Bitcoin: Censorship-Resistant Digital P2P Currency

[stessier]

I don't know if this will ever truly take hold, but the growing pains certainly aren't helping.

Bitcoin exchange BitFloor has shut down operations while it investigates the theft of nearly a quarter million dollars' worth of the virtual currency.

The heist occurred last night when an attacker accessed an unencrypted backup of wallet keys and made off with 24,000 BTC. This led BitFloor founder Roman Shtylman to suspend the exchange's operations. As of this writing, a Bitcoin is worth $10.40, making the heist's haul worth $249,600, according to Bitcoin converter Preev.

*******
[Bitcoin] has been the target of frequent thefts, hacks, and scams, with more than 290,000 BTC lost in 10 heists since June 2011, according to tallies on the BitcoinTalk forum.

Last month, users of Bitcoin exchange Bitcoinica filed a complaint against the trading platform in a San Francisco court, alleging the loss of $460,000 due to poor security and deceitful practices.

[SpaceLord]

BitCoins cross 100 dollars each.

Holy crap! I have 80. Nice news for me.

[stessier]

So if you wanted to cash them in - how does that show up on a 1040? I'm thinking the government would be pretty interested in a random $8000 showing up in your accounts.

[LawBeefaroni]

Capital gains, probably. Or maybe they fall under the ETN laws.

[LawBeefaroni]

FWIW, it's a great run but I'm still skeptical. There is no method to make a contrarian bet on bitcoins (like shorting them) so there's nothing to stop an irrational bubble. I imagine that the current run is fueled by fear (ECB/Cyprus) and speculation.



A nice fun trade but not a place to store wealth.

[SpaceLord]

A nice fun trade but not a place to store wealth.

I paid 5 bucks each.

[Kasey Chang]

Supposedly you can buy those ASIC-based "bitcoin miners" for a few thousand dollars, and make back all that money within a week or so. The special ASIC can make 2-3 coins a DAY

http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/1/394176 ... mes-faster" target="_blank

Which basically means bitcoin value is doing to take a dump very soon.

[LawBeefaroni]

Supposedly you can buy those ASIC-based "bitcoin miners" for a few thousand dollars, and make back all that money within a week or so. The special ASIC can make 2-3 coins a DAY

http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/1/394176 ... mes-faster" target="_blank

Which basically means bitcoin value is doing to take a dump very soon.

The more bitcoins get mined, the more difficult the cryptography gets so that 2-3 coins per day will probably slow down (but will these miners will still be faster than the average miner on a regular PC).

The fact that difficulty can be overcome with processing power is a bit concerning though. What's to stop a government from dropping some serious hardware into the mix and devaluing bitcoin, either intentionally or not?

[SpaceLord]

Supposedly you can buy those ASIC-based "bitcoin miners" for a few thousand dollars, and make back all that money within a week or so. The special ASIC can make 2-3 coins a DAY

http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/1/394176 ... mes-faster" target="_blank

Which basically means bitcoin value is doing to take a dump very soon.

No, it doesn't. The rate at which coins are generated is fixed. You can't mine any more/faster than the algorithm allows. If you throw 10x the hardware into mining the BitCoins, you'd just mine more of the upcoming blocks. Remember that 10.9M of the BTC ever to exist are already mined.

Currently, the dollar value of coins mined per hour is 23221 dollars, network-wide.

In an average hour, 234.56 coins are mined. If a single entity somehow mined all these coins, denying everyone else in the pool all BTC for a month, you'd own around 170000 BTC. That would be 0.155% of all the BTC currently in existence. Good luck crashing the price too much with that percentage.

[Kasey Chang]

No, it doesn't. The rate at which coins are generated is fixed. You can't mine any more/faster than the algorithm allows. If you throw 10x the hardware into mining the BitCoins, you'd just mine more of the upcoming blocks. Remember that 10.9M of the BTC ever to exist are already mined.

The algorithm is SOMEWHAT self-adjusting... with difficulty updating every 2016 blocks. Thus, it is NOT inconceivable someone create rigs that will search for low difficulty periods, then mine out the "group" of blocks before the difficulty updates.

