Thunderdome 2015 » Printable Version of Topic

Forum: Internet Links
Topic: Bitcoins
started by: Leisher

Posted by Leisher on Apr. 11 2013,10:05

< Anyone use(d) them? >

Posted by TheCatt on Apr. 11 2013,10:58

About a year ago I tried mining them for two weeks, and got none, so I quit.

Seems a bit too wild, wild west for me.

Although, I did visit Silk Road once just to browse it. Fascinating.

Posted by Troy on Apr. 11 2013,11:49

(TheCatt @ Apr. 11 2013,10:58)

QUOTE

Seems a bit too wild, wild west for me.

They say on SA, think of it like Safari rules:

"Look at the poop, smell the poop, appreciate the poop, but never ever touch the poop"

Posted by TPRJones on Apr. 11 2013,12:00

I bought 20 when they were about $2 each a couple of years ago. Time to dig those up and sell them.

It's an interesting economic experiment. In theory they're no less valid than any government-issued currency. As long as the encryption is sound they'll have a value. But to buy them at this point would be the wildest of speculation.

I've seen a few places that take them as actual currency for purchases. If that and the overall user base keeps growing they'll become more solid.

As to mining, it's best to join a pool. I'm part of Deepbit.net, and I used to get about 0.01 per day for my meager CPU activity when my computer was idle. Time to fire that up again, now that that's almost $5 a day.

Posted by TPRJones on Apr. 11 2013,12:11

Oh, and if it ever does stabilize and reach more wide-ranging acceptance, I can easily see it becoming the new reserve currency 20 or so years from now. It's in theory perfect for that, since it's not tied to any government and moving large amounts around is so easy you can do it on your iPhone.

Posted by Troy on Apr. 11 2013,12:13

Long term prediction: Bitcoin continues to viable just from Silkroad use alone

Posted by thibodeaux on Apr. 11 2013,14:06

< How Bitcoin Dies >

Posted by TheCatt on Apr. 11 2013,17:08

(TPRJones @ Apr. 11 2013,15:00)

QUOTE

I bought 20 when they were about $2 each a couple of years ago. Time to dig those up and sell them.

Holy shit, nice!

Posted by TPRJones on Apr. 14 2013,10:10

Finally found my bitcoins! Well, most of them. I've located 16.56254039 of them, which is a nice chunk of unexpected cash.

Now to wait for the right time to sell.

Posted by GORDON on Apr. 14 2013,10:19

The right time to sell was about 3 days ago when they were about $200USD each. Have they hit 50 yet?

Posted by TPRJones on Apr. 14 2013,11:01

They've stabilized at just over $100. I expect them to drift up for awhile, but I'll check every day for my sell point.

I use this graph (also same setup for picking stock sell points): < http://bitcoincharts.com/charts....gSStoch >

When two lines cross up high, that's a sell signal. When any two do it about the same time, that's when I sell. (Similarly, when two lines cross down low, that's a buy) Of course the first step is to make sure the stock is sound by studying the financials, but that doesn't apply in this case. I expect it'll start drifting up slowly again until my signals tick off around $140-ish in a few weeks.

It's not a perfect system - I won't catch the absolute highest or lowest price points this way - but it takes the emotion out of it to stick with this. No holding on too long or buying too soon.

Posted by Paul on Nov. 07 2013,14:28

People are selling them for $300 apiece now on < https://localbitcoins.com >

Most of those sellers will buy all you have for $250+ per coin.

Crazy.

I was looking at them yesterday when people were selling them for the mid $260's.

< http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg60ztgSzm1g10zm2g25zv >

Posted by TPRJones on Nov. 07 2013,15:02

I still have 11 of them. I'm tempted to cash out, but I think I'll hang onto them for awhile longer.

Posted by Paul on Nov. 08 2013,04:38

The prices keep rising. From what I see they sell for 10% more than yesterday.

You paid $2 apiece? Damn good investment.

Posted by TPRJones on Nov. 08 2013,08:21

I've pushed 10 to MtGox to sell today. I expect there will be another dip eventually and I'll buy some back then, taking the difference as cash.

While I do think they have an interesting potential future, the recent price hike looks a lot like a bubble to me.

Posted by TheCatt on Nov. 08 2013,08:50

It's kinda a bubble by definition, given it has no inherent value.

Posted by TPRJones on Nov. 08 2013,09:00

You mean like U.S. Dollars have no inherent value? Or more like how diamonds have no inherent value?

Okay, diamonds do have some industrial uses so they aren't completely without value, but they'd be as cheap as glass if there weren't enforced artificial scarcity.

Posted by TPRJones on Nov. 08 2013,09:09

10 sold at $350 each

total cost basis: $20

Posted by TheCatt on Nov. 08 2013,09:23

Be sure to pay taxes on that

Posted by Paul on Nov. 08 2013,15:33

< http://imgur.com/rBrJvlN >

There is a subreddit on bitcoins:
< http://www.reddit.com/r/bitcoin >

Posted by TPRJones on Nov. 09 2013,19:08

(TheCatt @ Nov. 08 2013,11:23)

QUOTE

Be sure to pay taxes on that

Oh, I will. I keep an Excel spreadsheet with careful details on basis and profits for such purposes.

Posted by TPRJones on Nov. 11 2013,07:18

And now I'm daytrading Bitcoins. Figured this would be a good chance to practice daytrading and see if I'm any good at it with minimal risks.

Posted by TheCatt on Nov. 11 2013,08:17

Good luck!

Posted by Paul on Nov. 11 2013,12:54

Buy loaded, sell high.

Or something like that.

Posted by Malcolm on Nov. 11 2013,12:57

(Paul @ Nov. 11 2013,14:54)

QUOTE

Buy loaded, sell high.

Or something like that.

Wasn't that < this game's > tagline?

Posted by Paul on Nov. 11 2013,14:06

(TPRJones @ Nov. 11 2013,10:18)

QUOTE

And now I'm daytrading Bitcoins. Figured this would be a good chance to practice daytrading and see if I'm any good at it with minimal risks.

Is there a quick and easy way to buy/sell bitcoins?

Posted by TPRJones on Nov. 11 2013,14:46

I like MtGox, it's fairly reliable and trustworthy and seems to be the most popular. Plus there's a nice market depth chart at mtgoxlive.com that comes in handy during heavy trading.

After the US Treasury Department froze their Paypal account it's harder to get money into and out of MtGox, but it can be done. And of course transferring Bitcoins in and out is super easy.

Posted by TPRJones on Nov. 11 2013,15:06

Oh, and if you are looking at trading them for fun and profit, < this site > will also be worth bookmarking.

Posted by Paul on Nov. 11 2013,21:19

When I bought one a bit ago (hence my posts here), I was going to meet a local to sell, but they were out of town.
I eventually USPS'd money, which was held in escrow on localbitcoins.com until the seller released the funds when he got the cash.
Seems risky.
It was nice to see the value of the bitcoin shoot up in value though.

Posted by TheCatt on Nov. 12 2013,11:54

If you really want to trade them, let me know. I can buy a few to guarantee the price will go down.

Posted by TPRJones on Nov. 12 2013,12:29

Down? How would that work? Buying coins should push the price up.

And it would take some serious cash. At the current market depth, if you dumped $1.1 million US on the bitcoin market you'd only push the ask up to $392.50. To get all the way to $400 would take $2.3 million. That's all looking only at current ask, of course, not at the changes in other investors actions that would trigger.

Posted by TheCatt on Nov. 12 2013,12:53

(TPRJones @ Nov. 12 2013,15:29)

QUOTE

Down? How would that work? Buying coins should push the price up.

Whenever I buy something that trades (stocks, etc), the price drops.

Posted by TPRJones on Nov. 12 2013,14:11

Ah.

Have you consider leasing out your abilities to short sellers or options traders?

Posted by TheCatt on Nov. 12 2013,15:27

(TPRJones @ Nov. 12 2013,17:11)

QUOTE

Ah.

Have you consider leasing out your abilities to short sellers or options traders?

I'm offering to you

Posted by TheCatt on Nov. 13 2013,07:57

So, I'm looking at these places.

coinbase is offering BC for $400/each. But Mt Gox is showing people last trade around $415/each, and depth above/below that.

I'm assuming that moving bit coins is slow? Or why wouldn't people be arbitraging the shit out of this?

