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re: Predict the 12/31/2014 bitcoin price (plus 2013 year in review)
Posted on 1/9/14 at 12:25 pm to Lsut81
Posted on 1/9/14 at 12:25 pm to Lsut81
quote:
I'm def dumb with this stuff, but how is that even possible... If you transfer a coin into someones wallet, how can you hack into that wallet and take it back, just because you own the "Mining Power"
I'm just quoting wiki and he knows more about bitcoin than all the rest of humanity combined. 
1
Posted on 1/9/14 at 2:06 pm to LSURussian
Wait won't this become more likely in the future as mining profitability goes down? Fewer people will want to mine in the future as the number of new coins will decrease and the power to mine will increase. Thus it will become more concentrated.
Wiki, I hope you come back to answer this. Maybe I'm off.
Wiki, I hope you come back to answer this. Maybe I'm off.
Posted on 1/9/14 at 2:15 pm to C
quote:
Wait won't this become more likely in the future as mining profitability goes down? Fewer people will want to mine in the future as the number of new coins will decrease and the power to mine will increase. Thus it will become more concentrated.
Perhaps. If there is nothing in it for them to mine, the criminals may look to steal. This always happens. Hell the US $ loses lots to counterfeiting as it is.
Posted on 1/9/14 at 5:42 pm to Broke
So where's Wiki to drop some knowledge on us about the amazingness of Bitcoin? Haha the more I read on this, the more serious flaws I see.
This post was edited on 12/13/17 at 12:46 am
Posted on 1/9/14 at 6:28 pm to Lsut81
quote:
what is stopping a govt with supercomputers from shutting it down now?
I think it's the lack of hard resources. The ASIC miner's that are used for Bitcoin mining are very expensive and even harder obtain. The manufacturer that are producing them are extremely shady. It also wouldn't be in the manufacturer's best interest to accept a contract to produce the ASICs for the government, due to most of the company's money is being held in BTC. If they knew that BTC was about to plummet then they would dump all of their's and crash the market to oblivion, because I would assume that they have millions, if not billions of dollar's worth of BTC.
Speculation is that Butterfly Labs(the largest maker of the ASICs) uses the mandatory deposit, around 30% or several thousand depending on the device you're purchasing) to cover the overhead of the device. All the while, they are using your device to mine and delay shipment of upwards of 3 months. They have delayed shipment in just about every scenario that I've read.
The government could pay someone to reverse engineer the chips and waste tons of money on a "problem" that isn't even that big of a deal in the whole grand scheme of things.
Posted on 1/9/14 at 6:33 pm to C
quote:
Wait won't this become more likely in the future as mining profitability goes down? Fewer people will want to mine in the future as the number of new coins will decrease and the power to mine will increase. Thus it will become more concentrated
In a dream scenario, higher difficulty and less coins being mined would make the price of BTC go up. That all depends on that whole supply and demand thing though.
Posted on 1/9/14 at 6:48 pm to Broke
quote:
Just like Silk Road being shut down had no impact on the market.
I think this helped BTC more than it hurt it. The publicity from it opened it up to people who had not known about it before.
The Sild Road bust happened when? Late September/Early October? Just look at what happened after that. That's just my theory though.
Link to the chart.
Posted on 1/9/14 at 8:32 pm to brucevilanch
quote:
I think it's the lack of hard resources. The ASIC miner's that are used for Bitcoin mining are very expensive and even harder obtain
Sorry, but the one thing the govt of China & the US has is resources. China could set up its own production plant just to manufacture the equipment needed.
Posted on 1/9/14 at 9:13 pm to LSURussian
quote:
Sorry, but the one thing the govt of China & the US has is resources. China could set up its own production plant just to manufacture the equipment needed.
Oh of course, but that was what my last point was on that post. Why would they go through that much trouble and money to do something about a problem that really isn't that big of a deal? Would the money from the tax dollars that they would be losing in BTC be equal to or greater than the amount of money spent to destroy BTC? I mean let's be real, the only threat the government's may face is that of them not getting their cut. I'm thinking from more of the US side of things and understand that it's an outlet for the Chinese that allows them a little more freedom than their government wants them to have.
Disclaimer: I don't have anything emotionally invested in BTC. I'm not a believer in it and I would never invest actual money into it. I do, however, make money from it, but it could disappear tomorrow and it wouldn't affect me at all.
This post was edited on 1/9/14 at 9:22 pm
Posted on 1/9/14 at 10:23 pm to brucevilanch
quote:
Why would they go through that much trouble and money to do something about a problem that really isn't that big of a deal
They won't as long as a government does not consider btc to be a threat to its sovereignty or its monetary system.
