bitcoin

Chief Executive Donahoe also touched on the subject of Bitcoin – the digital payment mechanism distributed through peer-to-peer computer networks outside the banking system (What are Bitcoins? – Gold for Geeks?). While Donahoe told the FT that eBay wasn’t yet contemplating an expansion of the PayPal wallet to include Bitcoin, he said that “we are watching it”.

The company “watching” Bitcoin

The company “watching” Bitcoin “That same technology could accept other digital currencies,” he told the FT.

A potential tie-up of PayPal and Bitcoin would provide the cyber-currency with the support – and the credibility - it needs to evolve from niche product to ubiquitous global currency. While Bitcoin aficionados believe that it represents the future of online payments, the fact is that it’s currently accepted by very few retailers of any significance. Backing by a major player such as eBay would change that.

This isn't the first time that a PayPal and Bitcoin integration has been hinted at either.

Such a move would give Bitcoin a lot more credibility. It would also give it massive exposure and provide thousands of merchants with an option of accepting Bitcoin payments.

[Traktion]

In other news, the BTC China exchange now has the biggest volume of all exchanges. The Chinese seem to be investing in Bitcoin pretty heavily.

[@contradevian]

It may be quite brave to wait. Considering the potential of Bitcoin and the current level of interest, the price seems to be like a coiled spring.

Ofc, the last 2-3 weeks have seen a near doubling in price and you would normally expect some sort of correction. However, Bitcoin is a difficult beast to second guess, as it's very hard to figure out what a fair price for Bitcoins is... $2.5bn is still a very small market cap considering the potential.

Yes think I'll continue to mine a little with a dedicated mining rig as its kinda fun. Kinda paying via my electricity bill offset via lower heating bills (during the winter).

Edited November 4, 2013 by aSecureTenant

[Eddie_George]

Yes think I'll continue to mine a little with a dedicated mining rig as its kinda fun. Kinda paying via my electricity bill offset via lower heating bills (during the winter).

Edited November 4, 2013 by Eddie_George

[LetsGetReadyToTumble]

I have a question.

Can somebody please help.

I have a hard drive wallet, using Bitcoin-qt. This is encrypted with a nice, long, complex password.

Does it make any difference if the wallet is encrypted before or after the bitcoins are downloaded from the bitcoin exchange?

Are the bitcoins secure if downloaded to the wallet first and then the wallet is encrypted?

Thanks.

[@contradevian]

Well I'm actually mining with my GPU at last. The only miner that seems to work reliably with my hardware seems to be cgminer on Windows 7.

Left it running all night but cgminer seemed to stop working about 11 pm so no coinage overnight.

I now have 0.00000063 BTC

Looking forward to getting some ASIC devices plugged in.

Edited November 5, 2013 by aSecureTenant

[miggy]

I have a question.

Can somebody please help.

I have a hard drive wallet, using Bitcoin-qt. This is encrypted with a nice, long, complex password.

Does it make any difference if the wallet is encrypted before or after the bitcoins are downloaded from the bitcoin exchange?

Are the bitcoins secure if downloaded to the wallet first and then the wallet is encrypted?

And this is why we need trustworthy, affordable bitcoin banks.

Short answer: yes you're fine but you must frequently backup your wallet and keep it offsite. I don't recommend bitcoinqt to anyone ever. It's a reference client and complicated. It also requires the blockchain. Electrum doesn't, not sure about multibit. I must admit I use blockchain.info a lot with two passwords (second one is never typed in, click on an in screen pad), 2 factor, and the web plugin. I trade too often to use long term storage.

Long answer: bitcoins are not stored in your wallet at all. Think of your wallet contents as the keys to a safe containing gold; think of your password as the combination lock to another safe, your wallet, containing the keys.

The safe containing the gold is in Fort Knox but fortunately you can teleport there any time you like and you can move any amount of that gold into any other safe in Fort Knox super fast - it only takes half an hour to move it to any other safe, however much you want to move. All you need in order to do this is your keys.

Oddly Fort Knox is made of unbreakable glass, so anyone can look into your safe at any time and see how much gold you have. All they need to know is the address of your safe within Fort Knox. The safe also contains a visible piece of paper saying which other safes that gold came from.

Miners move and protect the gold and the safes for you so you don't strain yourself and can't have any nicked. You normally tip them for this service. Don't tip and your gold move could even take a few days.

Fort Knox also has all the raw gold left in the world, so they pay this to the miners for doing this service. When the raw gold runs out, miners will earn entirely from tips. There is less and less raw gold remaining so every few years miners are paid half of what they were. Deflation is a bitch! But that gold gets more and more valuable to the rest of the world so it all works out really. In 7 years there won't be much more raw gold left (10-12% iirc) altho it will last another 120 years paid in increasingly small amounts.

