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Thread: Tell me about Bitcoin

  1. #1
    Iridium
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    Tell me about Bitcoin

    Hey,

    Have any of you guys dipped your toe into the Bitcoin phenomenon? I'm thinking of moving some FRNs into Bitcoin. I've read the stuff online but wanted to reach out to you guys for your experience, advice, etc.

    Anything in the way of guidance and experience you can offer would be appreciated
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  2. #2
    Unobtanium
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    Re: Tell me about Bitcoin

    "If you don't hold it, you don't own it" and bit coin is not only like holding paper but our dearest uncle knows all about it, and when the power goes out? then what?........ NO, buy what you can hold and keep at home.

    V
    "If you don't hold it, you don't own it"... Ponce

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  3. #3
    Unobtanium Serpo's Avatar
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    Re: Tell me about Bitcoin

    Look up bitgold instead.......https://www.bitgold.com/





    The Cabal...........“Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the King’s horses and all the King’s men couldn’t put Humpty back together again”.

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    Chatmaster Flash vacuum's Avatar
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    Re: Tell me about Bitcoin

    You can buy some here and open and account:
    https://www.coinbase.com/home

    I don't recommend you put anything into it that you couldn't afford to take a 100% loss on however. Maybe start out with $50 or $100.

    There are two reasons:

    (1) If you leave your bitcoin in coinbase, then you are treating coinbase like a bank and trusting them completely. If something ever happens to coinbase, you could lose access your bitcoins. It is exactly like a bank, you aren't "holding it". You can "hold it" though by transferring it into a wallet - software that runs on your pc. But then if something ever happens to your pc (hard drive crash, virus, hacking, accidental delete, etc) then you lose your coins as well. Unless you are technically savy, leave your bitcoins "in the bank" at coindesk.

    (2) If you think silver has gut-wrenching price changes, then bitcoin is 100x worse. You simply don't know what will happen. Tomorrow you might lose 70% of the value, then a week later you could double it. You just have to not be concerned about the amount.

    So that's my advice. Open a coinbase account with $50. Try transferring $10 of the $50 into a wallet running on your PC. Then transfer it from your pc back to your coinbase account. You can play around with it.

    (Disclaimer, I've never used coinbase before, just screwed around with the pc-based wallet)

    There are a number of pc-based wallets around. Electrum comes to mind, but there are others.

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  6. #5
    Unobtanium Serpo's Avatar
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    Re: Tell me about Bitcoin

    My wallet become totally fuzked up and I lost what I had, it did show me that unless you know what you are doing on your computer its very vulnerable to your own stupidity (mine I mean)..............

    I did find it over all a disturbing experience. And no way am I going down that path again.

    Changing from one computer to another ,the wallet wasnt saved properly and phoof.



    The Cabal...........“Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the King’s horses and all the King’s men couldn’t put Humpty back together again”.

  7. #6
    Moderator madfranks's Avatar
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    Re: Tell me about Bitcoin

    I attached an article I wrote on bitcoin a while back, hopefully you might find it useful.

    Spend some time reading the threads on bitcoin on this forum, you'll learn a lot just from that. The main reason I like bitcoins (and crypto in general) is that it is a perfect compliment to physical bullion. Gold/silver are material embodied and digitally independent, meaning their value is physical and they have no tie to anything digital at all. Conversely, bitcoin/litecoin are digital embodied and material independent, meaning their value is purely digital and they have no tie to anything physical. It's easy to envision scenarios where both would be beneficial. For example, for sending long distances, concealing, traveling, etc. bitcoins are superior to gold. For end of the world scenarios where the grid goes down, gold is superior to bitcoin. Why not have both?

    Here's what I recommend. Download the bitcoin client, let it sync (might take over 24 hours), then buy some coins on coinbase and send them to your local wallet on your computer. Encrypt your wallet with a password. Back up your wallet. Email the encrypted wallet file to yourself so you can access it anywhere, anytime. Alternately, save a copy of your backed up wallet on a flash drive or two. Every time you add money to your bitcoin wallet back it up again, and re-email it to yourself or re-save it on the flash drive. That way you'll never lose your wallet.
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  9. #7
    Bitcoin Miner Ares's Avatar
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    Re: Tell me about Bitcoin

    Serpo Do you still have the previous wallet, I could help in recover it.

    As was explained the price swings in Bitcoin are insane. It is not uncommon to have 100 dollar a day price swings. It has been more stable as of late (last year or so) and moving in somewhat stable direction. But if the blockchain has a hiccup or the core devs have a fight the price will go up or down drastically depending on that.

