Personal computing discussed
Moderators: askfranklin, renee, emkubed, Captain Ned
SS4 wrote:So if someone could just give me some tips and in a nutshell outlines whats the best way to proceed and the risks involved with trading bitcoin for cash down the line.
notfred wrote:You are also too late. Lots of money was made by the early adaptors who had easy mining of bitcoins but the complexity has gone up as more btcoins are mined.
ChronoReverse wrote:notfred wrote:You are also too late. Lots of money was made by the early adaptors who had easy mining of bitcoins but the complexity has gone up as more btcoins are mined.
This.
It's far too late to try now.
just brew it! wrote:Just a bit of background on why this is the case: It's a feature, not a bug. In order for bitcoins to maintain value, the total supply must be constrained somehow. The inventor of bitcoins accomplished this by setting things up such that the computational effort required per bitcoin increases exponentially over time. The total worldwide supply of bitcoins is asymptotically approaching the limit of 21 million; we're already more than halfway to the limit in terms of total bitcoin circulation, but only a small fraction of the way there as measured by computational effort.
CB5000 wrote:You can start trading bitcoins however, play it like a higher risk stock market. I don't think the exchanges will be shutdown anytime soon as most of them follow government regulations.
just brew it! wrote:Yeah, at this point I'd say mining borders on a "Make Money Fast!" style scam unless you've got free electricity. I'd be willing to bet most miners are either A) living in apartments with utilities included in the rent; B) living in college dorms; or C) surreptitiously running it on systems at work.
ChronoReverse wrote:just brew it! wrote:Yeah, at this point I'd say mining borders on a "Make Money Fast!" style scam unless you've got free electricity. I'd be willing to bet most miners are either A) living in apartments with utilities included in the rent; B) living in college dorms; or C) surreptitiously running it on systems at work.
It depends on when you mined and what you mined with.
Glorious wrote:What I am saying is that the USG doesn't like that. At all. Just carrying large amounts of physical US currency is already seen as de facto money laundering, so why would be bitcoin be treated any differently? Bitcoin evades any real notice and interest by the USG only because it remains a curio for libertarians, hackers and math nerds. If that changes, so will the USG. Likely overnight.
Captain Ned wrote:Glorious wrote:What I am saying is that the USG doesn't like that. At all. Just carrying large amounts of physical US currency is already seen as de facto money laundering, so why would be bitcoin be treated any differently? Bitcoin evades any real notice and interest by the USG only because it remains a curio for libertarians, hackers and math nerds. If that changes, so will the USG. Likely overnight.
Don't worry, Bitcoin and other attempts to evade money-laundering laws are definitely on our radar.
[/day job]
Hawkwing74 wrote:I am a bit confused on how you "seize" a virtual currency.
just brew it! wrote:Anything that can be owned can be seized.
Hawkwing74 wrote:just brew it! wrote:Anything that can be owned can be seized.
Somehow I am picturing the FBI extracting database records from a server to a flash drive. I know that's totally wrong, and I don't understand how bitcoins move around. Somehow the bitcoins are "marked" as seized and can't be used in transactions in the bitcoin exchange, I suppose. Sort of like stolen paper money in banks being marked by a dye pack.
Captain Ned wrote:The FBI doesn't extract the records. They seize the whole bloody server, bit-image the drives for chain-of-custody purposes, then load the boxen in a moving van. I've witnessed it first-hand. Whatever they do in their labs after that is unknown to me. I do know, though, that they're leaving with the box whether you like it or not.
sjl wrote:Right now, it's flying somewhat under the radar; I doubt it will ever be allowed to become significant.