I just made this up but it sounds about right!

The reason you need to backup your wallet frequently is that, unbeknown to you, after you have moved the gold a few times you are allocated a new set of keys. (It's a bit more complicated than that. Also, in qt you need to backup every 100 transactions at absolute worst but I suggest you do it frequently. Deterministic wallets such as electrum only need to be backed up once as long as they are set to deterministic when you create the wallet.)

Edited November 5, 2013 by miggy

[LetsGetReadyToTumble]

And this is why we need trustworthy, affordable bitcoin banks.

Short answer: yes you're fine but you must frequently backup your wallet and keep it offsite. I don't recommend bitcoinqt to anyone ever. It's a reference client and complicated. It also requires the blockchain. Electrum doesn't, not sure about multibit. I must admit I use blockchain.info a lot with two passwords (second one is never typed in, click on an in screen pad), 2 factor, and the web plugin. I trade too often to use long term storage.

Long answer: bitcoins are not stored in your wallet at all. Think of your wallet contents as the keys to a safe containing gold; think of your password as the combination lock to another safe, your wallet, containing the keys.

The safe containing the gold is in Fort Knox but fortunately you can teleport there any time you like and you can move any amount of that gold into any other safe in Fort Knox super fast - it only takes half an hour to move it to any other safe, however much you want to move. All you need in order to do this is your keys.

Oddly Fort Knox is made of unbreakable glass, so anyone can look into your safe at any time and see how much gold you have. All they need to know is the address of your safe within Fort Knox. The safe also contains a visible piece of paper saying which other safes that gold came from.

Miners move and protect the gold and the safes for you so you don't strain yourself and can't have any nicked. You normally tip them for this service. Don't tip and your gold move could even take a few days.

Fort Knox also has all the raw gold left in the world, so they pay this to the miners for doing this service. When the raw gold runs out, miners will earn entirely from tips. There is less and less raw gold remaining so every few years miners are paid half of what they were. Deflation is a bitch! But that gold gets more and more valuable to the rest of the world so it all works out really. In 7 years there won't be much more raw gold left (10-12% iirc) altho it will last another 120 years paid in increasingly small amounts.

I just made this up but it sounds about right!

The reason you need to backup your wallet frequently is that, unbeknown to you, after you have moved the gold a few times you are allocated a new set of keys. (It's a bit more complicated than that. Also, in qt you need to backup every 100 transactions at absolute worst but I suggest you do it frequently. Deterministic wallets such as electrum only need to be backed up once as long as they are set to deterministic when you create the wallet.)

Thanks miggy, magic answer.

Ref your last paragraph.

Why would I be moving 'the gold' a few times? I bought a number of Bitcoins which are just residing on the Blockchain at the moment.

These 100 transactions. Are they my transactions or all transactions to the blockchain?

I am right in assuming that the password used to encrypt my wallet is only used if I want to move Bitcoins, for say, payment of services or whatever? So if someone hacks into my machine, they need to know the password to steal my Bitcoins? Is that how it works?

[NatterJackToad]

someone just bought 3692 coins on MtGox for almost $1m which has pushed the price up toward $255.

big couple of weeks.

http://bitcoinity.org/markets

Edited November 5, 2013 by NatterJackToad

[happy_renting]

someone just bought 3692 coins on MtGox for almost $1m which has pushed the price up toward $255.

big couple of weeks.

http://bitcoinity.org/markets

Shows how small the market currently is, if a 'mere' $1m spend can swing the market significantly.

I suspect the Bitcoin market may soon be ripe for manipulation by big players.

[@contradevian]

Shows how small the market currently is, if a 'mere' $1m spend can swing the market significantly.

I suspect the Bitcoin market may soon be ripe for manipulation by big players.

Yes people like me with 0.00001373 BTC worth

You can spread bet bitcoin too.

[miggy]

Bitcoin hit an all time high. Wow! Only $2-4m moves the market a lot at the moment if you look at the charts. Manipulation is rife already - you have to watch for the whales. I only have a small exchange trade account now as it's way too unpredictable. Most bitcoiners just hold. Made a whole BTC in trading on $1800 yesterday then sold and slept at 240. Today bitstamp hit 255. Heh!

Ref your last paragraph.

Why would I be moving 'the gold' a few times? I bought a number of Bitcoins which are just residing on the Blockchain at the moment.

These 100 transactions. Are they my transactions or all transactions to the blockchain?

I am right in assuming that the password used to encrypt my wallet is only used if I want to move Bitcoins, for say, payment of services or whatever? So if someone hacks into my machine, they need to know the password to steal my Bitcoins? Is that how it works?

