What do you know about Bitcoins?

Thanks for the info, I was missing few information about bitcoin

 

Sure anytime
I picked up a few cheap alt coins tonight on cryptsy.com
we'll see if they every take off

 

Future currency or asset bubble? Bitcoin critics get louder.
http://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/future-currency-asset-bubble-bitcoin-174648796.html


Future currency or asset bubble? Bitcoin critics get louder

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25428866
18 December 2013 Last updated at 11:51 GMT

Bitcoin sinks after China restricts yuan exchanges
By Leo Kelion Technology reporter
BTC China's Bobby Lee says his exchange remains in business despite new restrictions
Continue reading the main story
Related Stories

• China's love-hate Bitcoin relationship Watch
• Five held following Bitcoin scams
• Bitcoin trade ban for Chinese banks

Bitcoin has fallen to less than half the value it recently traded for, following reports of fresh action by Beijing to restrict trade in the virtual currency.

BTC China has said that local payment companies have been blocked from providing it with clearing services.

It means that the firm - the world's biggest Bitcoin exchange in terms of trading volumes - can no longer accept yuan-based deposits.

Prices tumbled following the news.

One bitcoin was trading for as low as 2,560 yuan ($421, £258), according to the South China Morning Post.

Continue reading the main story
How Bitcoin works
Bitcoin is often referred to as a new kind of currency.

But it may be best to think of its units being virtual tokens rather than physical coins or notes.

However, like all currencies its value is determined by how much people are willing to exchange it for.

To process Bitcoin transactions, a procedure called "mining" must take place, which involves a computer solving a difficult mathematical problem with a 64-digit solution.

For each problem solved, one block of bitcoins is processed. In addition the miner is rewarded with new bitcoins.

This provides an incentive for people to provide computer processing power to solve the problems.

To compensate for the growing power of computer chips, the difficulty of the puzzles is adjusted to ensure a steady stream of about 3,600 new bitcoins a day.

There are currently about 11 million bitcoins in existence.

To receive a bitcoin a user must have a Bitcoin address - a string of 27-34 letters and numbers - which acts as a kind of virtual postbox to and from which the bitcoins are sent.

Since there is no registry of these addresses, people can use them to protect their anonymity when making a transaction.

These addresses are in turn stored in Bitcoin wallets which are used to manage savings.

They operate like privately run bank accounts - with the proviso that if the data is lost, so are the bitcoins owned.

That compares with an all-time high of 7,588 yuan ($1,250; £764) in late November.

Exchanges in other countries also reported drops, with Japan-based MtGox seeing the exchange rate for one bitcoin fall from $717 to as low as $480 in Wednesday's trade.

"A lot of people put Bitcoin's rise over recent months to China where interest in it has gone through the roof," said Emily Spaven, editor of digital currency news site CoinDesk told the BBC.

"People are getting frightened that with the new regulations the country could now drop out of the ecosystem. Going forward, it's certainly not the end of Bitcoin, but people have been panic selling."

Currency controls
Virtual currency exchanges in China are not licensed by the country's central bank to accept or pay out yuan to their customers, making them reliant on independent clearing houses to act as middlemen.

"We essentially got notice from our third-party provider today that they will discontinue accepting payments for us and new deposits," Bobby Lee, chief executive of BTC China, told SCMP.

"We're still operating a Bitcoin exchange in China legally, and we're still allowing people to deposit and withdraw Bitcoin, and withdraw renminbi [yuan]."

According to Yicai - a business news website with ties to the government - the news followed a meeting between officials from the People's Bank of China and 10 clearing houses on Monday in Beijing, at which the firms were told they had until the end of January to sever links to the country's Bitcoin exchanges.

This followed an earlier notice, issued by the regulators a fortnight ago, which banned local banks from handling transactions involving bitcoins.

The Chinese ban will make it harder for locals to swap their yuan for bitcoins
The virtual currency is not backed by a central bank of its own, and is best thought of as being virtual tokens, rather than real-world coins, which derive their value from the ability to exchange them for cash or use them to buy goods.

One expert suggested the crackdown was the result of the Chinese government's fears that locals were using it as a way to bypass currency controls in order to move their savings out of the country.

"China is trying to grow its domestic economy and rebalance it from an export and investment-based model to a consumer driven one over the next decade, and to do that the authorities want to keep as much yuan within the country as possible," said Jinny Yan, an economist with Standard Chartered bank.

"They don't want to curtail any innovation in the financial sector. However, at the moment any unexpected growth and development in channels that allow by-passing of capital controls will cause anxiety."

Ms Spaven added that she believed Bitcoin would eventually bounce back.

"Underneath all the speculative trading is a robust technology that has intrinsic value as a payment network, offering cheaper and faster money transfer than any other options that exist currently," she said.

"If you look at our Bitcoin Price Index, you can see that prices dipped to below the current level this time last month and soon bounced back. I believe the same will happen this time around. It may take some time, but the price will rise again."

