take my life... please! May 31, 2006

We make everything you need and you need everything we make.









If I were to ask you for something you own, and you agreed to sell it to me, you would probably attach a price. After some negotiations, I would then hand you a stack of notes worth the amount we have determined. I take your goods, you take my paper money. You could then go drop your paper money into the bank, or you could just spend it in cash form. It's pretty much the basics of commerce (something for something).



But what if I got out my smartphone, asked you for an ID number, and then sent you virtual currency? A virtual currency, backed by math (not a deficit) that could be cashed out over the web for paper money?



This is BitCoin.



Wikipedia posted: Bitcoin is a digital currency created in 2009 by Satoshi Nakamoto. The name also refers to the open source software he designed that uses it, and the peer-to-peer network that it forms. Unlike most currencies, Bitcoin does not rely on trusting any central issuer. Bitcoin uses a distributed database spread across nodes of a peer-to-peer network to journal transactions, and uses cryptography to provide basic security functions, such as ensuring that bitcoins can only be spent by the person who owns them, and never more than once.



What the gently caress? Why would you use this?



Wikipedia posted: Bitcoin's design allows for anonymous ownership and transfers. Bitcoins can be saved on a personal computer in the form of a wallet file or kept with a third party wallet service, and in either case bitcoins can be sent over the Internet to anyone with a Bitcoin address. Bitcoin's peer-to-peer topology and lack of central administration make it infeasible for any authority, governmental or otherwise, to manipulate the value of bitcoins or induce inflation by producing more of them.[1]



So basically, BitCoin is an anonymous currency system used over the internet for goods and services. Still confused? Here's some help:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Um63OQz3bjo



Ok, seriously, now I'm kinda clear on it. People known as miners "dig" for BitCoins by setting up powerful home PC's that try to pull off from the algorithm that makes BitCoins. Then, those BitCoins are transferred around the web to BitCoin generators and users. It's math money.



But what do people think about this?

LAUNCH posted: Bitcoin is a P2P currency that could topple governments, destabilize economies and create uncontrollable global bazaars for contraband. (...) After month of research and discovery, we've learned the following:

1. Bitcoin is a technologically sound project.

2. Bitcoin is unstoppable without end-user prosecution.

3. Bitcoin is the most dangerous open-source project ever created.

4. Bitcoin may be the most dangerous technological project since the internet itself.

5. Bitcoin is a political statement by technotarians (technological libertarians).*

6. Bitcoins will change the world unless governments ban them with harsh penalties.



Ben Laurie posted: Also, for what its worth, if you are going to deploy electronic coins, why on earth make them expensive to create? That's just burning money - the idea is to make something unforgeable as cheaply as possible. This is why all modern currencies are fiat currencies instead of being made out of gold.

Bitcoins are designed to be expensive to make: they rely on proof-of-work. It is far more sensible to use signatures over random numbers as a basis, as asymmetric encryption gives us the required unforgeability without any need to involve work. This is how Chaum's original system worked. And the only real improvement since then has been Brands' selective disclosure work.



If you want to limit supply, there are cheaper ways to do that, too. And proof-of-work doesn't, anyway (it just gives the lion's share to the guy with the cheapest/biggest hardware).



Could this really be the beginning of a New World Order? Is it just a nerdy waste of money? Recently, one BitCoin was valued at over $6 USD per BitCoin.



What do you think?





Further Reading

Boing Boing

April 9, 2011: Bitcoin: an open-source cryptocurrency that's actually used!

May 15, 2011: Bitcoin: a new "peer-to-peer currency"

May 17, 2011: Bitcoin - the cryptographic currency that won't take off (but really, really should)

May 21, 2011: BitCoin skeptics and boosters debate



Wikipedia



We Use Coins



BitCoin



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