[Jaymon]

If those ASIC things are so awesome, and guaranteed to mine bitcoins fast enough to produce profit in a couple weeks,
why would they be for sale? Wouldn't the inventor be better off just building them and mining coins? After all, shouldn't that be far more profitable then selling the machine?

[Kasey Chang]

Because they know they're trying to cash in on a market that is self-liquidating? (i.e. as bitcoins get more prevalent, it becomes harder to mine?)

[triggercut]

If those ASIC things are so awesome, and guaranteed to mine bitcoins fast enough to produce profit in a couple weeks,
why would they be for sale? Wouldn't the inventor be better off just building them and mining coins? After all, shouldn't that be far more profitable then selling the machine?

Because fools (in this case, the set of people who do not consider bitcoins to be high, high comedy) and money (actual currency exchanged between humans for goods and services) are soon parted.

[Cortilian]

And the price is crashing. Oh, and the wallet where most people keep them has been hacked. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22026961" target="_blank

[stessier]

Some researchers looked at exchanges and found they don't stay open very long.

[SpaceLord]

If those ASIC things are so awesome, and guaranteed to mine bitcoins fast enough to produce profit in a couple weeks,
why would they be for sale? Wouldn't the inventor be better off just building them and mining coins? After all, shouldn't that be far more profitable then selling the machine?

Because fools (in this case, the set of people who do not consider bitcoins to be high, high comedy) and money (actual currency exchanged between humans for goods and services) are soon parted.

Bitcoins are currently trading at 640$ each.

Why? China. Recently, a Chinese Bitcoin exchange opened. Even with the very robust trading in western exchanges, the new Chinese exchange is already averaging 30% more coins traded daily.

Today, the Senate Homeland Security panel will hold a hearing about digital currency. TheDepartment of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission's pre-released documents are positive, saying that BitCoin has legitimate uses.

[LawBeefaroni]

If those ASIC things are so awesome, and guaranteed to mine bitcoins fast enough to produce profit in a couple weeks,
why would they be for sale? Wouldn't the inventor be better off just building them and mining coins? After all, shouldn't that be far more profitable then selling the machine?

Because fools (in this case, the set of people who do not consider bitcoins to be high, high comedy) and money (actual currency exchanged between humans for goods and services) are soon parted.

Bitcoins are currently trading at 640$ each.

Why? China. Recently, a Chinese Bitcoin exchange opened. Even with the very robust trading in western exchanges, the new Chinese exchange is already averaging 30% more coins traded daily.

Today, the Senate Homeland Security panel will hold a hearing about digital currency. TheDepartment of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission's pre-released documents are positive, saying that BitCoin has legitimate uses.

Went to over $1,200, crashed back to $650 when China put the kibosh on Yuan trading.

In other news, derivatives markets are emerging to take advantage of all the volatility (and of unsuspecting "investors"). Article is two weeks old but the screenshot is awesome in light of recent events:


Note that "Bitcoin to reach $1400 before end of December" isn't a prediction, that's the name of the spread, so basically "Dec 2013 $1,400 call."

[JSHAW]

OUCH, that's gotta hurt.

http://gizmodo.com/some-fool-threw-away ... 1472685803" target="_blank

[Kraken]

I used the Bitcoin Faucet to get the free fraction of a coin back on page one. But I don't know where I put it. How can I find my bit of a bitcoin?

[LawBeefaroni]

I used the Bitcoin Faucet to get the free fraction of a coin back on page one. But I don't know where I put it. How can I find my bit of a bitcoin?

Did you check under the virtual mattress?

[SpaceLord]

I used the Bitcoin Faucet to get the free fraction of a coin back on page one. But I don't know where I put it. How can I find my bit of a bitcoin?

Did you check under the virtual mattress?

Well, if you have the client, fire it up. The file that contains the coin is named "wallet.dat"

[Isgrimnur]

Bitcoin isn't money? The court says otherwise:

The government and legal community may still be arguing over whether bitcoin can be defined as “money.” But the judge presiding over the landmark Silk Road drug case has declared that it’s at least close enough to get you locked up for money laundering.

In a ruling released Wednesday, Judge Katherine Forrest denied a motion by Ross Ulbricht, the 30-year-old alleged creator of the Silk Road billion-dollar online drug bazaar, to dismiss criminal charges against him that include narcotics trafficking conspiracy, money laundering, and hacking conspiracy charges, as well as a “continuing criminal enterprise” charge that’s better known as the “kingpin” statute used to prosecute criminal gang and cartel leaders.