 

It's a good time to buy more

 

We are detecting more Bitcoin scams of a surprisingly sophisticated nature.
You can keep abreast of some of the scams as we find out about them in the link below.

I think that 2014 will show lots more Bitcoin and other "currency" type scams. Please take care to ensure the safety of your Bitcoins.

http://antifraudintl.org/showthread.php?83174-Bitcoin-scams-and&s=f37e5e4160b7f545c352ed6f9d2ebe1e

 

I sure wish I would have jumped onto the bitcoin bandwagon a couple of years ago, but I was afraid it would be a fad. Now that it has taken a bit of a tumble, I am considering getting into the game, but it feels too much like gambling at this point.

https://bigterminal.com/chart/currency/BTCUSD/?from_goldnet=1&

It is still trending down. Perhaps I'll jump in when it trends up again.

 

Forums Related to Bitcoin
- http://www.talkgold.com/forum/f513-.html
- http://www.moneymakergroup.com/Bitco...g-t346733.html
- http://www.italkcash.com/forum/bitcoin/
- http://bitcoinme.com/forum/
- http://www.bitcoinforums.net/index.php
- http://tweetforum.com/bitcoin
- http://www.Bitcoin-Board.com

Exchangers
- http://www.m-gold.com
- http://Tradehill.com
- https://www.nanaimogold.com/index.php
- http://mtgox.com
- http://bitcoin7.com
- http://www.wm-center.com

Browser Extensions
- http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/104381
- http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/coine...er/id440970768 - Iphone app

Guides and Explanations, Resources:
- http://www.BitcoinTraining.com
-
- http://BitcoinBoom.org
- http://www.coineer.com/
- http://www.minerware.com/ (The Best Hardware to mine)
- http://bitcoinbasics.com/
- http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Main_Page (The Bitcoin Wiki)

Charts/Monitors:
- http://www.bitcoinmonitor.com/ (Real time graphic display of Bitcoin transactions)
- http://bitcoinwatch.com/
- http://bitcoincharts.com
- http://blockexplorer.com/ (Shows Blocks as they are created)

Blogs:
- http://bitcoinweekly.com/

 

Great list of forums @Alfa1
This is the only one I've used for Bitcoin. I have signed up on other altcoin forums, eg peercoin, but that's about it.
I'll check out your list but I think this is the closest to an official bitcoin forum. https://bitcointalk.org

Also here are two exchanges I've used that aren't on that list.
https://btc-e.com/
https://www.cryptsy.com/

..also I've used coinbase.com to get usd into btc
and this is a nice site that shows the price and volume here
http://bitcoinity.org/markets/btce/USD

If you want to check things out this is a newly released coin that is pretty hot right now.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=361813.0
They are easy to mine and may be worth some money in a year or two for a little effort now.

 

I find it really hard to take that one seriously, but what the heck, I might as well jump on this just in case it really does take off.

 

Ya, I do too..lol
But it's hot right now, I'd hate to look back in two years and say I should have..

 

I'm puzzled by all the nerd talk on that thread.

Anyone care to explain a quick rundown on how someone can buy them coins. How can you mine them.

Brandon how all this is done ?

What does one need to get started on these new alt coins.

 

You can mine them with your cpu, your gpu or specially designed chips called asic or fpga's.
Check out this article.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/bitcoin-mining-make-money,3514-5.html

 

Unless you plan on buying a 10k mining machine, it's a little too late to start mining now. There is just too much competition.

You could start up a bitcoin mine like one of these: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-12-25/trip-through-bitcoin-mines

 

Note true at all.
There are many coins, not just bitcoin
I was making 10$ a day off my AMD 5850 card, which are selling for less then 200$ on ebay the last time I checked.

 

I recently purchased around $2k worth of mining gear to learn about the cryptocurrency hobby and to learn about the mining side of it. My rig makes around $40/day, sometimes around $45. If this rate of return keeps up, the rig should be paid off in under 50 days. Even if it takes 6 months to pay off, I don't mind as I am enjoying the hobby and have learned a lot.

 

Sure, but just wait until the big guys come online.
There are new ASIC machines that are going to be coming online in early 2014 that will be increasing the network computing power in the Terahashes with a SINGLE machine. Yes, the machine is $15,000, but people are buying them and will be joining the network in the spring.
See: http://www.xtrememiners.net/#!products/cngp
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison#ASIC

 

I don't know about that company but I know kncminer will have a 3Ths unit around feb.
There are ways to make bitcoin without directly mining bitcoin. I use middlecoin.com to mine the most profitable script coin then convert it to btc.

 

The only thing I regret is that I could buy many bitcoins back in 2009-2010.. but I though it was just useless..
I'm sad.

If your looking for a long term investment, I would recommend looking into litecoins, the #2 big crypto currency.