topbanner_forum
  *

avatar image

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?

Login with username, password and session length
  • Thursday March 28, 2024, 5:02 am
  • Proudly celebrating 15+ years online.
  • Donate now to become a lifetime supporting member of the site and get a non-expiring license key for all of our programs.
  • donate

Last post Author Topic: Does anyone here use Bitcoins?  (Read 546111 times)

mouser

  • First Author
  • Administrator
  • Joined in 2005
  • *****
  • Posts: 40,896
    • View Profile
    • Mouser's Software Zone on DonationCoder.com
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
Re: Does anyone here use Bitcoins?
« Reply #900 on: November 06, 2017, 02:49 AM »
The real question is.. some of you crazy people who were ranting about it, and telling us how bitcoin was going to take off during the early days of it.. are any of you rich enough to retire and bankroll the rest of us yet?

Deozaan

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • ***
  • Points: 1
  • Posts: 9,747
    • View Profile
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
Re: Does anyone here use Bitcoins?
« Reply #901 on: November 06, 2017, 02:59 AM »
I'm involved in a project that's now publicly open. (Check bounties below.)

Chimaera is a blockchain gaming platform. If you remember Huntercoin (it's still running), Chimaera can put countless games with near limitless players on the blockchain. We've solved the scalability issues, so the sky's the limit.

I haven't had a chance to read the whitepaper yet, and have been generally distracted since basically the day after I first learned of Chimaera. But I perused the website and the bounties. The website seemed sparse on the details (but maybe the details are in the whitepaper). And it seems I'm not a good candidate for the bounties since I'm not really active (as anything more than a lurker) in any of the regular cryptocurrency forums, etc.

Would you mind briefly explaining how you solved the scalability issues? And what you mean by that? Or if it's in the whitepaper just say so and I'll try to get the time to finally read through it. But the reason I ask is because scalability seems to be a major issue in most of the major cryptos, especially Bitcoin. There are lots of interesting ideas out there on how to resolve or work around the issues, but as far as I know things like sidechains (Lightning, Raiden, Plasma, etc.,) are all still currently being researched and/or developed but nothing is actually released and running on the network(s) yet. If you're talking about scalability in a similar sense as for other blockchains, then solving the scalability issues could be really big news for cryptocurrency in general. :Thmbsup:

Deozaan

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • ***
  • Points: 1
  • Posts: 9,747
    • View Profile
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
Re: Does anyone here use Bitcoins?
« Reply #902 on: November 07, 2017, 02:20 AM »
The real question is.. some of you crazy people who were ranting about it, and telling us how bitcoin was going to take off during the early days of it.. are any of you rich enough to retire and bankroll the rest of us yet?

Stoic Joker? Did you sell off your entire stash for that motorcycle, or did you keep some of your BTC you spent so much time and effort (and USD) mining?

And also I'm curious if 40hz's opinion of BTC has changed at all over the years since this thread began.

Stoic Joker

  • Honorary Member
  • Joined in 2008
  • **
  • Posts: 6,646
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: Does anyone here use Bitcoins?
« Reply #903 on: November 07, 2017, 12:10 PM »
The real question is.. some of you crazy people who were ranting about it, and telling us how bitcoin was going to take off during the early days of it.. are any of you rich enough to retire and bankroll the rest of us yet?

Stoic Joker? Did you sell off your entire stash for that motorcycle, or did you keep some of your BTC you spent so much time and effort (and USD) mining?

And also I'm curious if 40hz's opinion of BTC has changed at all over the years since this thread began.

<Answering from the very deep dark hole that Deozaan just dug for me> Yes, at the time I sold off all of my holding to buy Alice. So... -(based on that)- to date she has "cost" me about $40,000.


:D Fuck...


Note: It was worth it..  ;)

Deozaan

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • ***
  • Points: 1
  • Posts: 9,747
    • View Profile
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
Re: Does anyone here use Bitcoins?
« Reply #904 on: November 07, 2017, 12:24 PM »
Note: It was worth it..  ;)

 ;D :Thmbsup:

wraith808

  • Supporting Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • **
  • default avatar
  • Posts: 11,186
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: Does anyone here use Bitcoins?
« Reply #905 on: November 07, 2017, 02:46 PM »
Note: It was worth it..  ;)

 ;D :Thmbsup:

I wish I had that problem :)  :Thmbsup:

Stoic Joker

  • Honorary Member
  • Joined in 2008
  • **
  • Posts: 6,646
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: Does anyone here use Bitcoins?
« Reply #906 on: November 07, 2017, 03:19 PM »
Note: It was worth it..  ;)

 ;D :Thmbsup:

I wish I had that problem :)  :Thmbsup:

I must have phrased it badly then... You see, it's not that I have invested $40,000 in the Alice project. The actual project cost is just a bit over $8,000 right now. It's that by selling off my holdings (early...) to cover a large-ish portion of her initial ($3,000) cost ... I've to date lost ~$40,000 based on the current value of BTC that I had sold...for just over $200 each (back then..).