That earlier motion, filed in April, raised potentially trial-shifting questions: Can Ulbricht really be accused of running a drug-selling conspiracy when he merely ran a website that made the narcotics sales possible? And can he be charged with money laundering when bitcoin doesn’t necessarily meet the requisite definition of money?’

According to Forrest’s latest ruling, yes and yes. She rejected every argument made in the defense’s motion, starting with the idea that Ulbricht had merely provided an innocent platform for hosting the Silk Road’s illicit e-commerce, just as eBay might occasionally host illegal content without its knowledge.

[LawBeefaroni]

Considering that the Feds have already begun liquidating Silk Roads bitcoins, it makes sense.

[LawBeefaroni]

Weekend flashcrash sent Bitcoin down to around $300. It's recovered a bit to $330 but the chart is ugly.

This is why it's still a speculative vehicle and not a currency replacement.

[GreenGoo]

Weekend flashcrash sent Bitcoin down to around $300. It's recovered a bit to $330 but the chart is ugly.

This is why it's still a speculative vehicle and not a currency replacement.

It's still "controversial" as well. Something like this has to be around a long time before it leaves the gimmick stage in a lot of people's minds. Still, I'm impressed it's made it this far.

[Sectoid]

Tl;dr
Has anyone on here had any success at mining virtual currency?
I'm currently mining litecoin using my gaming rig, but after 3 days (granted I'm only mining in idle time), I have .005 litecoin.
I know my rig is not ideal and all, but is it worth mining at home anymore?

[LawBeefaroni]

Tl;dr
Has anyone on here had any success at mining virtual currency?
I'm currently mining litecoin using my gaming rig, but after 3 days (granted I'm only mining in idle time), I have .005 litecoin.
I know my rig is not ideal and all, but is it worth mining at home anymore?

I don't think home mining is going to be all that lucrative. It's a competition against everyone else. The more miners, the less each gets. And if there's any money to be made, there will be a more miners. To actually make money, you need a farm of custom built mining boxes.



This is what you're up against with bitcoin (photo below). Don't know about litecoin but if there's money to be made, someone will farm for it.

A HUGE aircraft hangar in Boden, in northern Sweden, big enough to hold a dozen helicopters, is now packed with computers—45,000 of them, each with a whirring fan to stop it overheating. The machines (pictured) work ceaselessly, trying to solve fiendishly difficult mathematical puzzles. The solutions are, in themselves, unimportant. Yet by solving the puzzles, the computers earn their owners a reward in bitcoin, a digital “crypto-currency”.


...

Startups from all over the world began building specialised hardware powered by custom-built chips, known as application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs). Leaving the amateurs behind, these firms soon became locked in a digital arms race. Microprocessors usually double their power every 18 months, a rhythm called Moore’s law. In the case of mining ASICs, this doubling has occurred every six months.

Good article if you have the time. The Magic of Mining.

[Sectoid]

That's pretty much what I figured, LawBeef. Build a system even a fool can use and only a fool will use it.
It seems like the only way to make money on cryptocurrency is to speculate on it. Unfortunately, I don't have the capital to do so, unless anyone on here has a spare $250k I can manage.

[LordMortis]

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/overst ... 2015-01-09

Crazy, man, Crazy. Not quite as crazy but I had no idea:

The currency has been criticized for its volatility, climbing to a peak of $1,150-a-coin in December of 2013 to $284.76 in recent trading. A wide range of companies including Amazon.com Inc. AMZN, +3.34% Target Corp. TGT, +0.67% CVS Health Corp. CVS, +1.16% eBay/PayPal EBAY, +1.45% Tesla Motors Inc. TSLA, +1.94% Microsoft Corp. MSFT, +2.40% and Dell Inc. accept it as payment.

[LawBeefaroni]

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/overst ... 2015-01-09

Crazy, man, Crazy. Not quite as crazy but I had no idea:

The currency has been criticized for its volatility, climbing to a peak of $1,150-a-coin in December of 2013 to $284.76 in recent trading. A wide range of companies including Amazon.com Inc. AMZN, +3.34% Target Corp. TGT, +0.67% CVS Health Corp. CVS, +1.16% eBay/PayPal EBAY, +1.45% Tesla Motors Inc. TSLA, +1.94% Microsoft Corp. MSFT, +2.40% and Dell Inc. accept it as payment.