Posted by TheCatt on Nov. 13 2013,13:19

So... it's up to $440 on last at mtgox, clearly time for me to buy

Posted by Malcolm on Nov. 13 2013,14:39

(TheCatt @ Nov. 13 2013,15:19)

QUOTE

So... it's up to $440 on last at mtgox, clearly time for me to buy

Do they football players you pick up on waivers start sucking? Or their team? How does that work?

Posted by TheCatt on Nov. 13 2013,15:42

Actually, the ones I drafted sucked ass, except the Redskins players I drafted. Th e ones I picked up on waivers have done really well.

Im cursed when it comes to things that matter.

Posted by GORDON on Nov. 13 2013,15:44

Sounds like you got Draids.

Posted by TPRJones on Nov. 14 2013,08:26

QUOTE

I'm assuming that moving bit coins is slow? Or why wouldn't people be arbitraging the shit out of this?

Some people undoubtedly do. Moving the Bitcoins around is easy, the transactions are instant but often these guys wait for six verification which can take about a half hour or so. Moving the cash around, though is much more difficult, making arbitraging a bit of a challenge if you don't plan days ahead to get the cash into the right service to make the buy.

Posted by TheCatt on Nov. 18 2013,06:31

$600 each? wtf?

Posted by Paul on Nov. 18 2013,07:08

I bought stuff with half a coin when they were $400 (up $100 since my purchase).
Nice to know that I still have ~$300 in bitcoin.

When is the bubble going to burst? I don't see how this is sustainable.

Posted by TheCatt on Nov. 18 2013,07:23

Supposedly China is behind a lot of the recent runup, plus hedge funds.

Who knows. It feels pretty frothy to me.

Posted by TheCatt on Nov. 18 2013,07:45

(Paul @ Nov. 18 2013,10:08)

QUOTE

I bought stuff with half a coin when they were $400 (up $100 since my purchase).
Nice to know that I still have ~$300 in bitcoin.

Weed? Unregistered guns?

Posted by Paul on Nov. 18 2013,08:59

I don't smoke weed and in my state I can legally purchase assault rifles with cash, without any registration, from non-dealers.
I bought hunting revolver in a McDonald's parking lot. The only requirement is that I'm a resident, and not a felon.
Oh, and the weapon can't be fully automatic, but that's a Federal license thing.

I just checked and I actually have a tad over .4 bitcoins left. If that gets up to $300 in value then I'd like to cash it out for something. Maybe an international money card? I dunno.

Localbitcoins (where I have my wallet) has me use the Google Authenticator app on my phone, in addition to my password. I kinda like the extra security. PokerStars used to let you do something similiar.

Posted by TPRJones on Nov. 18 2013,09:34

Yeah, I don't know what the hell is going on. My daytrading thing ended up a bust as I was left on the wrong side of a small swing with cash instead of bitcoin. I know I should just hop back in but it hurts to buy so high when surely any minute now it's going to go back down again for a bit ... it has to ... doesn't it?

Posted by TheCatt on Nov. 18 2013,09:50

(TPRJones @ Nov. 18 2013,12:34)

QUOTE

$666... Hah.

Man, I don't know. These things have no value, other than what other people will pay, they're barely accepted anywhere.

I mean, it's a bubble... but does it pop now or at 1k or 20k? It's popped several times before, but always comes back stronger.

I have 2 BC. I paid $355 each. Might sell one today, then ride the other.

Posted by Paul on Nov. 18 2013,09:53

There are quite a few places to < spend Bitcoins >.
Getting a < Z-Pak > would be good for a bug out bag.
(< Aquarium antibiotics work too >)
< Strip4Bit > has camwhores that take Bitcoin.

I'll probably buy some Reddit gold, but I don't know what to do with the rest.
Maybe PayPak?

I do feel like the Chinese are just going crazy with them, and soon the bubble will burst, but we'll see.

Posted by TheCatt on Nov. 18 2013,10:17

Still, compared to places that take American $s, that's nothing.

Posted by TheCatt on Nov. 18 2013,12:24

Whoa... just went from 660 to 600 to 640...

The place I bought mine (Coinbase), oddly has prices $40-50 lower than mtgox. But buy/sell are both about that much lower, with a $3 spread / trade.

Posted by TheCatt on Nov. 18 2013,12:44

(TPRJones @ Nov. 18 2013,12:34)

QUOTE

That's how I felt about GOOG when it was 115...

Posted by Malcolm on Nov. 18 2013,12:53

(TheCatt @ Nov. 18 2013,14:44)

QUOTE

(TPRJones @ Nov. 18 2013,12:34)

QUOTE

That's how I felt about GOOG when it was 115...

I know someone who is still epically pissed he got out way too early.

Posted by GORDON on Nov. 18 2013,13:28

I remember the artist who painted a mural on the wall at Google HQ and was paid in stock and became a millionaire when they went public.

Posted by TheCatt on Nov. 18 2013,13:33

Earlier today I was driving in my car, and I just had this vision of a world running on bitcoins, mobsters, criminals, normal people, everything. It was all bitcoins. I mean, if I'm a private person (*cough* criminal *cough*) why do I want dollars? Because other people take dollars. Because I can get stuff for them. But they're cumbersome, physically, and logically. Moving through bank accounts that can always be shutdown, no matter how you move them. Having to clean them. Bitcoins can reduce transactional costs for the illegal economy. As long as those people want bitcoins, bitcoins are valuable.

Even litecoins are exploding. $4 last week, $8 today.

Posted by TheCatt on Nov. 18 2013,13:43

Maybe this is something you buy into? A few hundred bucks at a time... just slowly building up a pile.

Fuck, who knows. Maybe it's all vapor. I need to stop paying attention to it

Posted by TPRJones on Nov. 18 2013,14:36

It's fun to think about, but don't think about it too much. That way lies madness.

I mostly like it for being completely decentralized. No one controls the bitcoin network. It's a totally peer-to-peer phenomenon. It's a libertarian's wet dream of what money should be. I find that very appealing.

Posted by Malcolm on Nov. 18 2013,14:37

QUOTE

As long as those people want bitcoins, bitcoins are valuable.

War on bitcoins. Calling it now.

Posted by TheCatt on Nov. 18 2013,15:34

(Malcolm @ Nov. 18 2013,17:37)

QUOTE

As long as those people want bitcoins, bitcoins are valuable.

War on bitcoins. Calling it now.

Well, we know what America's Wars on X have done to prices, so... GO FOR IT!

Posted by TheCatt on Nov. 18 2013,15:41

What I don't understand is the disconnect between markets.

MtGox is saying last price $770.
CoinBase is saying I can buy for $653.

Posted by TheCatt on Nov. 18 2013,15:41

I bought litecoins today. I traded in 0.1 BTC for them. I'M DIVERSIFIED

Posted by TheCatt on Nov. 18 2013,16:23

Ok... sounds like the issue is pretty much due to the inability to.get money out of ntgox, and confined mostly to that mkt, with others already being arbitraged as possible. So mtgox price isnt an accurate pri e, basicly.

Posted by Paul on Nov. 18 2013,16:36

(TheCatt @ Nov. 18 2013,18:41)

QUOTE

I bought litecoins today. I traded in 0.1 BTC for them. I'M DIVERSIFIED

How easy is it to get Litecoins?
I wouln't mind throwing some of by Bitcoin money at it.

Though... I think when Bitcoin reaches $800 there will be a big jump to $1,000. Then maybe $1,200 as news gets out.
Then pop!

That's my guess anyway.

Posted by TPRJones on Nov. 18 2013,17:01

(TheCatt @ Nov. 18 2013,17:41)

QUOTE

I bought litecoins today. I traded in 0.1 BTC for them. I'M DIVERSIFIED

I lol'ed.

Posted by TPRJones on Nov. 18 2013,17:02

(Paul @ Nov. 18 2013,18:36)

QUOTE

I think when Bitcoin reaches $800 there will be a big jump to $1,000. Then maybe $1,200 as news gets out.
Then pop!

QUOTE

Last price:$832.00000

We'll see soon, then.

Posted by TheCatt on Nov. 18 2013,17:08

Litecoins: I opened an account at BTC-e, and send them from Coinbase to BTC-e. It took 1 hour to move from Coinbase to BTC-e (3 confirmation, or level 3 confirmation, or something).

At that point, it was very easy to move to LC. It was only $60 worth.