    I personally use blockchain.info to store my bitcoins. I also use 2 factor authentication as well created a paper backup in case something were to happen with blockchain.infos website. I can still import them into a personal wallet on a PC or another wallet provider.
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  10. #8
    Iridium
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    Re: Tell me about Bitcoin

    This is exactly why I reached out to you guys. I read the stuff online but wanted to get some feedback on what 'real' people had to say about it and what they have experienced. My thanks go out to you guys. I think I'll pass on BTC for now until I can get more familiar with and have a firmer grasp on the concept
    If you're offended by any of my posts tough shit!
    "Politicians Are Like Diapers, They Should Be Changed Often, And For The Same Reason"
    If you're not prepared for what's coming it's already too late!
    Niggers will never be satisfied!!

  11. #9
    Iridium mamboni's Avatar
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    Re: Tell me about Bitcoin

    Quote Originally Posted by madfranks View Post
    I attached an article I wrote on bitcoin a while back, hopefully you might find it useful.

    Spend some time reading the threads on bitcoin on this forum, you'll learn a lot just from that. The main reason I like bitcoins (and crypto in general) is that it is a perfect compliment to physical bullion. Gold/silver are material embodied and digitally independent, meaning their value is physical and they have no tie to anything digital at all. Conversely, bitcoin/litecoin are digital embodied and material independent, meaning their value is purely digital and they have no tie to anything physical. It's easy to envision scenarios where both would be beneficial. For example, for sending long distances, concealing, traveling, etc. bitcoins are superior to gold. For end of the world scenarios where the grid goes down, gold is superior to bitcoin. Why not have both?

    Here's what I recommend. Download the bitcoin client, let it sync (might take over 24 hours), then buy some coins on coinbase and send them to your local wallet on your computer. Encrypt your wallet with a password. Back up your wallet. Email the encrypted wallet file to yourself so you can access it anywhere, anytime. Alternately, save a copy of your backed up wallet on a flash drive or two. Every time you add money to your bitcoin wallet back it up again, and re-email it to yourself or re-save it on the flash drive. That way you'll never lose your wallet.
    Excellent summation! Seems to me, notwithstanding the volatility, that BitCoin is the perfect way to smuggle wealth into and out of the country, be it over the internet to wallets overseas, of carrying a small well-disquised flash drive carrying 1000s of bitcoin files through any airport. Am I missing some wrinkle here?
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  12. #10
    Moderator madfranks's Avatar
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    Re: Tell me about Bitcoin

    Quote Originally Posted by mamboni View Post
    Excellent summation! Seems to me, notwithstanding the volatility, that BitCoin is the perfect way to smuggle wealth into and out of the country, be it over the internet to wallets overseas, of carrying a small well-disquised flash drive carrying 1000s of bitcoin files through any airport. Am I missing some wrinkle here?
    I don't think you're missing anything, but you don't even need a flash drive or 1000's of files. Your wallet is one file, and that one file can contain a fraction of one bitcoin or thousands of bitcoins. For traveling, I would recommend storing your coins on a cloud-based wallet, then all you need is a password in your head, nothing physical at all. For long term storage, either keep the files on your local computer or make a "cold wallet" which is an offline wallet stored either in paper note or coin form. There are companies out there that make silver bullion BTC and LTC "cold wallets" where you have a bullion coin that also has an amount of crypto embedded in the coin. Here are a few examples:

    https://www.alitinmint.com/Home/Index

    http://lealana.com/

    https://www.casascius.com/

    Also, it certainly helps to understand the protocol behind the bitcoin network. In essence, imagine a warehouse filled with a thousand accountants all reviewing and verifying the same transactions. If one person tries to cheat (double spend coins, spend coins they don't have, hack their wallet to try and add coins), the other 999 accountants will not verify that transaction and it won't happen. The decentralization makes it an honest system.

    Also, since I got into BTC back in 2012-13, ever since then when I read one of these articles about a guy getting busted trying to sneak gold across a national/tax border I wonder when they're going to wise up and realize that you can move your wealth way more stealthily by buying bitcoin and memorizing a password.

    Check out https://blockchain.info/ and make a wallet for free. PM me your bitcoin address and I'll send you a token amount that you can play with. You don't have to worry about anonymity because your wallet is literally just a string of random letters and numbers. No name or phone number is linked to your wallet, that's why people on the black markets of the internet use it, because it's essentially untraceable.
    "Liberty is so creative, and the government is so stupid, that I’m very optimistic about the future"
    - Lew Rockwell

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