So in hind sight from a strictly fiscal stand point, it's a pretty horrific loss over a ~2 year period ... But investments - as always - are a long game affair.

But the point of getting into BTC/crypto coin in general was equal parts Renegade's infectious enthusiasm, and my own interest in leveraging it as a means to an end. That end of course being Project Alice... So as anyone who has read the Alice Chronicles can surmise...the end result - and the fun had in the process - was ultimately (to me) worth it.

Stoic Joker

  • Honorary Member
  • Joined in 2008
  • **
  • Posts: 6,646
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: Does anyone here use Bitcoins?
« Reply #907 on: November 07, 2017, 03:35 PM »
...Come to think of it - my numbers are off a bit - it's actually a somewhere north of $60,000 I'm down because of the "early" selloff.

So... I'm going to stop thinking about this now....because my cavalier is broken. :huh:

IainB

  • Supporting Member
  • Joined in 2008
  • **
  • Posts: 7,540
  • @Slartibartfarst
    • View Profile
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
Re: Does anyone here use Bitcoins?
« Reply #908 on: November 08, 2017, 01:00 PM »
Psychologists have theorised that there seems to be in the human psyche an irrational fear of unrealised loss.
The reality is that one only realises a profit or a loss when something is actually sold.

In any speculative venture, managing to sell a tradeable asset at the highest market value/price point is likely to be largely a matter of chance. If one sells it at a profit, then, however one might attempt (and fail) to predict it, the market's perceived value of the asset could subsequently (of course) go down as well as up, post-sale.

However, if the asset was sold at an acceptable profit at the time, then, from an accounting perspective, it was a profitable investment, by definition. Barring fraud or market-rigging, the fact that the asset might have risen appreciably in market value after having been sold is kinda academic, and to consider its rise in value as, for example (say) a missed opportunity, or as a loss/cost, because the higher resale price was never realised, is a speculator's (gambler's) irrational nightmare.
It's an "If only I had a done such-and-such" event - a sort of needless self-recrimination, post fact.

One would arguably need to hoard and avoid selling any tradeable asset - once acquired - if one wanted to be sure of getting the highest possible potential future sale price, and thus one would never actually sell, and the objective would be forever unachievable, and the price would continue to fluctuate up or down, regardless. The unsold/hoarded tradeable asset would simply form part of one's estate on death.

A useful rule-of-thumb is probably:
Buy when everyone else is selling and hold until everyone else is buying. That's not just a catchy slogan. It's the very essence of successful investing.
 - J. PAUL GETTY.
____________________________________________

I recall reading another another quote from Getty to the effect that:
"To avoid taxes, in life have all capital but no income; in death have all income but no capital."
____________________________________________

Stoic Joker

  • Honorary Member
  • Joined in 2008
  • **
  • Posts: 6,646
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: Does anyone here use Bitcoins?
« Reply #909 on: November 08, 2017, 01:14 PM »
 :huh:  :-\ ...Iain, if you're trying to cheer me up - skip the investment advice - and just send beer. :D

tomos

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • ***
  • Posts: 11,959
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: Does anyone here use Bitcoins?
« Reply #910 on: November 08, 2017, 02:19 PM »
just send beer. :D
I'll drink one for you ;-)


mine is a pils actually - been a long day, snooker on the tele - sláinte!
Tom

Deozaan

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • ***
  • Points: 1
  • Posts: 9,747
    • View Profile
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
Re: Does anyone here use Bitcoins?
« Reply #911 on: November 08, 2017, 02:55 PM »
My question is, does anyone here still use Bitcoin?

Which fee should I use?

The fastest and cheapest transaction fee is currently 300 satoshis/byte, shown in green at the top.
For the median transaction size of 226 bytes, this results in a fee of 67,800 satoshis.

That's about $5 to send a transaction at current prices. And if you have a bunch of small amounts in different addresses, which is the recommended way to do it for privacy, transactions can easily be over 1,000 bytes (or over $20 in fees to send a transaction). And if you try to pay a lower fee, you could be waiting days before your transaction finally goes through, if it ever does.