I also pulled the trigger on another 0.5 BC at $625, which are now worth 1/2 of $774. (I'm quoting Coinbase prices now, due to the mtgox issues): Buy Price $776.85 Sell Price $774.71.

wtf. just wtf.

Posted by TPRJones on Nov. 18 2013,17:27

QUOTE

3 confirmations

Basically every time a block is solved on the network, the new transactions are folded into the record and sent to all the nodes. 3 confirmations means three blocks have come in including your transaction in the record, so the odds of it being somehow spoofed are slim.

Most places I've seen use 6 confirmations as the standard, but 3 seems almost as good IMO. Think of it as "odds of being swindled" and that each confirmation is one standard deviation of certainty of authenticity and you get the rough idea.

And I echo your wtf, today has been crazy. I have no idea at what price I should sell my coins. Can't even begin to guess. This makes me uncomfortable; usually when I buy a stock I have a particular price target in mind at which point I take my profits and go find another stock. On this market there is no other stock, so if I take my profit I just end up sitting around in cash waiting for a crash, watching all the money I could have had counting up.

How do you pick a sell point in a market like this?

Posted by Malcolm on Nov. 18 2013,17:35

QUOTE

How do you pick a sell point in a market like this?

Same way you walk away from a winning streak in Vegas. Just fucking pick one. Otherwise you're in forever and eventually lose.

Posted by TPRJones on Nov. 18 2013,17:36

It hit $900. Now back down to $640.

Posted by Paul on Nov. 18 2013,17:36

(TPRJones @ Nov. 18 2013,20:27)

QUOTE

...if I take my profit I just end up sitting around in cash waiting for a crash, watching all the money I could have had counting up.

How do you pick a sell point in a market like this?

I LOL'd!

I feel the same way about what remains of my Bitcoin.

I wish TheCatt would man up an buy some so I know to sell.

Posted by Paul on Nov. 18 2013,17:42

Check out the #2 search term for today: http://www.google.com/trends/

Posted by TheCatt on Nov. 18 2013,17:51

This is all tulips, man. With stocks there's at least some underlying cashflow (future, past, present) to discount/value, etc... This is just random ass shit.

But it's kinda fun.

Posted by TPRJones on Nov. 18 2013,17:56

Well, with $2.3 million in buy orders at or above $600, there's still enough market depth to keep it from going too far down tonight.

I'm all back into bitcoins now, and I just put in a sell order for $5000 each. Now I go away and forget about it for awhile.

Posted by TheCatt on Nov. 18 2013,18:02

LOL. I dropped 0.5 BC at 650, so I'm back to 1.9BC and 7LC

Posted by TPRJones on Nov. 18 2013,18:23

I've got 5.23732538 BTC at MtGox, and another 1.4something in my wallet.

Posted by TheCatt on Nov. 18 2013,18:32

And I'm down to 0.9BTC... oh well, time for it go up now

Posted by TheCatt on Nov. 19 2013,07:13

OK, the worst thing about Coinbase is I cannot do limit orders. I assume mtgox can? I should buy my coins at CB, then move them to mtgox, then. I missed out on $400/BC this morning cuz I couldn't do a limit.

Posted by TPRJones on Nov. 19 2013,07:42

MtGox does limits and stops, yes, although they aren't labeled as such. And nothing more complex than that.

Posted by TheCatt on Nov. 20 2013,08:29

Wow... send your bitcoins to coinbase to sell:
Mtgox: 594
BTC-e: 519
Coinbase: 591 (575 sell)

wtf?

Posted by TheCatt on Nov. 20 2013,08:44

Coinbase looks to be getting overloaded by influx of $.

Also, I've been trying to verify my identity on Coinbase, but I keep getting some question wrong. It's those questions like: Where was your SSN issued? How long have you lived at your current house? etc

I'm pretty sure I'm getting them right, or else I don't know who I am.

Posted by TheCatt on Nov. 22 2013,07:47

Well that was a lot of chaos followed by some calm. Coinbase is trading at $780 right now. I made $500 on the 2BTC I bought and sold. I re-bought 1.5 BTC at lower prices, and am "up" $300 on those. I still have 8 LTC as well, which I bought at the bubble, and are roughly back to where I bought.

Posted by Paul on Nov. 22 2013,10:04

< Fly to space with Bitcoin. >

Posted by TheCatt on Nov. 22 2013,11:51

Momentum keeps building, at some point there will be ETFs to buy this stuff, at which point it dramatically opens up the accessibility and people buying it. I'm not saying BTC $40k!@!!11! like some people... but I see a definite future in it.

Posted by TheCatt on Nov. 23 2013,07:14

< WSJ Article >

Believes in boom/bust, binary resolution.

Some people in there suggesting 1-3% portfolio allocation to it. Already 1 private investment fund owning it and making it available to others with around $26M invested. Of course, Winklevii are trying to make an ETF so it's accessible to non-accredited investors.

Posted by TheCatt on Nov. 23 2013,13:22

I recently got approved (finally) for instant purchases on Coinbase. Up to 1 BTC per day.

So then I sold 0.1 BTC on eBay for $139 (which is $120 after eBay and PayPal fees), and instantly bought 0.1 BTC at $86. So a pretty easy $34 as long as it works.

Posted by TheCatt on Nov. 23 2013,16:22

I sold 0.3 BTC. I raised the price such that if 1/3 people try to defraud me and chargeback, I will still break even. If no one defrauds me, I make almost $120.

Posted by TheCatt on Nov. 23 2013,19:33

Someone undercut my price, but they did it as an auction, starting at 0.99, with a lower buy it now (I do buy it now only, no auction, so they sell ASAP). So to remove their BIN price, I bid $0.99. Now that person has to hold that BTC auction for 7 days, and it doesn't show up as a lower price than mine for BIN auctions.

My wife: "You're kinda ruthless"

Posted by GORDON on Nov. 23 2013,19:36

Ha.

Did it turn her on?

Posted by Paul on Nov. 23 2013,20:32

I want to buy .0908 Bitcoin to get me to an even .5 Bitcoin.
Anybody wanna sell and save some PayPal fees?

Posted by TheCatt on Nov. 23 2013,20:36

(Paul @ Nov. 23 2013,23:32)

QUOTE

I want to buy .0908 Bitcoin to get me to an even .5 Bitcoin.
Anybody wanna sell and save some PayPal fees?

I would sell it to you at whatever my market price is, if that worked for you. Assuming you pay from a bank account so I don't have PayPal fees to deal with.

Warning: Coinbase is getting expensive ($25/BTC more than mtgox right now) since it's the easiest for USD to get into.

Right now it's about 792.74, whereas mtgox is 769.68, and btc-e is 671.

I'm prolly going to bed soon, but we can do it tomorrow if you want.

Posted by TheCatt on Nov. 23 2013,20:37

(GORDON @ Nov. 23 2013,22:36)

QUOTE

Ha.

Did it turn her on?

Yes.

Posted by TheCatt on Nov. 24 2013,11:23

(TheCatt @ Nov. 23 2013,19:22)

QUOTE

I sold 0.3 BTC. I raised the price such that if 1/3 people try to defraud me and chargeback, I will still break even. If no one defrauds me, I make almost $120.

Ah well... I was waiting to send the BTC until payments cleared, and already got a chargeback today. Refunded the $, canceled the auction.

I'm guessing the odds are good the other 2 end the same way.

Posted by TheCatt on Nov. 24 2013,12:27

New selling format:
* I am sending a letter to the buyer with a code.
* When they respond back to me with that code, I will send the BTC to their wallet.

So far I've ended two auctions with that format:
The first was clearly a scammer. He's paying with what looks like a hacked PayPal account (different email than the eBay account, no recent activity, etc)
The second does not look like a scammer (eBay account with recent activity, confirmed address, name and email, etc match up).

So if this works, I may do it some more.

Posted by TPRJones on Nov. 25 2013,08:48

Interesting. I'm far too lazy to be that industrious about things.

I put in sell orders for $1000 US worth of bitcoins to trigger when it hits $1000 each, $2k, $4k, $8k and $16k. At $32k an order triggers to sell the remaining ones. I figure this gives me nice bits of cash every so often without completely dumping future prospects of wealth, and if it collapses overnight I still got something out of it. That's more my speed.

Posted by TheCatt on Nov. 27 2013,07:03

(TPRJones @ Nov. 25 2013,11:48)

QUOTE

So I guess your first one hit today, eh?

Posted by Paul on Nov. 27 2013,15:52

< $1000 >!

