Bitcoin $30

FUTURE MONEY: Bitcoin,the virtual currency composed of digital bits,is based on cutting-edge mathematical schemes that guard against counterfeiting.

The meteoric rise in Bitcoin has meant that within the space of four years,one Norwegian man’s $30 investment turned into a forgotten US$886, 000 (NZ$1.07 million) windfall.

Kristoffer Koch invested 150 kroner (NZ$30.75) in 5000 bitcoins in 2009,after discovering them during the course of writing a thesis on encryption. He promptly forgot about them until widespread media coverage of the anonymous,decentralised,peer-to-peer digital currency in April 2013 jogged his memory.

Bitcoins are stored in encrypted wallets secured with a private key,something Koch had forgotten. After eventually working out what the password could be,Koch got a pleasant surprise.

“It said I had 5000 bitcoins in there. Measuring that in today’s rates it’s about NOK5m ($886, 000), ” Koch .

SILK ROAD FLUCTUATIONS

Since then,bitcoin has seen large fluctuations in its value,most recently following the,plummeting before jumping US$30 in one day to a high of US$197 in October.

Koch exchanged one fifth of his 5000 bitcoins,generating enough kroner to buy an apartment in Toyen,one of the Norwegian capital’s wealthier areas.

TWO WAYS TO ACQUIRE BITCOINS

Typically bitcoins are bought using traditional currency from a bitcoin “exchanger”,although due to strict anti-money laundering controls,the process can can be tricky. A user can then withdraw those bitcoins by sending them back to an exchanger like,the best known bitcoin exchange,in return for cash.

However,bitcoin is gaining more and more traction within the physical world too. It is now possible to actually spend bitcoins without exchanging them for traditional currency first in a few British pubs,including the Pembury Tavern in Hackney,London,for instance.

On 29 October,thealso went online in Vancouver,Canada,which scans a user’s palm before letting them buy or sell bitcoins for cash.

A small group of hardcore users also generate extra bitcoins by “mining” for them – a process that requires computers to perform the calculations needed to make the digital currency work,in exchange for a share of the built-in inflation.

Mining is a time-consuming and expensive endeavour due to the way the currency is designed. Each subsequent bitcoin mined is more complex than the previous one,requiring more computational time and therefore investment through the electricity and computer hardware required.

-Gizmodo

Comments

comments

Bitcoin

Offering tutoring classes in Bitcoin...

2014-05-30 15:37:13 by 123NewworldBunk

I have taught gorgeous playboy supermodels on Seeking Arrangements on how to get filthy rich with Bitcoins. But now I'm offering my genius tutelage to the general public and not just the worlds most beautiful women. If you sign up now I will throw in some skills I learned about rectum and colon cleansing, skills that I have used to single handedly bring down the medical sciences. If you have assworms, I am your man. Flush everything out from 30 year old gum to fruit rollups to long forgotten spare change OUT OF YOUR ASS.

Bitcoin made simple – video animation

2014-04-30 13:13:23 by -


Length: 3min 27sec
theguardian.com
Wednesday 30 April 2014
Baffled by Bitcoin?
Confused by the concept of crypto-currencies?
Well, fear no more.
In 190 seconds we explain what Bitcoin actually is; where the idea came from; and the impact it's having around the world.
Is Bitcoin the future of finance, a potential destroyer of the economy ... or just a silly slice of technical utopianism?
The Guardian makes these videos.

Hackers created bitcoin...people who were tired

2014-03-28 20:11:00 by Im_Drunk

Of the status quo...
Now it seems like bitcoin users can't wait for the government to "legitimize" their unicorn poops with a bunch of laws...
Its like the marijuana legalization movement....The government says "well, we'll let you smoke weed, but we're going to tax it at 30%....oh, and weed is bad. Thank you."
The governments of the world are being run by some of the most corrupt gangsters in history and you're going to trust them to make laws to legitimize bitcoin? LOL!

Bitcoin ATM coming to Seattle! NICE!!!!

2014-05-05 09:15:15 by -

Seattle is getting the first bitcoin ATM in the Northwestern U.S. on Thursday, giving local users of the virtual currency a convenient way to swap it for cash.
The world’s first bitcoin ATM opened last October in a Vancouver, B.C., coffee shop. That location reportedly handled $100,000 worth of transactions in its first week.
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