I was really enthusiastic about it back in 2015 when I first really looked into Bitcoin for the first time, but now the fees are just way too high. Some of the major selling points (fast, virtually free) no longer seem to apply. :(

I still try to follow the news, and I still have some BTC, but I hate to use it because it's just so expensive these days. :(

mouser

  • First Author
  • Administrator
  • Joined in 2005
  • *****
  • Posts: 40,896
    • View Profile
    • Mouser's Software Zone on DonationCoder.com
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
Re: Does anyone here use Bitcoins?
« Reply #912 on: November 08, 2017, 03:09 PM »
Due to encouragement of the bitcoin evangelists here on DC I did eventually provide a bitcoin address for people who wanted to donate to DC via bitcoin, back in 2015.

There have been a total of 12 payments received in that 2 year period.

Total received from those 12 payments was 287mBTC which apparently is worth about $2,000 USD currently  :huh:

tomos

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • ***
  • Posts: 11,959
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: Does anyone here use Bitcoins?
« Reply #913 on: November 08, 2017, 03:16 PM »
Total received from those 12 payments was 287mBTC which apparently is worth about $2,000 USD currently  :huh:

wow, maybe it's time to cash in?
then again...
Tom

tomos

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • ***
  • Posts: 11,959
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: Does anyone here use Bitcoins?
« Reply #914 on: November 08, 2017, 03:45 PM »
That's about $5 to send a transaction at current prices. And if you have a bunch of small amounts in different addresses, which is the recommended way to do it for privacy, transactions can easily be over 1,000 bytes (or over $20 in fees to send a transaction). And if you try to pay a lower fee, you could be waiting days before your transaction finally goes through, if it ever does.

it's ironic that it's so user-un-friendly, considering the opposite was the intention.
Was that covered here in this thread -- how that changed (I think it was, but I'm being a lazy beggar here - I mostly work on memory first, then search, but tonight I'm leaving out the search part...)
Tom

Stoic Joker

  • Honorary Member
  • Joined in 2008
  • **
  • Posts: 6,646
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: Does anyone here use Bitcoins?
« Reply #915 on: November 08, 2017, 03:45 PM »
My question is, does anyone here still use Bitcoin?

I'm still mining it. I used the (mined post Alice) coin we had to upgrade the pair of S2's to a single S9 (way cheaper to run) back in May. The S9 has managed to produce about 0.62 since then running out of the AntPool.

Anybody have a better/best/favorite pool suggestion??

Stoic Joker

  • Honorary Member
  • Joined in 2008
  • **
  • Posts: 6,646
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: Does anyone here use Bitcoins?
« Reply #916 on: November 08, 2017, 03:47 PM »
Total received from those 12 payments was 287mBTC which apparently is worth about $2,000 USD currently  :huh:

wow, maybe it's time to cash in?
then again...



At least hold until after the SegWitx2 split on the 16th, then at least you get "free" coin - of questionable value - off the new fork.

Stoic Joker

  • Honorary Member
  • Joined in 2008
  • **
  • Posts: 6,646
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: Does anyone here use Bitcoins?
« Reply #917 on: November 08, 2017, 03:54 PM »
I still try to follow the news, and I still have some BTC, but I hate to use it because it's just so expensive these days.

IIUC the cost in satoshis per transaction hasn't changed. It's just that with the rise in the coins value the # of satoshis the transaction cost are worth more. So technically we've always paid the same...it's just more noticeable now.

And it costs nothing to sit on ... In the hopes it will "hatch".

Deozaan

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • ***
  • Points: 1
  • Posts: 9,747
    • View Profile
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
Re: Does anyone here use Bitcoins?
« Reply #918 on: November 08, 2017, 04:43 PM »
At least hold until after the SegWitx2 split on the 16th, then at least you get "free" coin - of questionable value - off the new fork.

Segwit2X has been canceled.

IIUC the cost in satoshis per transaction hasn't changed. It's just that with the rise in the coins value the # of satoshis the transaction cost are worth more. So technically we've always paid the same...it's just more noticeable now.

That's not (entirely) correct. You could always customize the amount of satoshis per byte you paid with your transaction, and there used to be a time when you could set the fee to 0 and still get your transaction included within a few blocks because there was extra space for it. But now that blocks are full, you have to pay more satoshis per byte to get your transaction included or else risk having your transaction stuck in limbo for days.

That said, it is true that the increasing value of each BTC is making the fees more noticable in USD amounts. Even if you only paid 1 satoshi per byte on a regular ~220 byte transaction, that's still about 1.5 cents at today's current price.