Posted by TheCatt on Nov. 27 2013,15:57

I forgot about the BTC I had moved into LTC and then back. So I've got .23 BTC more than I remembered.

If you look at the potential of BTC as a reserve currency, I'm guessing it has a value of $100 Billion, which at 21 Million BTC gives a value of $5k each. Right now, the total value is around $11Billion, but only 11M have been mined.

The bitcoin investment fund returned 4,600% YTD as of last week, and BTC is up at least 50% since then... I think it will attract more money.

Posted by TheCatt on Nov. 29 2013,05:38

Pared my holds by 0.9BTC this week. If I sell $550 more of BTC, I'll recoup all of my purchases, and still have some. At current prices, I would have 2.2BTC free and clear.

Posted by TheCatt on Nov. 29 2013,19:21

Sold .25 @ 1162/BTC just now. That will have me at 2.25BTC, which I'll just let ride.

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 01 2013,14:02

Bought some more at 850 and 800 today. 921 right now at Coinbase, sold 1/2 of what I bought... sold rest at 975... so 62 proft after fees... woulda bought more at 800, but my instant buy is still 1 coin per week.

Posted by TPRJones on Dec. 02 2013,07:57

(TheCatt @ Nov. 27 2013,09:03)

QUOTE

So I guess your first one hit today, eh?

Yup! Now the hard part, actually getting the cash out of MtGox since their Dwolla account was frozen by the feds.

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 02 2013,09:01

Sign up for Coinbase. Of course, then you have to switch your $ back to BTC, then send them to Coinbase, then deposit to your bank account.

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 03 2013,10:13

(TPRJones @ Apr. 11 2013,15:00)

QUOTE

As to mining, it's best to join a pool. I'm part of Deepbit.net, and I used to get about 0.01 per day for my meager CPU activity when my computer was idle. Time to fire that up again, now that that's almost $5 a day.

So do you still mine?

I added my home server to a pool today for the hell of it.

Posted by TPRJones on Dec. 03 2013,11:01

I do. I have a process that starts up on my main machine every weeknight after I've gone to bed and is killed in the morning before I get up. That's typically only about 6 hours a night and I don't have it set up to fire up the GPU so it's CPU only and thus not very many cycles. I'm running it as part of deepbit.net and typically I get 0.02 bitcoins a month out of it. If I didn't already have the system on and drawing power I'd probably not bother.

To really do a lot in mining you need a dedicated powerful rig or access to a big network of zombies. But as the price of bitcoin keeps rising even the little things like mine start to become worthwhile.

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 03 2013,11:07

$20/month, not bad. I'm doing GPU mining... so I guess that costs me extra electricity. Does 187 Mhash/s.

Posted by TPRJones on Dec. 03 2013,11:10

Oh, in the post you quoted I should have said 0.001 per day. I dropped a zero. It's down by about 60% since then because I'm a smaller portion of the growing pool than I was, and the pool is hitting less often as the mining of bitcoins continues to grow (at a faster rate than the semi-defunct pool of which I am a part).

I should probably find a new pool that's more active than deepbit has been since March, but I'm too lazy to go looking for one.

Posted by TPRJones on Dec. 03 2013,11:12

(TheCatt @ Dec. 03 2013,13:07)

QUOTE

Does 187 Mhash/s.

Ah. I'm typically running closer to 7 Mh/s, I think. Much slower.

As to $20 per month, we'll see. I pretty much ignore those coins as they dump into my home wallet whenever I accumulate 0.1 of them and I'll probably forget to do anything with them for a couple of years. With a little luck they'll be worth even more by then.

Get rich quick? No. Get rich slow? Probably not. Have a surprise wad of cash for a trip to Vegas in two years? Maybe.

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 03 2013,11:28

Call me for Vegas

Posted by TPRJones on Dec. 03 2013,17:41

I'm pulling out of MtGox. An comments on Coinbase as an option for converting to USD? Have you had a successful withdrawal? What methods do they use and what's their fees? I see lots of info on their site (before signing up, at least) about buying bitcoins, but little about USD withdrawals.

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 03 2013,18:04

USD withdrawls on < Coinbase > (my referral URL, if you every buy any BTC there) work well. They are direct to bank account, so they need your bank account information. Purchases take 4 business days until you get instant purchase ability (which requires giving them a lot of personal information, and waiting 30 days). I did the instant bank account verification (they need your userid and password, or you can wait a few days and do the deposit verification scheme).

Withdrawls take about 2 days in my experience.

Coinbase appears to be based in the US, backed by some VC firms, etc. So they appear more reputable than the foreign exchanges to me. So far I have had no issues with them.

Fees are 1% for buying and selling, plus $0.15 bank fee.

Posted by GORDON on Dec. 03 2013,18:16

BTW, all bitcoin transactional discussion on dtman.com requires a 6.25% cut for the house when said transaction is completed.

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 04 2013,07:26

I took an old GEForce 9800GTX I had at home and dropped it into a machine at work, and it's doing about 33Mhash/s. Nothing magic, but should help my processing... and not my electricity costs

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 04 2013,09:50

Maybe I'll mine litecoins too... I setup a test to see how it goes over the next day.

Posted by Paul on Dec. 04 2013,12:48

I've seen various Bitcoin miners on ebay. Some are USB devices.
They seemed like a bad investment though, because if the seller thought he could make money with them (at his cost) why sell them?

Also, 96,000 Bitcoins were stolen:
< http://www.newrepublic.com/article....etplace >

Posted by GORDON on Dec. 04 2013,13:12

I read a long time ago that there is a trade-off between how much you can mine vs. how much it costs you in electricity. This was long before bitcoins were worth 1k.

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 04 2013,13:19

I was thinking of buying one and plugging it into a work computer to see what would happen...

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 04 2013,13:26

(GORDON @ Dec. 04 2013,16:12)

QUOTE

I read a long time ago that there is a trade-off between how much you can mine vs. how much it costs you in electricity. This was long before bitcoins were worth 1k.

Thus the reason for using someone else's electricity

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 04 2013,13:35

I made an offer on one, and bought it... so we'll see.

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 04 2013,13:46

Oopps, I misplaced 0.223 BTC... found them today.

Posted by Paul on Dec. 04 2013,14:36

(TheCatt @ Dec. 04 2013,16:35)

QUOTE

I made an offer on one, and bought it... so we'll see.

Thanks for TOFT.
Let us now how it works out.

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 04 2013,14:43

Will do. Will probably turn off the ones at home too, since they are my electricity bill

Posted by GORDON on Dec. 04 2013,15:32

(TheCatt @ Dec. 04 2013,16:26)

QUOTE

(GORDON @ Dec. 04 2013,16:12)

QUOTE

I read a long time ago that there is a trade-off between how much you can mine vs. how much it costs you in electricity. This was long before bitcoins were worth 1k.

Thus the reason for using someone else's electricity

Keep in mind, that's probably grounds for termination...

Posted by Paul on Dec. 04 2013,16:04

(TheCatt @ Dec. 04 2013,16:19)

QUOTE

I was thinking of buying one and plugging it into a work computer to see what would happen...

How do those devices work?
I understand that they site there and crunch numbers all day, but I assume you have to link them to some account somehow?

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 04 2013,16:29

(GORDON @ Dec. 04 2013,18:32)

QUOTE

Keep in mind, that's probably grounds for termination...

Ssshhhhhhh....

It's not that much electricity. I'll turn off a server in exchange.

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 04 2013,16:30

(Paul @ Dec. 04 2013,19:04)

QUOTE

(TheCatt @ Dec. 04 2013,16:19)

QUOTE

I was thinking of buying one and plugging it into a work computer to see what would happen...

How do those devices work?
I understand that they site there and crunch numbers all day, but I assume you have to link them to some account somehow?

Yes. Generally, you join a pool, since the odds of you finding an actual chain/block/whatever is exceptionally low. You then get shares of what the pool find based on how much work your machines contributed.

Posted by TPRJones on Dec. 04 2013,16:43

Think of it like a lottery. Mining on your own has a very tiny chance of getting a block, but you get the full $25,000 worth of coins yourself. Join a pool with thousands of people and your odds go way up but the payout goes way down.

There are many pools and multiple payout methods. Some will pay out a steady - but low - rate regardless of how the pool is doing (Pay Per Share). Some you get a slightly bigger share in exchange for only getting paid when the pool gets a hit (Proportional).