A lot of that acceptance is just a gimmick. They link to a 3rd party that exchanges bitcoin for cash and sends that cash on to the seller. Basically they "accept bitcoin" by doing business with someone who handles the conversion to real currency.

The volatility is why no company in their right mind would actually accept bitcoin in lieu of real currency and hold it, at least not in any significant amount.

I know for MSFT you use bitcoin to add money to your MSFT account and there's a 15-20 minute wait (presumably while transaction is verified/hashed and the bitcoin is converted). And you can't buy giftcards with that money.

[LawBeefaroni]

That volatility I mentioned? Yeah.

On the year it's worse than oil, worse than the ruble.

The price of bitcoin is continuing to crash, dropping as low as $173 early Wednesday, according to stats from CoinDesk. It is down from about $244 just a day before, a drop of nearly 30%.

Some people are beginning to worry that bitcoin is stuck in a self-reinforcing negative price cycle in which bitcoin hoarders are being forced to sell bitcoin to meet their dollar-based costs, and the excess supply of bitcoin cheapens its price — which makes dollar costs and debts even more "expensive" for bitcoin holders.

At the time of writing, the price continued to fluctuate at about $195.

[Isgrimnur]

Ross Ulbricht, accused of being the Dread Pirate Roberts behind the Silk Road marketplace has been convicted on all counts.

On Wednesday, less than a month after his trial began in a downtown Manhattan courtroom, 30-year-old Ulbricht was convicted of all seven crimes he was charged with, including narcotics and money laundering conspiracies and a “kingpin” charge usually reserved for mafia dons and drug cartel leaders. He faces a minimum of 30 years in prison; the maximum is life. But Ulbricht will almost certainly appeal the decision, given his legal team’s calls for a mistrial and frequent protests against the judge’s decisions throughout the case.
...
Ulbricht’s defense team quickly admitted at trial that Ulbricht had created the Silk Road. But his attorneys argued that it had been merelt an “economic experiment,” one that he quickly gave up to other individuals who grew the site into the massive drug empire the Silk Road represented at its peak in late 2013. Those purported operators of the site, including the “real” Dread Pirate Roberts, they argued, had framed Ulbricht as the “perfect fall guy.”

“The real Dread Pirate Roberts is out there,” Ulbricht’s lead attorney Joshua Dratel told the jury in opening statements.

But that dramatic alternative theory never produced a credible explanation of the damning evidence found on Ulbricht’s personal computer. The defense was left to argue that Ulbricht’s laptop had been hacked, and voluminous incriminating files injected into the computer—perhaps via a Bittorrent connection he was using to download an episode of the Colbert Report at the time of his arrest. In their closing arguments, prosecutors called that story a “wild conspiracy theory” and a “desperate attempt to create a smokescreen.” It seems the jury agreed.

[Isgrimnur]

Silk Road founder gets life in prison:

A federal judge gave convicted Silk Road darknet mastermind Ross Ulbricht two terms of life in prison and three lesser sentences Friday for founding and operating a criminal version of eBay that made buying illegal drugs almost as easy as clicking a computer mouse.

After the 31-year-old Texas native apologized for his deeds and asked for leniency, U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest ordered Ulbricht to serve far more than the mandatory minimum 20-year term he faced for his February conviction on charges of operating a continuing criminal enterprise and related allegations.

The punishment matched the life term called for under federal sentencing guidelines and recommended by a government probation report.

Forrest also imposed a nearly $184 million forfeiture order on Ulbricht. "It wasn't a game, and you knew that," said Forrest, who said Silk Road was "your opus."

[GreenGoo]

Justice is served.

Apparently.

[Max Peck]

US undercover agent jailed for six years for Silk Road Bitcoin theft

A former undercover policeman has been sentenced to six and half years in prison for stealing $700,000 of the virtual currency bitcoin.

Agent Carl Force was part of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) investigation into the black market website Silk Road. Silk Road allowed its users to buy and sell illicit goods including drugs and weapons anonymously using Bitcoin.