Back when I first got into Bitcoin toward the end of 2015, I sent a test transaction to Renegade after he sent me what was then just a few dollars worth of BTC (now worth almost $200! Wish I had kept it...). I paid 5 sat/byte for that transaction, which at the time was less than 1 cent. But now the recommended fee is 300 sat/byte to get your transaction included quickly.

To further illustrate the point: Just for fun back in 2015 I gave a friend $1 worth of BTC for Christmas (the low value was an inside joke) to try to get him interested in cryptocurrency. It failed to pique his interest. With the value of BTC going up so much this year (by my calculations that $1 gift is now worth about $22.50), he has finally taken an interest in crypto, and asked me how to access the funds I gave him. But it would cost ~$5 in transaction fees for him to do anything with it so I've told him not to bother.

That's about $5 to send a transaction at current prices. And if you have a bunch of small amounts in different addresses, which is the recommended way to do it for privacy, transactions can easily be over 1,000 bytes (or over $20 in fees to send a transaction). And if you try to pay a lower fee, you could be waiting days before your transaction finally goes through, if it ever does.

it's ironic that it's so user-un-friendly, considering the opposite was the intention.
Was that covered here in this thread -- how that changed

Yes.

https://www.donation....msg394988#msg394988

In a nutshell: The Bitcoin "Core" developers refuse to increase the blocksize limit from 1MB to anything larger even though people and developers and businesses have been clamoring for an increase for years. So the blocks are at full capacity. Which means if you want your transaction included in the blockchain, you need to compete with others for the limited space in each block. The only way to incentivize a miner to include your transaction over others is by paying higher fees than others. But everyone else is also trying to pay higher fees than everyone else so they can get their transaction included, so the fees just go higher and higher. Meanwhile more and more transactions are being added to the backlog. So if you intentionally try to get away with paying a low fee, you could be waiting days for your transaction to clear (the backlog tends to catch up over the weekend). And even if you pay what your software deems a decent fee, but for some reason fees skyrocket due to sudden increased demand (making miners consider your fee to be a comparatively "low" fee), then you could be waiting days for your transaction to clear anyway.
« Last Edit: November 08, 2017, 05:24 PM by Deozaan »

Deozaan

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • ***
  • Points: 1
  • Posts: 9,747
    • View Profile
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
Re: Does anyone here use Bitcoins?
« Reply #919 on: November 08, 2017, 05:14 PM »
My question is, does anyone here still use Bitcoin?

I'm still mining it. I used the (mined post Alice) coin we had to upgrade the pair of S2's to a single S9 (way cheaper to run) back in May. The S9 has managed to produce about 0.62 since then running out of the AntPool.

0.62 BTC is a pretty good haul at current prices. :Thmbsup:

I never got into mining BTC because I heard it was a fast race to the bottom in terms of profitability. But I suppose that didn't take into account the price doubling every few months. . . Oh well. I didn't have the initial capital to afford an ASIC miner in the first place. :D

I did mine LTC for about two weeks on just about every machine I owned (again, toward the end of 2015), just to get an idea of what mining was like. I did it for so long so that I could earn the minimum payout from whatever pool I has signed up for. Once I got the payout I decided I was burning way more in electricity than I was earning in LTC, so I used ShapeShift to convert it to BTC. I ended up spending more in fees (and the unfavorable ShapeShift exchange rate) converting and transferring the LTC to my BTC wallet than I earned. So it was a net loss. But it was worth it for the experience. :D
« Last Edit: November 08, 2017, 05:30 PM by Deozaan »

Stoic Joker

  • Honorary Member
  • Joined in 2008
  • **
  • Posts: 6,646
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: Does anyone here use Bitcoins?
« Reply #920 on: November 08, 2017, 05:30 PM »
PMIIUC the cost in satoshis per transaction hasn't changed. It's just that with the rise in the coins value the # of satoshis the transaction cost are worth more. So technically we've always paid the same...it's just more noticeable now.That's not (entirely) correct. You could always customize the amount of satoshis per byte you paid with your transaction, and there used to be a time when you could set the fee to 0 and still get your transaction included within a few blocks because there was extra space for it. But now that blocks are full, you have to pay more satoshis per byte to get your transaction included or else risk having your transaction stuck in limbo for days.That said, it is true that the increasing value of each BTC is making the fees more noticable in USD amounts. Even if you only paid 1 satoshi per byte on a regular ~220 byte transaction, that's still about 1.5 cents at today's current price.Back when I first got into Bitcoin toward the end of 2015, I sent a test transaction to Renegade after he sent me what was then just a few dollars worth of BTC (now worth almost $200! Wish I had kept it...). I paid 5 sat/byte for that transaction, which at the time was less than 1 cent. But now the recommended fee is 300 sat/byte to get your transaction included quickly.
-Stoic Joker on Today at 04:54


Well that makes sense ... Now that you mention it. I do recall it being stated that certain pools were starting to pay out (to the miners) for the transaction fees. Because as the coin per block drops (which it has drastically) the transaction fees are the only incentive the miners get/have to continue mining. Which is important due to the fact that if they stop mining there is no more network for the coin to travel across. The hashing power that keeps the network strong/resilient/decentralized comes from the miners.

