Both my wife and I (on separate phones) received SMS messages today telling us our account may have been credited with 1 Bitcoin and requiring that I register at a supplied URL.
Needless to say I don't have any Bitcoins and am not expecting any.
Maybe i am just stupid but what is a bitcoin :shrug
Short answer is that it's a type of digital currency. There's no central authority that manages it. Transactions are recorded in a distributed ledger called a Blockchain. The value of a Bitcoin is whatever somebody is willing to pay for it (quite a lot at present.) Bitcoins can be used to transfer funds anonymously, so they are attractive for conducting dubious types of business. Bitcoin was the first instrument of this type but there are now several other CryptoCurrencies like Ethereum, et al.
I got a very early smsto say that the Commbank badly needed to update my info: please follow this link and answer all questions.
Idiot didn't make his ph number private :-)
Any chance you could post up the number Trevor?
I’d relish the opportunity to offer the prankster some “free” bitcoins.
I have had many a fun time with scammers over the years due to the fact they are not that smart and seemingly immune to sarcasm and their own short sighted games thrown back at them.
Rob B
The technology isn't, but on the risk spectrum it's at the very high end... and that's even if you don't get caught up in the hacking and/or collapse of a Bitcoin exchange.
The technology isn't, but on the risk spectrum it's at the very high end... and that's even if you don't get caught up in the hacking and/or collapse of a Bitcoin exchange.
The technology isn't, but on the risk spectrum it's at the very high end... and that's even if you don't get caught up in the hacking and/or collapse of a Bitcoin exchange.
Yeah I get that for sure. I read quite a detailed article on Bitcoin mining and the process was quite mind boggling. The reason I ended up reading that article was not because I was interested in mining Bitcoin, but because I went to some site that tried to install a miner on my PC and it got me curious. The article explained the massive processing power required to ensure you keep ahead of the game, which was why someone was trying to distribute their mining across other PCs including mine.
If that isn't an option, the processing power costs can be so much that the cost of the electricity required to run your processing is seriously going to eat into, if not entirely consume, any profit you may make. It all seemed too hard tbh.
My brother is right into it.
He has an online shop as well as a food shop in Adelaide.
He's looking at getting a Bitcoin ATM sent from Japan??
Don't ask me how it works either......
I think you can deposit cash and get a receipt....???
Lately he's been making about 20k to 30k a day and buying gold with it..
Still don't ask me how it works....
He's been trying to get me into it but I like the old way under the bed in a tea tin.
Or was that in a sock on top of the wardrobe.. ..
Or was that buried out in the garden....
Hmm must go looking.
Andy
IIRC, the total number of bitcoins able to be mined is limited to a fixed value?
I recall reading stuff about it some years ago, in the very early days it was very much a curiosity and people would do bitcoin mining on a normal home PC (Mining IIRC comprises of a computer solving a mathematical problem, the complexity of which has risen rapidly with each solved problem. Solve the problem, get a bitcoin for "Free". That of course being free minus the cost of solving the problem in terms of equipment to solve it and power to run it) even in the early days the cost to solve the problem was probably more than the resulting bitcoin was actually "worth" but both the worth of the coin and the cost of solving the problem to get it was low. Now it is the other way around, the cost to solve the problem is very high but so is the notional value of the resulting bitcoin.
Now, if you had mined a few bitcoins in the early days and then lost interest in the idea you could be sitting on a pretty tidy sum.
IIRC, the total number of bitcoins able to be mined is limited to a fixed value?
The Bitcoin protocol has an inherent limit of 21 million bitcoins (less a few bitcents.)
One of my work colleagues made some money bitcoin mining in the early days using a room full of high end PCs. It didn't make him rich, but he ended up a little ahead after selling the hardware.
Apparently, it's a lot easier to mine Monero (at present) and there are no ASICs (specialised acceleration chips) so that's more suitable for a small home business
CryptoCurrencies are an interesting development but they are effectively Ponzi schemes. It has been claimed that they aren't because there's no intentional fraud, but that distinction won't be much of a consolation to the losers.
They are all rising in value because people are now "investing" in them.
Lets see where it sits when people decide they no longer want to invest, or that group of investors is exhausted !
Plus I think there is a new fork occurring soon and people might be wanting to get in before the fork happens.
Its like most investments in a rapidly rising market - everyone is making money and all want to tell everyone else about how good an investment it is.
They and their friends then invest more, but at some point they need to enact an exit strategy and most amateurs have no idea when to do this and they are the ones that invariably lose the lot.
Some investors who understand what they are doing make a lot of money and the rest lose.
Its not uncommon for people to lose their homes and their businesses at that point because greed and inexperience has left them highly geared against their other assets and unable to keep repaying or even just servicing their "investment" loans etc
A good rule of thumb is when the common man on the street is telling you its a good investment - its time to get out as there will soon be nobody gullible enough to keep investing and pushing the price up !
Thats where I see Bitcoin - as an investment.
Will this apply to Bitcoin or not is the question ? - the graph of its value over time indicates, at least to me, that it has the hallmarks - but I could be very wrong and maybe its new value just becomes its new permanent value and it can never have a downside.
. . . the "Perfect" investment if so.
The reason for the BTC all time high in the last week or so (hence the ridiculous media coverage and surge in scams) is due to everyone cashing in their alternative coins, purchasing BTC, awaiting the fork in 6 days; each BTC you hold, will earn you one BTG (Bitcoin Gold). What the value of BTG will be, is yet to be seen. But, everyone will just end up dumping BTG (on day one of it being listed on exchanges) and pouring the earnings back into BTC and alternatives, such as ETH (Ethereum) and NEO (Antshares).
My pick for 2018: Power Ledger (POWR). I've got a bit invested, and, hope it leads to an early retirement. If not, no biggie; I still have a job.
I add a caveat... I have not done all the research yet so there may be something I have yet to notice... so if you decide to take my advice please do your own research and rely on it rather than my "feelings" on the matter.
The only real difference I see between Bitcoin et al and a Ponzi scheme is that they crypto currencies can be used to actually buy and sell something tangible. Exactly how useful a currency will prove to be when you will need to be able to buy something with say 0.0000001 of a bitcoin remains to be seen. Sort of inherent in a currency limited to 21million "Coins" in a world with billions of people. When you need to write down a googol of zeroes with a one on the right and the decimal point on the left to buy a loaf of bread it is getting pretty silly.
