Mining explained: http://www.weusecoins.com/mining-guide.php

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Self promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued Wednesday, May 11th, 2011 1:08pm PDT - promote requested by original submitter blankfist.

I see little difference between this and dollars. Who is behind its issuance? Who will be behind it 100 years from now? What ensures that a company or a government doesn't take it over and issue bitcoins for themselves without labor while everyone else has to labor?

People who add more gold to the money supply are workers just like you and me. There is no central overlord for gold, because it's a physical product with characteristics well suited for money. It has no "issuer" that can print more for themselves at a whim while everyone else has to labor for it. It is the ultimate disabler of the banking elite who have made their jobs 100x more profitable with loans at interest that otherwise wouldn't have existed or been needed. When money retains its value, you can afford things outright and altogether avoid interest.

The banking elite is extremely powerful, but I'm pretty sure alchemy is beyond their abilities, and that's why I continue to support a hard plastic currency embedded with gold and a ban on fractional reserve banking. Any bitcoin fans want to put my fears to rest?

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

I would love this to succeed and kill usurious systems like Paypal - but a pile of dead virtual currencies before bitcoin leave me skeptical. Beenz, flooz and many more. I'm quietly hopeful though because paypal is not good in so many ways.

Also, the tax implications are not a small problem.

People are already starting to invest in bitcoin. Most people probably only purchase a little here and there, but apparently the other day someone dumped a lump investment of $50k into the coin in one fell swoop. Already people's investments went up.

I don't fully understand all of it just yet, but I'm interested. Now would probably be a good time to invest in this alternative currency if it's sound.

Just read most of the wikipedia article then did a search on slashdot. This article's comments had a few interesting points/questions...

If this becomes established, it will be taxed in the US. It's income or capital gains. (http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1715548&cid=32869918)

Bitcoins are generated by wasting electricity. Not very green. (http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1715548&cid=32869504)

Bitcoin is designed to lead to massive deflation when the coin limit is hit. This might destroy whatever economy comes to depend on it. (http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1715548&cid=32870538)

>> ^BansheeX:

I see little difference between this and dollars. Who is behind its issuance? Who will be behind it 100 years from now? What ensures that a company or a government doesn't take it over and issue bitcoins for themselves without labor while everyone else has to labor?<


The system actually does not allow this. The "mint" as well as the "bank" are a massively peer to peer system. The coins are scarce, because the system only generates coins at a fixed rate. Because the system auto adjusts, each coin is cryptographically more difficult to generate then the one before. these coins are awarded to miners based on real cryptographic, unfakable, work that they do to generate the coins. The history of each coin is tracked collectively by the p2p system, and any coin that has broken its rules is considered invalid.

The only significant hacks on the system require having more processing power than the entire existing BitCoin network, and only allows you to either:

1) reverse your own transactions, thereby double spending, and committing easily traceable fraud.
2) deviate from the systems rules, making all your coins invalid, getting barred from interacting with peers using the official client, and end up with a fork of the network, which generates and processes coins that nobody on the official network will accept. (Note: official in this context refers to adhering to the standard, not the approval of any central body)

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Adding video to channels (Controversy) - requested by MrFisk.