For small amounts of mining I recommend finding a pool with both options and go Proportional. For the pool I'm in at least I tend to get about 10% more that way than PPS. But I've only tested with a slow rig, so other options may be better if you throw more processing power at it.

I just bought a SheevaPlug off eBay for cheap that I'm going to make into a little dedicated linux mining box.

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 04 2013,18:22

According to my math, my bitcoin mining was making about $0.20 a day... not the $2.00 I thought it was making. So that sucks. With the miner, I might make $0.40/day... Although, it bitcoins hit $2k some day, I guess that's almost $0.80/day.

Posted by Malcolm on Dec. 04 2013,18:55

Wait a sec...

What determines your rate of increase?

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 04 2013,18:58

Mining litecoins seems simpler, since there's no megahardware for mining them that i know of yet. running my laptop and my server i've made 0.0027 in about an hour i think. Of course, they are only worth $40 each, so the scale is different. I'll check the payouts tomorrow.

Only downside of the pool I joined is a minimum of 5 LTC to withdraw. That could take months.

Posted by Cakedaddy on Dec. 04 2013,20:22

So, if I have an email server running 24/7, how hard would it be to set something up? I could dedicate 90% of the CPU and GPU because email doesn't take that much. What could my 'income' be?

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 05 2013,01:06

Your best best would be Litecoin mining, I would think. CPUs tend to fair quite poorly for bitcoin mining, based on my limited experience and googling.

One of my CPUs (last-gen Intel, not Haswell) generates 10 Khash/s per physical core. So with 3 cores, I get 30 Khash/s. Using GPU miniing, I get 160Khash/s, which works out to about 0.08 LTC per day, based on the past 6 hours. At $32/LTC (current price), that's $2.56/day. So, if I were CPU mining instead, it'd be about $0.60/day of LTC.

$0.20/day of LTC per CPU core at $32/LTC. The amount of LTC will go down with time as the algorithm gets harder, like BTC does, iirc. But it could be offset by a rise in prices. Or, not.

I was able to setup my mining in about 15 minutes or so. I can publish instructions that I'm using tomorrow if interested.

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 05 2013,01:43

China's central bank just said financial institutions shouldn't trade bitcoins, or something to that effect.

LTC went from 40 to 27 to 35 in less than an hour.
BTC went from 1050 to 850 to 950.

I bought 0.5BTC at 910, sold them at 990.

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 05 2013,01:51

Apparently ATI 7950 GPUs are the best for LTC mining. They are sold out everywhere. NewEgg, Amazon, none in stock at normal prices.

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 05 2013,05:28

Overnight bought another 0.5 at 862/BTC. Just sold it at price of 1030/BTC. My stomach bug made money

Posted by Paul on Dec. 05 2013,05:49

I just read this: < http://www.cryptobadger.com/build-your-own-litecoin-mining-rig/ >
It talks about investing $1,500 into building a mining machine.
And yeah, he says the video cards are hard to find.

In the notes he says the best way to sell LTC is to convert them to BTC, and says to stay away from PayPal because 30-60% of sales there are charged back, and PayPal usually sides with the buyer.

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 05 2013,06:24

Yeah, I got a note from PayPal that they don't allow BTC/LTC sales, so my little scheme ended pretty quick.

Most of those chargebacks are due to fraud (stolen accounts), which is why I was doing the physical verification. But either way, doesn't matter now.

Yeah, all good videocards are sold out across all major websites. All gone.

Posted by Paul on Dec. 05 2013,06:26

eBay has some, for lotsa monies.

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 05 2013,08:17

Running an old GPU at work, my laptop, and my home server (AMD 7770), my pool estimates my daily income at 0.082 LTC. At current prices that's $2.87/day. If I could figure out how to get the CPU miners to work, I could experiment with my workstation cluster to see if it could help.

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 05 2013,17:31

So in about 1 day I made 0.055 LTC, or $1.87 at current prices.

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 05 2013,21:00

Bought a 280X video card... may mine it and see what happens.

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 06 2013,08:35

Just realized my bitcoin miner (guiminer), which had been disappearing every time I switched networks on my laptop was actually still running, and had spawned 12 processes, and was killing my mining. Rebooted, and started up the LTC mining, and it does 130kH/s on my lappy, versus the 30 it was doing yesterday.

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 06 2013,11:16

Coinbase hit $800 so I bought some more (<1 BTC).... we'll see where it goes.

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 06 2013,16:49

(TheCatt @ Dec. 05 2013,20:31)

QUOTE

So in about 1 day I made 0.055 LTC, or $1.87 at current prices.

As of 8:30 tonight, I'm at 0.13 LTC mined, so 0.075 LTC over the past 24 hours. Given that I fixed my video card issue this morning, I should get about 0.085 LTC / day in the future, or $2.55/day at current rates/difficulty.

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 06 2013,17:54

Wow... massive BTC drop, down to 750 across the major exchanges.

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 06 2013,18:05

Ugh... I sold my BTC at 800... then coinbase crashed, and now my account is messed up and cannot be used. Price is somewhere around 685.

Only news I heard today is that Baidu has stopped accepting Bitcoins... so perhaps a China selloff right now?

Posted by TPRJones on Dec. 06 2013,20:07

That's my guess. Speculation was that the rise was the sudden interest from China, which would fit that explanation.

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 06 2013,20:32

At this point, I'm down to 1.7 BTC, but I'm up $600 cash, and the remaining BTCs are gravy. On the one hand, I want to let them ride.. on the other, I don't want to "lose" money.

Posted by TPRJones on Dec. 06 2013,21:38

Don't look at me, I've completely given up on trying to predict this market enough to buy and sell the highs and lows.

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 10 2013,13:09

If you want to try mining litecoin, < this card > is $15 after rebate, and can mine decently. I would guesstimate 0.04LTC / day, which is $1.4/day at current prices, pay for itself in a month. Eletricity is not included.

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 10 2013,13:52

OK, my USB Block Erupter arrived. I googled some instructions, and was up and running in 10 minutes.

I am getting roughly the promised/expected 360 MHash/s.

My reward level presently is 0.00031920 BTC. Will update tomorrow to see how many it generates in a day.

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 10 2013,14:50

I think I made 1.5 cents in the past hour, which would work out to 10-11 $ / month.

Posted by Paul on Dec. 10 2013,18:15

(TheCatt @ Dec. 10 2013,16:09)

QUOTE

Out of stock.

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 10 2013,18:33

LTC miners are buying everything. I got 1.

Posted by Malcolm on Dec. 10 2013,18:56

Is your mining based purely on hardware power?

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 11 2013,04:37

(Malcolm @ Dec. 10 2013,21:56)

QUOTE

Is your mining based purely on hardware power?

Basically, yes.

Posted by Malcolm on Dec. 11 2013,10:11

Curious. I'm vaguely interested in finding ways to cheat now.

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 11 2013,10:21

You and a million others. Lemme know if you figure something out

Posted by TPRJones on Dec. 11 2013,10:35

If you do find a way to break bitcoins, please let me know so I can sell mine off before the rest of the market finds out.

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 11 2013,10:47

Just got my instant buy authorization today at Coinbase! Now, just need prices to collapse again

Posted by Malcolm on Dec. 11 2013,10:53

(TheCatt @ Dec. 11 2013,12:21)

QUOTE

You and a million others. Lemme know if you figure something out

Sloth is the mother of invention.

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 11 2013,14:48

(TheCatt @ Dec. 10 2013,16:52)

QUOTE

Wow... today up to:
0.00046580 BTC
Which means I earned 0.0001466 BTC over a day.

Which is 14.66 cents. So that sucked. $4.40/month

Posted by TPRJones on Dec. 11 2013,16:54

PPS or Proportional?

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 11 2013,17:01

(TPRJones @ Dec. 11 2013,19:54)

QUOTE

PPS or Proportional?

PPS. How much does it really matter?

Posted by TPRJones on Dec. 11 2013,17:05

It depends on the pool. My experience has been that Proportional averages better for a small hash rate. It's riskier, though, as you get nothing if the pool got nothing.

I'd recommend trying each one for a week and seeing which did better.

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 11 2013,17:12

How much are you making on your BTC mining? I was wondering if you might make more mining LTC and converting those to BTC. My LTC miners have made about .53 LTC so far in either 7 or 8 days.

Posted by GORDON on Dec. 11 2013,17:38

What does "mining" actually accomplish, out of curiosity? Why is there value in it?