Force pled guilty to extortion, money laundering and obstruction of justice. Force was posing as a drug dealer with connections to hit men to establish contact with Silk Road's founder, Ross Ulbricht. His code name for the assignment was "Nob". Once he reached Ulbricht, Force sold him information about the investigation.

Ulbricht is a serving life sentence for conspiracy to traffic narcotics, money laundering and computer hacking, all associated with his creation of Silk Road.

The judge in the case said Force's "betrayal of public trust is quite simply breathtaking".

A former Secret Service agent who was also charged pleaded guilty and will be sentenced separately in December.

Bitcoin is digital currency not controlled by any government. Users can buy and sell goods using a unique code that allows users to remain anonymous, something that has made Bitcoin a popular choice for funding criminal activity.

[LawBeefaroni]

Carl Force sounds like a beauty.


“I’m legit. Green Beret….I have access to files that FBI, DEA, AFP, SOCA would kill for. In fact, that is what I do . . . kill.”
Force to DPR from the Death From Above handle, threatening/extorting him for bitcoin.

“Please comply to the attached subpoena!”
In an email to Venmo from his official DOJ email account, demanding they lift the freeze on an account using a subpoena forged with his supervising officers stamp.

“I have a lot of down time at DEA so I am confident that I can handle all that needs to be done regarding Legal and Compliance on a daily basis.”
To CoinMKT, a company he invested in while working at the DEA and was in negotiations to become their Compliance Officer.

[Max Peck]

Will the real Satoshi Nakamoto please stand up?

Even as his face towered 10 feet above the crowd at the Bitcoin Investor’s Conference in Las Vegas, Craig Steven Wright was, to most of the audience of crypto and finance geeks, a nobody.

The 44-year-old Australian, Skyping into the D Hotel ballroom’s screen, wore the bitcoin enthusiast’s equivalent of camouflage: a black blazer and a tieless, rumpled shirt, his brown hair neatly parted. His name hadn’t made the conference’s list of “featured speakers.” Even the panel’s moderator, a bitcoin blogger named Michele Seven, seemed concerned the audience wouldn’t know why he was there. Wright had hardly begun to introduce himself as a “former academic who does research that no one ever hears about,” when she interrupted him.

“Hold on a second, who are you?” Seven cut in, laughing. “Are you a computer scientist?”

“I’m a bit of everything,” Wright responded. “I have a masters in law…a master’s in statistics, a couple doctorates…”

“How did you first learn about bitcoin?” Seven interrupted again, as if still trying to clarify Wright’s significance.

Wright paused for three full seconds. “Um. I’ve been involved with all this for a long time,” he stuttered. “I—try and stay—I keep my head down. Um…” He seemed to suppress a smile. The panel’s moderator moved on. And for what must have been the thousandth time in his last seven years of obscurity, Wright did not say the words WIRED’s study of Wright over the past weeks suggests he may be dying to say out loud.

“I am Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of bitcoin.”

[Max Peck]

An unexpected development? Probably not.

'Bitcoin founder's' Australia home raided by Sydney police

Australian police have raided the Sydney home and office of a man named by technology websites as the creator of the virtual currency Bitcoin.

Federal police searched Craig Steven Wright's properties, but said the raid was about tax, not Bitcoin.

Mr Wright was named by Wired and Gizmodo as the creator of Bitcoin.

The founder of the currency is believed to hold about a million Bitcoins, which are reportedly worth about $400m at the current exchange rate.

The raid in Sydney came hours after Wired and Gizmodo claimed Mr Wright was probably the mysterious "Satoshi Nakamoto", a pseudonym used by Bitcoin's creator.

Their investigations were based on leaked emails, documents and web archives, including what was said to be a transcript of a meeting between Wright, a 44-year-old academic, and Australian tax officials.

[Moliere]

Anyone looking at other currencies like Ripple?

At the current price of $0.03 each it makes for a nice longshot gamble. One of those investments that I refer to as buy it and forget it for 10 years.

[Moliere]

Anyone looking at other currencies like Ripple?

At the current price of $0.03 each it makes for a nice longshot gamble. One of those investments that I refer to as buy it and forget it for 10 years.

The price has tripled since I posted this message. Just sayin'.