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Bitcoin FAQs

Back in 2014 I started hearing about Bitcoin and being inquisitive I researched it and found out how to buy some, which I did. I then promptly ignored them and carried on with my fumbling attempts to make money out of other things.

In fact, I couldn’t remember what my details were and how to access them.

Whilst clearing out some old paper work recently I stumbled across where I had written down my account details, so I logged into Blockchain and my bitcoins where still there and what was more pleasing I was sat on a 10 bagger.

Now at this point you are probably thinking “Smug Bastard” but no I was kicking myself.

At the time, I purchased I had thought “What am I going to do with them and they will probably go belly up as a scam and I only bought 0.1 bitcoins. Yes, I risked a massive £21 which is now worth £210 as I type.

So, I am now sitting thinking why didn’t you buy 1 or 5 or 10 for God’s sake it would not have broken you at the time.

So Doh! This making money game is easy when looking through a rear-view mirror.

I will hang on to my small stake and maybe it will 10 bagger again and I still don’t know what to do with them, but things are changing.
M

Nasdaq Plans to Launch Bitcoin Futures in First Half 2018

Can I buy 0.000000000000000000001 of a bitcoin with the old £1 coin I have just found?

Oops! Sorry! I missed a nought, so that's 0.0000000000000000000001.😃

One hairy day. People burned profts made!

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kim,

Bitcoin only works to an eight decimal fraction system, however, £1 should buy you approximately 0.000125BTC.

Martini,

There are so many things I don't understand about Bitcoin....

Once the 21 millionth Bitcoin has been minted, and the plates self-destruct, surely the value of a Bitcoin will only be the value of the net tangible assets of the issuer at that point in time, divided by the number of coins in circulation (21m)? Given their revenue stream will dry up at that point, and the issuer will presumably still have ongoing liabilities above and beyond those required to dissolve the currency, then the value of each coin will fall continually?

"Minting.....plates".....that is soooooo last century! ;o)
Surely Bitcoin was designed as a means of trading in goods and services, not as a binary investment, so Bitcoin should remain as trading means, albeit at a lower value? Any currency has a finite amount in circulation?

Harry,

New Bitcoin will continue to be minted virtually and issued until 2033, albeit the rate of issue is continually slowing. I presume that increasing demand and slowing supply is what's driving the price now.

And yes, you're right, crypto currencies were primarily designed as a means of trading goods and services (although I don't understand what was ever wrong with sterling, dollars, euros and yen). However, physical currencies are supported by a central bank who acts as a lender of last resort. What happens when people realise that the issuers of crypto currencies don't have the means to support all of the virtual coins that they've minted?

Nearly a four bagger since u started the thread 4 months ago M , can't be much else that has done that.

Must admit I know nothing about bit coins and so don't understand the rise. What can you do with them ?

Buy suitcases full of white powder?

Yep just did a bit of research and am now a bit suspicious of why Martini had some in the first place. Understood the bit about the Silk Road currency but lost the plot after that.

Do these qualify?

New sets of transactions (blocks) are added to Bitcoin’s blockchain roughly every 10 minutes by so-called 'miners'.

While working on the blockchain these miners aren’t required to trust each other. The only thing miners have to trust is the code that runs Bitcoin.

The code includes several rules to validate new transactions.

For example, a transaction can only be valid if the sender actually owns the sent amount. Every miner individually confirms whether transactions adhere to these rules, eliminating the need to trust other miners.

There's a lot more about this stuff at:

https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption

The main thing of 'household interest to me' is, that it takes tons and tons and TONS of energy consumption to run the Bitcoin system (which, apart from energy usage levels, is a little bit similar to the VISA payment system).

The thing is though, each Bitcoin transaction uses about 270 KWhrs of electricity - meaning, that just 1 Bitcoin transaction could power the equivalent of around 9 households for 1 day. The annual current estimated electricity consumption for Bitcoin is around 30 TWh

The country currently closest to Bitcoin in energy consumption terms is apparently Morocco.

As well as power consumption, it might be an idea to know something about the anatomy of a 'Bubble'.



Click on the chart to go to the Mirror's "When will Bitcoin crash?" article.

Just a thing like me doing these last two posts, reminds me of sorta kinda, 'Even the Milkman is talking about Bitcoin'. This means it's time to SELL Bitcoin and not buy.

Thanks Hilary, I'm off to the bank to pay in my old £1, if they will still take it, if not then no 0.000125BTC for me!😃

OK, so I've found out that elastrickery costs 0.15 € a kwh thingie, so I reckon that I could make a Bitcoin for 40 €. And yet they're selling for £7k, and the miners or minters or whatever they're called seem to make them for free/love.

How does that work exactly? Why isn't the world and his wife making these things and selling them for shedloads?? If they were mining for gold or diamonds or any other commodity, that's how it would work.

Seriously, I'm missing something (that's clearly obvious to window cleaners!) here.

As i seem to be the only one who has any bitcoins here I assume your final comment is directed at me.

As I said in my opening post i made my initial purchase of £21 out of curiosity rather than a deep understanding of how it all works or what the future would hold.

Whilst I have chronicled the extraordinary rises I have not made case for anyone else to buy.

If it all goes belly up I will not be in crying into my Horlicks.

So you have no need to warn me of the error of my ways and if it smells like a scam or another example of irrational exuberance to you ignore it