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 11 2013,17:49

(GORDON @ Dec. 11 2013,20:38)

QUOTE

What does "mining" actually accomplish, out of curiosity? Why is there value in it?

There isn't much inherent value in it. It is a p2p network, so some of the mining/CPU, I assume, maintains the network.

Otherwise, it's just the fact that people will pay for the output.

Posted by TPRJones on Dec. 11 2013,18:31

Indeed, most of the cycles are wasted on an arbitrary cryptography problem, the first to solve it getting the reward. But the main purpose of that activity is to maintain the network.

As to my mining, it's been minimum. I mine BTC through deepbit, but it runs automatically at night while I'm asleep and I haven't been paying attention to the output in awhile. I just notice 0.1 BTC hitting my wallet every couple of months from it.

Whenever I have a non-lazy evening, I'll get my new sheevaplug doing mining and then do some tests to see what is best.

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 13 2013,06:24

So far I've made 0.75LTC mining. My new video card arrives today. Works out to about 0.08LTC/day. I had to have my laptop off for a couple of days, so that hurt the average.

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 14 2013,10:22

Mining is for people with more time than I have.

It's taken me about 2 hours, but I finally got a modern video card working. The old ones worked in just a few minutes. But the newer ones are finicky. Like driving a Ferrari instead of a Toyota. Higher performance, but a pain in the ass to get there and make it run optimally.

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 14 2013,14:47

Maybe the money is in supplying the miners. I bought 2 $300 video cards. Resold one for $419 (net of fees/shipping it'll be about $350). So that was a pretty easy $50 to make.

I put it up on eBay a few days ago, got about 12 page views. Last night I added "MINE LTC! LITECOIN" to the description, and got 50 more views and 3 people following the auction in less than 1 day,.

Posted by GORDON on Dec. 14 2013,17:59

(TheCatt @ Dec. 14 2013,17:47)

QUOTE

Maybe the money is in supplying the miners. I bought 2 $300 video cards. Resold one for $419 (net of fees/shipping it'll be about $350). So that was a pretty easy $50 to make.

Ha. Just like real mining boomtowns.

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 15 2013,05:14

Well, that new card dramatically increased my mining. I've made just over 0.15LTC today, which is about 13 hours, since I think it uses GMT.

Posted by Paul on Dec. 15 2013,18:36

< Dude goofs and basically gives away his 20 bitcoins >.
Ouch.

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 16 2013,09:17

(TheCatt @ Dec. 10 2013,16:09)

QUOTE

Running it now. On aggressive settings it kept crashing, but getting 80kHash on basic settings.

That should make 0.8LTC in the first month, degrading over time with increased difficulty.

So it'll return $24 in the first month, at $30/LTC, so net profit of $9.

Posted by Paul on Dec. 16 2013,17:29

The coins dropped quite a bit today. Good time to buy?

Posted by TPRJones on Dec. 16 2013,17:40

Just don't do it on MtGox. Or at least for sure don't sell there. Their handling of USD is a mess.

Today I got notice that my attempt to withdraw had been cancelled (per my request) and my account had been credited back with USD. Except it hasn't been credited. So, another ticket submitted, another two weeks wait for a response. *sigh*

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 16 2013,17:58

Wow... big drop going on. I sold down to 1 the other day at 800.

I bought a little more just now. (0.5)

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 16 2013,18:01

Litecoin having a bigger drop, hit 19 (0.031 / BTC) briefly... guess my mining isn't so money making any more

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 16 2013,18:40

< China news >

QUOTE

Sources close to China’s Central Bank today reported that the institution has banned third-party payment companies from doing business with bitcoin exchanges.

A reputable source told CoinDesk that the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) met with most of the top third-party payment companies this morning.

The source said the meeting topic was unrelated to bitcoin, but digital currency became an important part of the discussion.

“PBOC, in no uncertain terms, directed third-party payment companies not to do business with bitcoin exchanges in China,” they explained.

At the moment, these claims are still rumours, as neither the PBOC nor any payment company has issued a statement to confirm what was discussed and what the outcome was. However, our source revealed they got their information from various channels, including those people who were at the meeting.

Posted by Paul on Dec. 16 2013,21:13

(TPRJones @ Dec. 16 2013,20:40)

QUOTE

Just don't do it on MtGox. Or at least for sure don't sell there. Their handling of USD is a mess.

I don't plan on selling.

I just like having the cyber currency.
I was going to transfer my BTC to LTC, but never did.
I'm glad I didn't.

If I sold I'd probably go back to Localbitcoins.com and do a cash sale.

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 17 2013,05:50

I like Coinbase. They're US-based, and it goes straight to my account, without having to deal with people.

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 18 2013,02:55

Bubble goes burst

QUOTE

China’s biggest Bitcoin exchange was forced to stop accepting renminbi deposits on Wednesday, sending the price of the virtual currency tumbling in one of its biggest markets globally.

The exchange, BTC China, made the announcement in a post on its verified account on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like messaging service.

The development comes less than two weeks after China’s central bank and four other government agencies that regulate finance and technology issued a joint announcement banning Chinese financial institutions from dealing in the virtual currency.

Posted by GORDON on Dec. 19 2013,05:46

Here's a thing about bitcoins.

< http://politics.slashdot.org/story....-a-fire >

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 19 2013,05:51

(GORDON @ Dec. 19 2013,08:46)

QUOTE

Here's a thing about bitcoins.

< http://politics.slashdot.org/story....-a-fire >

People who hate liberty hate it?

Posted by GORDON on Dec. 19 2013,05:55

I was mostly interested in the artificial cap on production, and how it costs more to mine them over time because of it.

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 19 2013,06:04

It's ended to prevent issues like the past 5 years of US stimulus and currency devaluation (or past 40 years depending on who to talk to)

Posted by TPRJones on Dec. 19 2013,15:46

(GORDON @ Dec. 19 2013,07:55)

QUOTE

I was mostly interested in the artificial cap on production, and how it costs more to mine them over time because of it.

In theory mining rewards should stay about the same. There's this option to put a small fee on transactions to give them network priority. Those tiny fees get paid out to those peers running the network, a.k.a. the miners. As the popularity rises and the network gets busier so does the use and amount of those fees which offset the reduced size of mined blocks. In theory, anyway.

As to the bitcoin crash, it's headed back up again already.

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 20 2013,13:14

Well, mining at 18$ prolly isn't making much $ if any. But I'm up to 2.3 LTC.

Decided BTC was too volatile... cashed out up $1200.

Posted by Paul on Dec. 21 2013,09:13

< Overstock.com to accept Bitcoins. >

Posted by Paul on Dec. 23 2013,09:25

< Man shows his QR code on TV, and immediately has his Bitcoin stolen. >
Ha ha ha ha!

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 26 2013,15:27

At current prices ($25/LTC), I've mined $100 worth (4 LTC) since I started on 12/4. Most of that has come since I started the nice card on the 15th. My guesstimae is that I've mined 3 LTC in past 12 days, or about $6.25/day.

Posted by TheCatt on Dec. 31 2013,18:19

(TheCatt @ Dec. 26 2013,18:27)

QUOTE

The past 5 days have been strangely productive. Either just luck, or lots of people out of the pool for holidays?

Up to 5.4 LTC now. $127.82 worth. (0.28/day past 5 days).

Posted by TPRJones on Jan. 02 2014,10:44

I spent nearly my entire winter break< flinging kermen into space > and still haven't gotten my plug computer rigged for mining bitcoins. I will do that in the next week or so.

Posted by TheCatt on Jan. 02 2014,12:23

I'm not sure there's any money in mining bitcoins. Too many specialized machines out there. But litecoin mining has worked out pretty well for me.

Posted by Paul on Jan. 11 2014,06:06

< https://twitter.com/OverstockCEO/status/421682424976654336 >

Posted by TheCatt on Jan. 15 2014,17:04

Mining has been sucking. So the week of Christmas I was just shy of 0.3LTC/day each day. Since the 1st, I've only hit 0.2/day 4 times, averaging about 0.19 LTC/day. At $24/LTC, that's $4.56/day. Probably not worth it.

If it stays like that, I'll probably sell my video card when I hit the next cashout threshold in 11 days.

Posted by Malcolm on Jan. 18 2014,09:24

< US Gov't bogarts bitcoins >.

