Posted on 12/28/2013 8:16:01 AM PST by Errant
Its the festive season, and if there is a bitcoin fan among your friends and family, then they may have given you some of the virtual currency in your Christmas stocking. If so, what should you do with it?
There are several options for you as a new bitcoin owner. Well tell you about them here, but before you start, please dont do what Bloomberg TV anchor Adam Johnson did. Fellow anchor Matt Miller gave bitcoins to Johnson as a Christmas gift on air. They came in the form of a paper wallet (see below), which Johnson showed to the camera, displaying his private key in the process. Whoops. A reddit user scanned the QR code and beamed the bitcoins to his own address, bragging about it later online. Theres one person who made it onto the naughty list this year.
(Excerpt) Read more at coindesk.com ...
A wad of $100 bills works just fine for me.
It can be a little complicated. This is all new and it has a learning curve to deal with. Newer technology will simply it some. The easiest way to store them is in a trusted online account. That way means almost instant access and the wallet is updated constantly. Plus you can access from anywhere in the world where you can get to the internet just like you do your online banking.
Try taking over 100 of them to another country, the hood, or arrested with them on ya... lol
This was an interesting recent event.
I’m sure you saw this.
A Bloomberg TV Host Gifted Bitcoin On Air And It Immediately Got Stolen
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/bloomberg-matt-miller-bitcoin-gift-stolen-2013-12#ixzz2on6E53ay
Yes, I have mined both.So you "created" this phantasm, and then sold it for real money to dupes. An odd way to make a living. It resembles greatly many old fashioned frauds.
Yeah, lol, he flashed his private key for all to see. Reminded me of that time Beck picked up his “Red Phone” for O to call him directly. The number to the phone was taped to the bottom and Beck inadvertently allowed it to be seen. Wasn’t no time until someone called him on it on live TV and he sheepishly answered it. lol
Bitcoin became unprofitable to mine with GPUs months ago. I enjoy tech and it's fun for the knowledge alone. Knowledge is worth something - right? Besides that, the excess heat I use to heat my little greenhouse.
ASIC miners are the only ones now that are profitable. Not sure how long that will last if the price of Bitcoins doesn't rise or something more efficient or faster is in the development pipeline.
But I have mined a few of both BTC and LTC... :-)
The Beck thing was really funny !!!
BTW, if one Bitcoin is worth $1,000, and I only want to spend, say $20, can they be broken down ?
If so, by how many decimal points ?
Eight.
Eight Decimal points or 1/8ths ?
0.00000001
Or
0.125
0.00000001 :)
BTW, what do you call what the federal reserve has been doing for many months now pumping money into the stock market? If you have a retirement, it's probably hooked into stocks and bonds. The fed is creating something out of nothing and all that is backing the greenback these days is faith that our nation will pay its bills on time (not that it actually can).
Being divisible by eight digits leaves plenty of room for growth!
You’ll get it one day, you’re going to miss a very big boat. Don’t take my word for it , here is a man with extensive tech startup experience.
It’s a paradigm shift so it’s difficult to get your head around it.
The earth is round BTW.
Especially when it comes to "pushing" payments as opposed to "pulling" payments the way CCs do. It eliminates much of the headaches such as fraud, pull backs, and customer record keeping that the CC companies and vendors have to deal with.
BTW, if one Bitcoin is worth $1,000,
They're $764 each, at this instant.
and I only want to spend, say $20, can they be broken down ?If so, by how many decimal points ?
to 8 decimal places.
Interesting.
Is there a market, leveraged or otherwise that allows trading eight decimal points out ?
I ran an Equity “Daytrading” firm back in the day, and when the exchanges went from fractions to decimals it destroyed the market. They reverted back to trading in “pennies” as a minimum for individuals but institutions could still trade in tenths of pennies. There have been efforts to make the “Minimum increment” 0.05.
By having trading increments 8 points out, it may create “Near term or Spot liquidity” that can be dominated by deep pocketed trading programs, but that liquidity or depth of market generally disappears when “Market Events” happen.
IMO, in order for Bitcoin to succeed, they need a market in which each increment of trading represents sufficient risk by both sides of the trade.
This is a link to one of the bigger trading sites: https://btc-e.com/exchange/btc_usd
I don't know of any that allow you to leverage but it seems to allow you to go out to 5 digits.
I'm pretty much an "investor" now. There are better and less stressful ways to make a living besides trading. lol
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