Of course, many btc true believers are attracted to btc for those very reasons. Wiki has repeatedly written that bitcoin will overthrow governments, or something to that effect.
Now that I have learned about the btc 51% self destruct mechanism, I now know bitcoin will exist only as long as it is viewed as a harmless internet fad.
This post was edited on 1/9/14 at 10:24 pm
Posted on 1/9/14 at 10:48 pm to LSURussian
quote:
Now that I have learned about the btc 51% self destruct mechanism, I now know bitcoin will exist only as long as it is viewed as a harmless internet fad.
Yeah, it wouldn't be the first time that a 51% attack would destroy a cryptocurrency. The sheer amount of equipment to do it to bitcoin would be ridiculous though, but I really wouldn't be surprised eitherway. I believe that it could be prevented simply by pools capping the hash rate of the pool. If the worker's are distributed over different pool's evenly, then the chances of it happening are even lower than they already are. That won't happen though, just because the pool owner's would be losing out on the automated fee's that they rake in.
Posted on 1/9/14 at 10:55 pm to brucevilanch
It got to 45% today according to a thread on the O-T. And that is just by a group of geeks scattered around the world who don't want to hurt bitcoin.
Posted on 1/9/14 at 11:02 pm to LSURussian
If a government wanted to devastate Bitcoins it would be easier than Wiki admits. First, the government wouldn't have too much difficulty infiltrating the various mining pools and learning the addresses of the pools. With that information it would be possible to launch dns attacks against the various miners and shut down their ability to contribute computational power to the Bitcoin network. Removing the competing computing power reduces the amount of computing power required to achieve >50% of the total computing power to be able to interrupt transaction verification, permit double spending and alter the source code.
For example assume government dedicates enough computer capacity to mining Bitcoins to account for 25% of the network total. If that government launches a successful dns attack against enough mining pools, that could be as few as two pools, to interrupt their communications with the Bitcoin network, then the government could seize control of the Bitcoin network. It could then alter the source code and change the protocols to achieve any objective it desired.
Once those changes were made the Bitcoin community would have to reach consensus to undo the changes. And by Wiki's admission, that is very difficult to do. Meanwhile the confidence in Bitcoins as a secure investment or useful form of money would collapse.
For example assume government dedicates enough computer capacity to mining Bitcoins to account for 25% of the network total. If that government launches a successful dns attack against enough mining pools, that could be as few as two pools, to interrupt their communications with the Bitcoin network, then the government could seize control of the Bitcoin network. It could then alter the source code and change the protocols to achieve any objective it desired.
Once those changes were made the Bitcoin community would have to reach consensus to undo the changes. And by Wiki's admission, that is very difficult to do. Meanwhile the confidence in Bitcoins as a secure investment or useful form of money would collapse.
Posted on 1/9/14 at 11:27 pm to Poodlebrain
Most, if not all, mining pools use cloudflare to protect them against such attacks. Has it always worked? It does...most of the time. Nothing on that grand of a scale has been tried(that I'm aware of) though. DDoS attacks, botnets, and anything you can imagine, have been an epidemic across pools and exchanges. I wouldn't not be shocker if the government could pull it off, but that's about it.
Outside of actual miners inadvertently doing it themselves.
Outside of actual miners inadvertently doing it themselves.
Posted on 1/10/14 at 9:31 am to brucevilanch
quote:What if the government is a significant portion of the miners, and it does it intentionally from within several pools simultaneously? Wouldn't an attack from within be simpler, and have a greater chance of success?
Outside of actual miners inadvertently doing it themselves.
Posted on 1/10/14 at 12:22 pm to Poodlebrain
Yeah sure, as long as the biggest pool owners keep being greedy and not capping the pools.
Posted on 1/10/14 at 1:21 pm to brucevilanch
quote:So it's almost a certainty then. It would take collusion among the pool owners to curb their greed. And you know how governments view collusion to prevent competition and maximize profits.
Yeah sure, as long as the biggest pool owners keep being greedy and not capping the pools.
Posted on 1/10/14 at 5:33 pm to Poodlebrain
truthPosted on 1/11/14 at 9:08 am to Poodlebrain
quote:
What if the government is a significant portion of the miners
How do we get to that scenario?
Posted on 1/11/14 at 4:32 pm to Big Scrub TX
quote:Wiki has alleged that Bitcoins will become an existential threat to fiat currencies issued by governments. If Bitcoins were ever to become a threat to a nation's currency, do you think the government might attempt to fight back?
How do we get to that scenario?
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