Thread: Bitcoins

I keep hearing about them in the news lately but never quite understood what they're all about. Are any of you involved with them?

Bitcoin bloodbath: Cryptocurrency plunges 20% in two days

https://money.cnn.com/2018/09/06/tec...chs/index.html

I know of some people who are into cryptos. Personally I'm not a believer. For a currency to have value there has to be a market that creates demand for it. There is no market demand for cryptos. To buy Japanese products you have to convert your currency into yen. To buy American products you need US dollars. To buy German products you need euros. There is no country with a cryptocurrency as the official currency. Besides, people aren't buying cryptos to make purchases. They buy them in speculation like gold or real estate. In order for a currency to be considered legit in the financial world it needs to be in circulation. Having said that, I thought bitcoin would have bit the dust a couple of years ago but it's still alive so who knows?

It's big on the dark net. You know, where pedos and drug distributors congregate peacefully. See this old thread for an example :

https://livingfaithforum.com/showthr...ght=pedophiles

Criminals would like you to buy bitcoins so that their currency is boosted.

Originally Posted by Jew and Greek

I know of some people who are into cryptos.

That would be me...listening for noises deep in the swamp.

Originally Posted by Colonel

It's big on the dark net. You know, where pedos and drug distributors congregate peacefully. See this old thread for an example :

https://livingfaithforum.com/showthr...ght=pedophiles

Criminals would like you to buy bitcoins so that their currency is boosted.

Nah. You'd have to be an idiot to use bitcoin or any crypto currency for those types of transactions. The technology is based on block chain, it leaves a permanent, immutable ledger, so while the "crypto is used by pedos" propaganda is out there, it simply isn't true. That's not to say that some idiots have used it for such. I don't like crypto for that reason, it leaves a permanent, immutable record behind of every transaction, a surveillance state dream.

Back to the OP though. Bitcoin is real, many people accept it as payment for goods and services.

Originally Posted by John

Nah. You'd have to be an idiot to use bitcoin or any crypto currency for those types of transactions. The technology is based on block chain, it leaves a permanent, immutable ledger, so while the "crypto is used by pedos" propaganda is out there, it simply isn't true. That's not to say that some idiots have used it for such. I don't like crypto for that reason, it leaves a permanent, immutable record behind of every transaction, a surveillance state dream.

Back to the OP though. Bitcoin is real, many people accept it as payment for goods and services.

I thought that bitcoin was untraceable as well. I'm not sure where I got that idea from. I guess the government is happy to have that belief out there!

Originally Posted by Susan

I guess the government is happy to have that belief out there!

Exactly. Many believe the gov't created it, what they call a "honey pot".

The supposed advantage to crypto is that it bypasses the institutional banking system, that doesn't mean they (governments) can't see.

I think it is a pre-cursor to a cashless society, a trial balloon so to speak.

Originally Posted by John

Nah. You'd have to be an idiot to use bitcoin or any crypto currency for those types of transactions. The technology is based on block chain, it leaves a permanent, immutable ledger, so while the "crypto is used by pedos" propaganda is out there, it simply isn't true. That's not to say that some idiots have used it for such. I don't like crypto for that reason, it leaves a permanent, immutable record behind of every transaction, a surveillance state dream.

Back to the OP though. Bitcoin is real, many people accept it as payment for goods and services.

There's a kidnapping case here in Norway right now where someone kidnapped the wife of a multi millionaire and the police says that they are demanding a ransom of around $10 million to be payed in the crypto currency Monero.

The police on crypto currencies :

https://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/...source=vgfront

On similar cases involving crypto currency for ransom payments :

https://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/...internasjonalt

Cryptocurrency Owners Can't Access Funds After Exchange CEO Dies—Because No One Knows the Password

-The founder of Canadian crypto exchange QuadrigaCX took security seriously. Users' cryptocurrency wallets were kept offline, ensuring hackers couldn't get at them. And he was the only one who had the password.

Then he died. And now, customers who have $190 million in cryptocurrency stores with the company, wonder if they'll ever see their investment again.

Gerald Cotten, who owned QuadrigaCX, died in December. And his widow says she does not know how to access the cold storage facility, where the roughly 26,000 Bitcoin, 11,000 bitcoin cash, 200,000 Litecoin, over 400,000 Ether and other cryptos are not kept on a public computer.

"The laptop computer from which Gerry carried out the Companies' business is encrypted and I do not know the password or recovery key. Despite repeated and diligent searches, I have not been able to find them written down anywhere," said Jennifer Robertson, Cotten's widow, in an affidavit...

http://fortune.com/2019/02/04/crypto...-frozen-funds/