Posted by TheCatt on Jan. 25 2014,17:56

So for the first 15 days or so, I used multiple machines. Electricity bill was $60 for those days (in excess of normal bill).

I turned off all but the most efficient video card, and, despite production only falling about 30%, my electricity bill fell to only a $50 incremenet for the entire month.

Electricty: $50
LTC (@22/LTC): $132

So a net of $80/month at current mining/prices.

Posted by TheCatt on Jan. 29 2014,17:26

I meant to quit, but forgot. You can only cash out in multiples of 5 LTC, so don't want to lose the 1 I have

That being said, the past 6 days have been amazingly good:
.256
.257
.215
.216
.297
.271

I guess it's just random, and some days are better than others, but that <0.20 streak is broken

Posted by TheCatt on Feb. 20 2014,18:32

The LTC mining is worth it at 0.20LTC/day down to $8/LTC. LTC is now down to $14.15.

BTC are down to $550 or so. MTGox fucked up a couple of weeks ago, and may have had a ton of BTC stolen. No one knows, and mtgox isn't saying anything. They've forbidden withdrawals while trying to sort it all out. The price of BTC on MTGox has gone as low as $91/BTC, and is currently around $107.

Destroying a lot of market confidence. I'd been selling my LTC off as things went down, 5 LTC just arrived in the account today, which are all I have left now. Trying to figure out if sell/hold.

Posted by TPRJones on Feb. 20 2014,18:56

MtGox claims they have stopped withdrawals because there is a way to temporarily mess with the bitcoin log and leverage that to double-up on a withdrawal. This is true, but it is automatically corrected by the network with the first confirmation, so all they have to do is code their withdrawal system to wait for the first confirmation before doing another attempt, so it's a very easy security fix. I think their reason is false. I think they've lost a lot of bitcoin somewhere and are trying to hide that fact. They've also just moved their office to another address down the street from their old office, and it's apparently one of those office-in-a-postal-box locations, so that can't be good. I suspect they're going to be folding soon.

I suspect bitcoins will be fine and go back up once MtGox folds, or at least after they've been given up on by everyone. There are some other sites that will take up the slack. It's only effected the overall pricing because they were such a big player in the trading house game. At least I'm hoping they go back up, because I had to take $4600 in capital gains on my taxes for last year due to trading even though I never got cash out. I could offset any loses later against stock gains, but I'd rather eventually have the cash.

Posted by TheCatt on Feb. 20 2014,19:22

Shit, so are your coins stuck at MTGox?

Posted by TPRJones on Feb. 20 2014,19:24

Oh, no, I pulled them out ages ago when I discovered they weren't processing USD withdrawals. I immediately abandoned ship. I've got 1 at coinbase waiting to be sold and the rest in my personal wallet.

But I don't intend to sell any until they go back up to $1000. If the whole things collapses, then that's when I'll need to write off those loses later on.

Posted by TheCatt on Feb. 20 2014,19:29

*Phew* Yeah good... OK, well, hopefully things recover, but MTGox looks pretty screwed from here, so I'm guessing it rattles public confidence for a while.

Posted by TPRJones on Feb. 20 2014,19:39

I'm going to keep an eye on MtGox. If I see hints that they may actually recover, I might swoop in and scoop up some cheap bitcoins. But it seems unlikely.

Posted by TheCatt on Feb. 24 2014,05:02

< MtGox leaves Bitcoin board. Clears twitter account. >

Posted by TheCatt on Feb. 25 2014,04:55

< MTGox hacked for years, lots of btc stolen >

Posted by TPRJones on Feb. 25 2014,06:33

I'd bet there was some embezzlement there at the end, too. Mark Karpeles will come out of this just fine, as long as none of the people he ripped off track him down.

Posted by TheCatt on Feb. 25 2014,11:38

Bet the guy is trying to get out of the country asap.

QUOTE

Dear MtGox Customers,

In light of recent news reports and the potential repercussions on MtGox's operations and the market, a decision was taken to close all transactions for the time being in order to protect the site and our users. We will be closely monitoring the situation and will react accordingly.

Best regards,
MtGox Team

Posted by TPRJones on Feb. 25 2014,12:02

(TheCatt @ Feb. 25 2014,13:38)

QUOTE

Bet the guy is trying to get out of the country asap.

So far Japan has declined to do anything to him. The ministry in charge of finance who looks into bank collapses and the like says that bitcoins is not money and thus this is outside their jurisdiction.

I have no idea what the laws of Japan are like, though, so there's no telling.

Posted by TheCatt on Feb. 25 2014,12:25

True. But I'm guessing people who are suddenly missing a shitton of money are going to find and kill him.

Posted by Vince on Feb. 25 2014,16:54

I think this might start the death clock on the Bitcoin concept if something doesn't happen to build trust back up. People don't trust banks, but you can at least pull out all your money and bury it in mason jars in the back yard when your distrust gets high enough. Without being able to hold something in your hand when the market gets uncertain is going to make things rough for investors in the trust department.

Posted by TPRJones on Feb. 25 2014,17:08

MtGox wasn't some sort of central authority. It was just one independent exchange. You can still have your bitcoins in your wallet at home.

I get what you are saying about holding something in your hand, but I suspect a growing number of people don't think that way anymore. Digital entertainment has primed people to be willing to accept digital money. Not everyone, of course, but enough IMO.

Posted by Vince on Feb. 25 2014,17:22

I think the future of the open digital currency will depend on how much of a bath Bitcoin takes. I don't think people mind buying different currency for different online shops, but having one over reaching currency will need to be rock solid for people to trust it. Maybe this will have no impact. Will be interesting to watch, though.

Posted by TheCatt on Feb. 28 2014,05:59

< MtGox Bankrupt, lost everything >

QUOTE

Mt. Gox, the troubled exchange for the virtual currency Bitcoin, filed for bankruptcy protection on Friday and said that it might have lost 750,000 of its customers’ coins, essentially all of them, in a hacking attack.

The Tokyo-based exchange, which warned this month of a software flaw that may have allowed hackers to defraud it of Bitcoins, had halted all trading this week.

Mark Karpeles, the company’s chief executive, wearing a suit instead of his usual T-shirt, bowed in contrition and apologized in Japanese at a press conference in Tokyo.

“There were weaknesses in the system,” he said. “I’m truly sorry to have caused inconvenience.”

He said that the exchange had most likely lost 750,000 of its customers’ Bitcoin holdings and more than 100,000 of its own coins, or more than $450 million worth.

Posted by TheCatt on Feb. 28 2014,05:59

Bitcoin not dying, so far. At 541 on BTC, which is higher than it was during the panic a week ago.

Posted by TPRJones on Feb. 28 2014,06:53

I figured the bleeding would stop once MtGox shut down completely. At least they had the decency to pull the plug fairly quickly.

Posted by Malcolm on Feb. 28 2014,09:55

(TPRJones @ Feb. 28 2014,08:53)

QUOTE

I figured the bleeding would stop once MtGox shut down completely. At least they had the decency to pull the plug fairly quickly.

I think Mark may be bleeding before too long. $450M is enough to piss important someone off.

Posted by Vince on Mar. 05 2014,09:02

I saw a couple of the other exchanges are saying they've been hacked as well. No where near the amount that MTGox had, but of note. So here comes the crossroads. Do they push for regulation which removes what makes the Bitcoin attractive, or do they keep it unregulated and the risk higher?

Posted by Malcolm on Mar. 05 2014,09:04

(Vince @ Mar. 05 2014,11:02)

QUOTE

For every human being that has to manage an exchange, it becomes exponentially harder to maintain security.

Posted by TPRJones on Mar. 05 2014,09:15

Push for regulation where? Washington DC? They won't be able to regulate the exchanges in Germany and Japan from Washington DC, all they could do would be to try to make it illegal for US residents to do business with them.

Is the UN going to be trying to regulate bitcoin exchanges globally? That seems unlikely.

This is beyond nations, and thankfully there's no global government yet.

EDIT: The real solution is for people to stop leaving their bitcoins in the hands of these exchanges. You keep them in your personal wallet and only do a transfer when you are ready to do a transaction. Leaving them somewhere you yourself don't control is just asking for trouble.

Posted by Vince on Mar. 05 2014,09:42

(TPRJones @ Mar. 05 2014,11:15)

QUOTE

In the countries they reside in. And then they'll set up other regulatory agencies for the foreign ones in order for the domestic ones to do business with them, etc. If they can do it internationally with banks, they can do it with Bitcoins.

