Crypto currency mining

[moltuae]

Originally Posted by ulfilias

Can't say i like bitmain pushing bitcoin purchases as buying bitcoin doesn't seem particularly easy atm and the price of them is sky high too (though plenty of growth potential still).

It's probably a lot easier to buy Bitcoin than you think. I haven't directly purchased BTC for several months (I'm increasing my holdings mainly through mining and trading altcoins now) but in the past I've always used the UK-based Bittylicious to buy BTC (or ETH). You simply enter the amount you want to buy and one of your Bitcoin addresses, then you'll be prompted with the information you need to make an instant bank transfer. Once the payment is acknowledged and received, you'll usually receive your BTC a few minutes later.

For a quick and easy PC-based wallet, try Electrum. There are better ways to secure larger amounts of BTC, but Electrum is a good one to get started. Have a play with Electrum and post one of your addresses. I'll send you a couple of quid's worth so that you can see how it works.

One common misconception is that it is necessary to buy whole Bitcoins. I've heard people state that Bitcoin is too expensive for them to afford to buy now. The smallest Bitcoin division is called a Satoshi (often abbreviated to Sats). One Bitcoin is equal to 100 million Sats. You could (in theory) buy as little as 1 Sat, though in practice the present transaction fees would make such a small trade prohibitively expensive. You could though, for example, buy a relatively small amount like 0.05 BTC (= 50mBTC or 5 mil Sats), which is a little over £200 worth at today's price.

Originally Posted by ulfilias

Have a feeling that things are on the rise and will continue to rise. Who know's if Bitcoin will be THE currency though. Just looking at net trends, I recall when Altavista or AskJeves were the got to search engines but you'd be daft to use anything but google now, same with social media with Livejournal and Myspace with facebook dominating these days. However lots of people have gotten pretty wealthy from all of those over time and i'm guessing at some point some form of consolidation will take place and holding a few cryptocurencies could really pay off.

Indeed, Bitcoin may not be the one that ultimately succeeds in mass adoption and it's certainly worth keeping a diverse portfolio of a number of different cryptocurrencies and keeping a close eye on developments. I think it's inaccurate to compare it to to Altavista, Myspace, etc though. Bitcoin creates a network that is "the internet of money"; its use as currency is just one application. It's probably fairer to compare it the 'Internet Protocol Suite' (eg TCP/IP). Like those standards, it forms a network and foundation for applications, which can use it to develop and evolve. Despite the age of the internet network protocols, most of the early ones are still used today (hell, we're still using IPv4, even though IPv6 was set to replace it about 20 years ago when we began running out of IPv4 addresses). Like-wise, I suspect we'll see Bitcoin continue to exist and evolve for a long time, working along-side (rather than competing with) other cryptocurrencies.