Every time you make a transaction, bitcoinqt generates a new address for you but you won't know this - new key and a new vault to use my analogy. In fact it precreates 100 of them then adds more. So if you go past 100 transactions without backing up, you no longer have your keys. Worse, when you spend money bitcoin works very oddly.

To use my analogy again. If you have 5 kg of gold in a vault and send 1kg to tescos vault to pay for your food, would expect the other 4kg to stay in the same place. What actually happens is your 'change' goes to one of these new addresses. That's why bitcoinqt generates a new address. This is invisible to you as a user and side effects have caused many problems, particularly with backups and gambling sites (which often send winnings back to the wrong address). It's this way to aid in security and anonymity but it's quite a problem for software. Most people don't need this feature.

A crypto hole can be exposed when spending more than once from one address - only exposed by software flaws right now but potentially exploitable in future (powerful quantum computers or new crazy maths - for which there would likely be months or years of forewarning).

So bitcoin addresses, or vaults, are not like bank accounts basically. Your wallet is your collection of single use safes or single use accounts, give or take. Deterministic wallets create eg 100 addresses but then recycle them. Slightly less secure cryptographically and definitely less anonymous, but a lot easier to use.

You are right that someone needs to know your password to access the coins from your wallet. However, if you ever used a poor password, backed up your wallet, then used a stronger one, bare in mind your old backed up wallet makes you new one insecure because it contains the same keys - ie delete your old backup.

Depending on your set up, you normally only need your password to spend (this is not always true and it's why my small wallet on Blockchain has two passwords - one read only and the second one defeats key loggers which should be mandatory on all wallets if ask me).

[Traktion]

Bitcoin hit an all time high. Wow! Only $2-4m moves the market a lot at the moment if you look at the charts. Manipulation is rife already - you have to watch for the whales. I only have a small exchange trade account now as it's way too unpredictable. Most bitcoiners just hold. Made a whole BTC in trading on $1800 yesterday then sold and slept at 240. Today bitstamp hit 255. Heh!

...

It certainly escalated quickly! I made a few bad trades earlier in the month, expecting retraces that didn't materialise. I've decided to just hang on until something is more clearly telegraphed at this point.

With so much buying going on - particularly in China - it looks like these price rises are going to sustain themselves for a wee while yet. An inevitable correction will come along sooner or later, but calling the timing may be difficult.

Interestingly, the first boom went from 1 to 30 (approx). The second boom went from about 15 to 260. If this is another boom, we've gone from about 100... where next? If it is a similar multiple, we could hit the $1000s. That's pure speculation on my part though, ofc!

[happy_renting]

Bad news for Bitcoiners. It seems that a technical vulnerability has been found.

Miners who succeed in mining coins and intentionally delay announcing that the coins have been mined can cause other miners to waste time trying to mine them. This in turn allows them to subvert the entire mining process. To achieve this would require some modification to the mining software but as I believe this open source it would not be hard to do. The vulnerability needs the offending miners to constitute a large minority of all miners, but in the past there have been such consortia.

How real the threat is, is a moot point, but Bitcoin is no longer technically unassailable. That must erode faith in Bitcoin, and lead people to suspect there may be other vulnerabilities.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24818975

http://hackingdistributed.com/2013/11/04/bitcoin-is-broken/

[justthisbloke]

Price is still going up!

[@contradevian]

oops

Edited November 6, 2013 by aSecureTenant

[Traktion]

Bad news for Bitcoiners. It seems that a technical vulnerability has been found.

Miners who succeed in mining coins and intentionally delay announcing that the coins have been mined can cause other miners to waste time trying to mine them. This in turn allows them to subvert the entire mining process. To achieve this would require some modification to the mining software but as I believe this open source it would not be hard to do. The vulnerability needs the offending miners to constitute a large minority of all miners, but in the past there have been such consortia.

How real the threat is, is a moot point, but Bitcoin is no longer technically unassailable. That must erode faith in Bitcoin, and lead people to suspect there may be other vulnerabilities.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24818975

http://hackingdistributed.com/2013/11/04/bitcoin-is-broken/

Why would anyone do such a thing? If the result of doing such a thing was to undermine the value of Bitcoin, it would be like shooting yourself in the foot - your mined coins would be worth less than if they did not do such a thing.

I suppose an entity which could extort money out of people, to then waste on trying to discredit Bitcoin, could try it on. In other words, by states - 'a war on Bitcoin'!

However, the bigger the network grows, the bigger the cost involved becomes. When I have read about previous tactics to take over the block chain, it has always sounded more economically beneficial to leave it in tact.