Posted by Malcolm on Mar. 05 2014,09:56

QUOTE

If they can do it internationally with banks, they can do it with Bitcoins.

Says who? The model is entirely different. Banks trade in currencies backed by nations.

Posted by TPRJones on Mar. 05 2014,09:56

QUOTE

If they can do it internationally with banks...

That's a pretty big assumption, based on recent history. Plus, banks are rooted in a physical location and tied to a government through it's currency. Bitcoin has no roots in any country.

Japan has already ruled that bitcoin is outside the purview of their ministry of finance and won't be doing anything to regulate exchanges like MtGox. So, any country that tries to regulate the exchanges in ways the exchanges don't like, nwo they'll just move to Japan.

QUOTE

And then they'll set up other regulatory agencies for the foreign ones in order for the domestic ones to do business with them, etc.

The exchanges have no business with each other. This isn't like with banks where person A in country X needs to do a transaction with person B in country Y so they each go through their own banks and the banks handle the currency exchanges. Each person deals with whatever bitcoin exchange they wish wherever it is individually and directly. The only legal hold a country could have on a foreign bitcoin exchange would be to make it illegal for their citizens to do business with it, and I don't see that working very well in most western countries.

The sort of regulations you are envisioning here would take very specific and strongly built multi-national treaties of the sort that cedes regulatory power over to an international agency like interpol. I don't see that happening anytime soon - if ever - over bitcoins.

Posted by Vince on Mar. 05 2014,10:10

(Malcolm @ Mar. 05 2014,11:56)

QUOTE

If they can do it internationally with banks, they can do it with Bitcoins.

Says who? The model is entirely different. Banks trade in currencies backed by nations.

And as long as bitcoins remain backed by nothing, they are going to be seen as risky.

Posted by Malcolm on Mar. 05 2014,10:12

That's kind of the trade off.

Posted by TPRJones on Mar. 05 2014,10:16

Meh, every other currency is backed by nothing these days, and they do well enough. Fiat currency is pretty much accepted as just the way money works now.

As long as someone somewhere is willing to buy a bitcoin for a certain price it will keep having that value.

EDIT: Plus, digital video game currencies of all sorts are teaching people that money is whatever you decide it is. The only difference between Isk and Bitcoin is where you can spend it.

Posted by Vince on Mar. 05 2014,10:23

(Malcolm @ Mar. 05 2014,12:12)

QUOTE

That's kind of the trade off.

True. Like I said, it'll be interesting to see where it goes. I think it'll die out. May take a couple of years, but I think it will.

Posted by Vince on Mar. 05 2014,10:28

(TPRJones @ Mar. 05 2014,12:16)

QUOTE

Meh, every other currency is backed by nothing these days, and they do well enough. Fiat currency is pretty much accepted as just the way money works now.

True, but the US dollar is protected by the FDIC with banks for ripping you off up to a certain amount. As is becoming apparent to lots of bitcoin holders, you get no such protection with their currency. And when a bank goes under, at least another bank can come in and buy all the assets and keep the members solvent. When the bit coin exchanges go bankrupt, there are no assets.

Posted by Malcolm on Mar. 05 2014,11:17

QUOTE

Another bank that can go under? And the FDIC's promise is only as good as the fed's checkbook.

Posted by TPRJones on Mar. 05 2014,11:33

In a sense, bitcoins are backed by the security of the bitcoin P2P network. The one thing that would irrevocably destroy the value of bitcoins is if someone figures out how to hack the software that supports the network to create or steal bitcoins at will.

Posted by Malcolm on Mar. 05 2014,11:47

If public key crypto gets broken, then the banks will get hit way way before the BC exchanges.

Posted by Vince on Mar. 05 2014,12:41

(Malcolm @ Mar. 05 2014,13:17)

QUOTE

Another bank that can go under? And the FDIC's promise is only as good as the fed's checkbook.

As long as they control the printing presses, the money's protected. Might only be worth 10 cents on the dollar by the time they're done, but they'll protect your dollars in the bank. While at the same time destroying them...

Posted by GORDON on Mar. 05 2014,12:57

(Vince @ Mar. 05 2014,15:41)

QUOTE

(Malcolm @ Mar. 05 2014,13:17)

QUOTE

Another bank that can go under? And the FDIC's promise is only as good as the fed's checkbook.

It would depend on when the next election is, and if the party of the person in the White House is at risk.

Posted by Malcolm on Mar. 05 2014,13:01

Depends my ass. Either major party would do it.

Posted by GORDON on Mar. 05 2014,13:02

Yeah, I know. That's why I didn't name names.

Posted by TheCatt on Mar. 28 2014,11:01

Bitcoin down to 500... LTC down to 14.

Mining LTC has gotten super unproductive, turned off my miner. Was doing 0.12 a day, which is basically break-even at $14/LTC. Time to sell the vid card.

Posted by Paul on May 21 2014,06:51

< Titcoin >

Posted by Leisher on May 21 2014,07:10

The world's oldest currency.

Posted by Paul on Jun. 22 2014,04:50

< NOTICE OF EXTORTION >

Posted by TheCatt on Oct. 10 2014,14:40

So... BTC $350. LTC $3.73

QUOTE

Even litecoins are exploding. $4 last week, $8 today.

- Me, 11/18/2013

QUOTE

Though... I think when Bitcoin reaches $800 there will be a big jump to $1,000. Then maybe $1,200 as news gets out.
Then pop!

- Paul, 11/18/2013

QUOTE

This is all tulips, man. With stocks there's at least some underlying cashflow (future, past, present) to discount/value, etc... This is just random ass shit.

But it's kinda fun.

- Me, 11/18/2013

QUOTE

I'm not saying BTC $40k!@!!11! like some people... but I see a definite future in it.

- Me, 11/22/2013

QUOTE

$1000!

- Paul, 11/27/2013

QUOTE

Yup! Now the hard part, actually getting the cash out of MtGox since their Dwolla account was frozen by the feds.

- TPR, 12/2/2013

QUOTE

Mining litecoins seems simpler... Of course, they are only worth $40 each, so the scale is different.

- Me, 12/4/2013

QUOTE

Bubble goes burst

- 12/18/2013

QUOTE

LTC is now down to $14.15.

2/20/14

QUOTE

But I don't intend to sell any until they go back up to $1000.

- TPR, 2/20

Posted by TPRJones on Oct. 11 2014,08:09

Yup, still waiting. According to my estimates, the next Bitcoin bubble to push them past that mark again will be sometime around the summer of 2015.

Posted by TheCatt on Oct. 11 2014,08:11

I'm almost tempted to buy again.

Posted by TPRJones on Oct. 11 2014,11:34

Well, I wouldn't go that far.

The fact that I picked them up for $20 is the only reason I'm willing to keep waiting to see what happens long-term.

EDIT: The main problem is that there's a constant selling pressure from retailers that accept and then immediately convert to cash. But there's not yet enough constant buy pressure to counter it. So the general trend will be downwards until there's a spike in public interest to make it peak again and start the next downward slide.

Posted by TheCatt on Oct. 13 2014,18:10

Up to $390... damn, should have bought after all.

Posted by TheCatt on Nov. 13 2014,07:16

$430. I bought a half at $360.

Posted by TPRJones on Nov. 13 2014,15:07

I'll probably sell 0.5 near the end of the year and take the loss just to offset some of my stock profits this year. But otherwise I'mma keep holding on.

EDIT: To clarify, my original purchase was at $2 each. But back when they were jumping around $1,000 I did some day trading on them so my new cost point is officially $912 each. And I had to pay taxes on that back then. Even if they never do go back up I've still made my money's worth in future write-offs of stock investment income.

Posted by Stranger on Dec. 11 2014,09:27

Now I know what a "Bitcoin" is. Hmm... (warning, explicit lyrics)

Posted by Paul on Feb. 06 2015,20:52

< Bitcoin mining in China. >

Posted by TPRJones on Feb. 09 2015,07:56

Better than WOW gold farming, at least.

Posted by TheCatt on Nov. 04 2015,17:03

Hit 450s today. Right now around $396. Was just in the 200-250 range a couple of days ago, I think.

Posted by TPRJones on Nov. 04 2015,17:34

Yup, another spike, briefly touching on $500. I expect it to drop back down to around $350 and go steady for awhile.

Posted by Leisher on Mar. 15 2016,06:04

< Microsoft drops them from the store. >