0.62 BTC is a pretty good haul at current prices.

Kinda, but it seems a bit low (to me) for the 6 months the (11.5TH) S9 has been running.

I'm toying with switching pools...I'm just not sure which one to jump to.

Deozaan

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • ***
  • Points: 1
  • Posts: 9,747
    • View Profile
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
Re: Does anyone here use Bitcoins?
« Reply #921 on: November 08, 2017, 05:44 PM »
But now the recommended fee is 300 sat/byte to get your transaction included quickly.

Since I wrote this, I just went back to that tab to close it and the recommended fee has increased to 310 sat/byte. :(

1 satoshi/byte is about 1.7 cents per 226 byte transaction at current prices, or about 7.7 cents per kilobyte. Imagine if your ISP charged you 7.7 cents for every kB you transferred. That's ~$78.64/MB, or ~$80,530.64/GB, or ~$82,463,372.08 per TB. :tellme:

Stoic Joker

  • Honorary Member
  • Joined in 2008
  • **
  • Posts: 6,646
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: Does anyone here use Bitcoins?
« Reply #922 on: November 08, 2017, 05:52 PM »
But now the recommended fee is 300 sat/byte to get your transaction included quickly.

Since I wrote this, I just went back to that tab to close it and the recommended fee has increased to 310 sat/byte. :(

1 satoshi/byte is about 1.7 cents per 226 byte transaction at current prices, or about 7.7 cents per kilobyte. Imagine if your ISP charged you 7.7 cents for every kB you transferred. That's ~$78.64/MB, or ~$80,530.64/GB, or ~$82,463,372.08 per TB. :tellme:

Hm... Yeah, I gotta switch pools to get in on that action me thinks..

tomos

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • ***
  • Posts: 11,959
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: Does anyone here use Bitcoins?
« Reply #923 on: November 10, 2017, 04:49 AM »
Yes.

http://www.donationc....msg394988#msg394988

In a nutshell: The Bitcoin "Core" developers refuse to increase the blocksize limit from 1MB to anything larger even though people and developers and businesses have been clamoring for an increase for years. So the blocks are at full capacity. Which means if you want your transaction included in the blockchain, you need to compete with others for the limited space in each block. The only way to incentivize a miner to include your transaction over others is by paying higher fees than others. But everyone else is also trying to pay higher fees than everyone else so they can get their transaction included, so the fees just go higher and higher. Meanwhile more and more transactions are being added to the backlog. So if you intentionally try to get away with paying a low fee, you could be waiting days for your transaction to clear (the backlog tends to catch up over the weekend). And even if you pay what your software deems a decent fee, but for some reason fees skyrocket due to sudden increased demand (making miners consider your fee to be a comparatively "low" fee), then you could be waiting days for your transaction to clear anyway.

I remember now, thanks... so, that never got resolved.
Odd that it's still going up in price -- IIUC it's now totally useless for it's original intentions, currency etc.

is now worth about $22.50), he has finally taken an interest in crypto, and asked me how to access the funds I gave him. But it would cost ~$5 in transaction fees for him to do anything with it so I've told him not to bother.

one question - does that fee go up exponentially -- if someone wants to transfer more bitcoin, will it cost proportionally more?
Tom

Stoic Joker

  • Honorary Member
  • Joined in 2008
  • **
  • Posts: 6,646
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: Does anyone here use Bitcoins?
« Reply #924 on: November 10, 2017, 06:54 AM »
one question - does that fee go up exponentially -- if someone wants to transfer more bitcoin, will it cost proportionally more?

Not exactly. It depends more on how many coin fragments are involved in the transaction. Much like the difference in paying for a $10 with a 10 dollar bill vs. paying for the same $10 item with a huge pile of unrolled change. The pile of change - representing the various fragments of BTC making the total - will take much more work (e.g. larger transaction size) and will therefore "cost" more to get done.

...It once took me almost 4 weeks to get a pile of mining dust transferred to an exchange, because of all the tiny ("sub") transactions/confirmations involved in getting it there.