No, scams always have a hidden aspect to them. Bitcoin is a pure information system and 100% open source. Basically it is a simulation of gold, but without the all the baggage that gold comes with (not seizable, heavy or counterfeitable). Bitcoin sets the bar very high as a currency and due to no middle men the transaction costs are very low.



Ignore it at your peril. Report Post

Scam requires hidden information, but bitcoin is open sourced. Bitcoin is open sourced. All the details are in the paper and no one is out there to con you or anything. Even if the founder wants to generate more bitcoins now he can't without going through more than 50% consensus. You can choose not to buy in to it but that's different from a scam.



It's also designed to be used as a currency, not an investment. Right now it's at its infancy hence the value fluctuates a lot but it's not designed to help people make loads of money. If you are getting in hoping to get really rich (and didn't) then it's really your own fault.



Bitcoin also doesn't magically help money launderers and drug dealers either. Guess what's better than bitcoin for that? Cash. Cash transactions are untraceable and private unlike bitcoin, so unless we want to ban cash not sure why bitcoin is blamed for that. The hard part of money laundering is usually not in tracing the money anyway, but rather justifying your source of income. For example if you have no job and suddenly bought an expensive house (with cash or bitcoin) you better have a compelling story to tell IRS... Report Post

How exactly could a an open source p2o cryptography protocol be a scam? Its a protocol people, and one of the best ones yet invented, the only people calling this a scam are the ones who don´t know anything about it. Is it risky to invest your money into? Yes. Does that make it a scam? No. This shouldn´t even be on the table for debate Report Post

Bitcoin is digital cash, not a scam. With bitcoin people are actually in control on their own money. It allows for less dependency on third parties and middlemen who always take a slice of the profit for themselves. If you're looking for the scam, you need only look at the fiat currencies used by countries. The reason people are buying bitcoin is because they realize it's utility as a currency. Report Post

"Bitcoin is a technological tour de force" -- Bill Gates I'm surprised that so many people at the end of 2013 still seem to not understand what Bitcoin is. Oh well, at least I see things changing.



If Bitcoin is a scam, then the US dollar is a far greater scam. As long as there is internet access, bitcoin can do what gold does 10 times better.



Bitcoin has the potential to displace or even completely replace Western Union. It has the potential to greatly displace gold and other precious metals as a store of value.



It is controlled by no single party and is both decentralized and distributed. Who is the scammer, if there is no one in charge of it? Report Post

The Bubble Theory of Money Bitcoin is a bubble, and so is every other form of money. A bubble is when people buy an asset, not to use it, but to trade it for some other asset at a later date. Like Las Vegas real estate in 2007, or Amazon.Com stock in 1999, or tulip bulbs in 1637. And also like US dollars and like gold. If an asset is held only to trade it away later, and it fails to become money, the bubble pops and it becomes worthless. If it becomes money... Well, the bubble can continue, weathering every adverse condition imaginable for 6000+ years, as with gold. Report Post

Bitcoin is open source Sceptics can read the source code, and evaluate it. Everything in bitcoin is completely open, that's the beauty of it.

If it is a scam, why can I buy actual things with it right now?

There's going to be a bumpy road ahead, much like any new technology before it goes mainstream. Report Post

Its real money Its a decentralized (meaning nobody can scam you) digital currency that floats like a real currency, except no one country backs it, the people who own bitcoins back it, and add value to it at the same time. They can exist completely without any one central authority. Completely decentralized, yup. Report Post

Having messed around with the code, have seen nothing that makes it a scam. Saying that Bitcoin in itself is a scam is just ignorant. Now saying that some people viewed as innovators of Bitcoin gone rogue are scammers is more appropriate. People as mark kerpeles (mt. Fox) and such. They used Bitcoin as their scam. Much like people used cash as their scam or gold as their scam.



I have made my own cryptocurrency(s**t coin if you will) for fun and to grasp a better understanding of the protocol and how it works. I haven't found anything malicious in that code or anything that would give somebody the upper hand.



Now if you are thinking, "well somebody can edit the code to steal your coins or make fake coins" that is not how it works. Yes they can make a "fork" of Bitcoin but it will be on a separate blockchain. Meaning you cannot transfer those "forked" coins to the original Bitcoin.



Well what is the blockchain? The blockchain stores all the wallet addresses, transactions, miner power and so on. It cannot be edited but only added onto with new wallets, transactions, miners etc. It is not a website, but stored inside of the application itself on each and every computer or miner with the application. The websites you can find the blockchain on only show a graphical representation of what the blockchain has stored in it. The blockchain can only be changed if 51% or more of the users(miners) decide they want this new blockchain as the main blockchain. Called a 51% attack. This means the more people who use Bitcoin, the more secure the protocol is. Which, at this time, it is very secure and Bitcoin itself has proved unbackable.



The only way people can "hack" Bitcoin is to hack the websites or wallets and use their data or stored coins for themselves. This happens in everyday life everywhere and should be null.



Now, onto the wallets. The wallets are NOT the Bitcoin protocol. They only use the Bitcoin protocol as a base of information. You could use command prompt for your wallet if you know how to code it. This is why you can find multiple wallet providers with different features and security. They are not changing the protocol itself, but telling the protocol where to send the coins and storing that info in the blockchain. It is possible that a rogue wallet provider can program something malicious into the wallet itself to steal your wallet data to steal your coins but if you stick with well known wallets, you will not need to worry. Online wallets can be dangerous so it is best to keep your wallet on a physical computer or USB.



If someone makes a fake wallet that doesn't actually store real Bitcoin in it, you would be able to tell just by viewing the blockchain on a website.



I have more to say, but not enough room on here. I will post about the human side of the ordeal I the comments. Posted by: Mikenekro Report Post