Ah hell - these guys never saw cloud computing coming.

Run away!!!

Well here's the answer to my question: unmanaged currency/virtual commodity - fucking speculators delight.

Emmeran wrote:

and a competitor steps up, I'm still not sure if I trust any of this.

Some early adopters always get crushed but I wouldn't dismiss the concept. Bank credibility is at all time low and isn't liable to rebound any time soon.

Worlds greatest Ponzi scheme?

Something just doesn't smell right...


(yes I know it's an old article)

Bitcoin thievery

I have to wonder, a new digital currency emerges who's author is still a huge unknown; oddly this all occurs at the same time the NSA is up to massive hijinks in every sector of the digital world.  Happenstance?

I think I'll stick with greenbacks thank you just the same...

Your own digital currency.

If it sounds too good to be true...

I still don't understand the end game but the bubble seems ready to pop.

Trust in BitCoin because we don't know what it really is.

Autumn Ratke a 28-year-old American CEO of bitcoin exchange firm First Meta was found dead in her Singapore apartment on Feb. 28.

Local media are calling it a suicide..

Emmeran wrote:

Trust in BitCoin because we don't know what it really is.

Well at least we now know whom it is..

And that only raises questions within questions.

Satoshi Nakamoto stands at the end of his sunbaked driveway looking timorous. And annoyed.

He's wearing a rumpled T-shirt, old blue jeans and white gym socks, without shoes, like he has left the house in a hurry. His hair is unkempt, and he has the thousand-mile stare of someone who has gone weeks without sleep.

He stands not with defiance, but with the slackness of a person who has waged battle for a long time and now faces a grave loss.

Two police officers from the Temple City, Calif., sheriff's department flank him, looking puzzled. "So, what is it you want to ask this man about?" one of them asks me. "He thinks if he talks to you he's going to get into trouble."

"I don't think he's in any trouble," I say. "I would like to ask him about Bitcoin. This man is Satoshi Nakamoto."

"What?" The police officer balks. "This is the guy who created Bitcoin? It looks like he's living a pretty humble life."

I'd come here to try to find out more about Nakamoto and his humble life. It seemed ludicrous that the man credited with inventing Bitcoin - the world's most wildly successful digital currency, with transactions of nearly $500 million a day at its peak - would retreat to Los Angeles's San Bernardino foothills, hole up in the family home and leave his estimated $400 million of Bitcoin riches untouched. It seemed similarly implausible that Nakamoto's first response to my knocking at his door would be to call the cops. Now face to face, with two police officers as witnesses, Nakamoto's responses to my questions about Bitcoin were careful but revealing.

Tacitly acknowledging his role in the Bitcoin project, he looks down, staring at the pavement and categorically refuses to answer questions.

"I am no longer involved in that and I cannot discuss it," he says, dismissing all further queries with a swat of his left hand. "It's been turned over to other people. They are in charge of it now. I no longer have any connection."

Nakamoto refused to say any more, and the police made it clear our conversation was over.

But a two-month investigation and interviews with those closest to Nakamoto and the developers who worked most frequently with him on the out-of-nowhere global phenomenon that is Bitcoin reveal the myths surrounding the world's most famous crypto-currency are largely just that - myths - and the facts are much stranger than the well-established fiction.

Far from leading to a Tokyo-based whiz kid using the name "Satoshi Nakamoto" as a cipher or pseudonym (a story repeated by everyone from Bitcoin's rabid fans to The New Yorker), the trail followed by Newsweek led to a 64-year-old Japanese-American man whose name really is Satoshi Nakamoto. He is someone with a penchant for collecting model trains and a career shrouded in secrecy, having done classified work for major corporations and the U.S. military.

Standing before me, eyes downcast, appeared to be the father of Bitcoin.

He is the perfect foil for all the conspiracy theories. No matter which side of the coin your theory lands on. Being a secretive brilliant genius who worked doing ultra classified military and anti-terrorist computer communications systems who has a 6 year gap in his top secret work history.

And at the same time could also be the reclusive long suffering guberm'nt distrusting genius libertarian who finally had had enough with the bank fees and his foreclosures who has a 6 year gap in his top secret work history.

Calling the possibility her father could also be the father of Bitcoin "flabbergasting," Ilene Mitchell says she isn't surprised her father would choose to stay under cover if he was the man behind this venture, especially as he is currently concerned about his health.

"He is very wary of government interference in general," she says. "When I was little, there was a game we used to play. He would say, 'Pretend the government agencies are coming after you.' And I would hide in the closet."

Last edited by Johnny_Rotten (2014-03-06 14:53:52)

Emmeran wrote:

Johnny_Rotten wrote:

He thinks if he talks to you he's going to get into trouble.

So much can be said with a simple sentence...

....having done classified work for major corporations and the U.S. military.

"How long is this media hoopla going to last?" he said.

You will know it is over when the free lunches end.

Got to hand it to him, asking for the retired seniors lunch special is a nice touch, proving once and for all he is no dummy. Too bad about the slow speed car chase across the highways of LA.

Just in case he turns out to be the guy:



Auto-edited on 2020-08-02 to update URLs

Yes the mining is a hell of scheme where the earlier adopters win all the marbles.

I am no expert, but so much of the economics in the design of bitcoin seems more like a speculative pump and dump venture than a currency.

The value of bitcoin seems to be assured by a controlling factor. It will rise and rise as more users adopt it. That seems geared to speculation and lacking in basic stability.

Reply by Satoshi Nakamoto on February 18, 2009 at 20:50

    To Sepp's question, indeed there is nobody to act as central bank or federal reserve to adjust the money supply as the population of users grows. That would have required a trusted party to determine the value, because I don't know a way for software to know the real world value of things. If there was some clever way, or if we wanted to trust someone to actively manage the money supply to peg it to something, the rules could have been programmed for that.

    In this sense, it's more typical of a precious metal. Instead of the supply changing to keep the value the same, the supply is predetermined and the value changes. As the number of users grows, the value per coin increases. It has the potential for a positive feedback loop; as users increase, the value goes up, which could attract more users to take advantage of the increasing value.

        ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Sepp Hasslberger on February 20, 2009 at 8:53
    So in other words, "the early adopter finds the worm" in this system.

    This would mean that - the earlier someone gets in on the bitcoin system establishing a node, the more chance they have of becoming lucky and being able to generate coins. Nothing against that, it would work to promote adoption of the system.

    However there should also be a method of adjusting the total number of coins extant. I would propose to link the total number of coins to the number of active nods.

    This way, you have two parameters that keep a balance. One is the halving of coins given per block, the other is a continual (or periodic?) adjustment of the target total of coins to the number of active users. That should self-balance the system.

    The reason balance of the system is important: if it's going to be used for payments, you don't want to have large changes in the value of the coins. It would lead to distortions, I believe, by continually increasing the "purchasing power" of a single coin.

    Stability of the coins' value is desirable for long term use.

Charles Ponzi, Boston,
1909.

Tall Paul wrote:

BitCoin mining is an odd concept. Is it just me, or was anyone else suspicious of a system that allows you to earn a share of other people's money just by running software?

Bitcoin transactions need to be validated.  The act of doing so is what "mining" is; it's necessary to compensate miners because otherwise they'd have no reason to do the work.

Here's probably the clearest explanation of the system I've seen.