Main Area and Open Discussion > Living Room
Does anyone here use Bitcoins?
Renegade:
Once you have an exchange account, you can buy BTC.
Now, there are some places that will let you buy BTC without an exchange account, however, that's a bad idea. Their spreads are massive, so it's a very expensive way to buy BTC. An exchange account will cost you far less. However, if you only want to buy a very small amount, the non-exhange way is ok.
Once you have your BTC, you can then send it from your exhange account to your bitcoin wallet. You get your bitcoin wallet at http://bitcoin.org. Just download it, let it update and sync (takes a while the first time around), then poof! Automagically you have your bitcoin wallet ready to use.
Click on the "Receive" button, copy an address, label it if you like, then give that address to your bitcoin exchange account to send to.
MAKE CERTAIN TO HAVE A BACKUP PLAN IN PLACE.
MAKE CERTAIN TO HAVE A BACKUP PLAN IN PLACE.
MAKE 100% TOTALLY FOR SURE AND ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN TO HAVE A VERY GOOD, RELIABLE, ROBUST, BACKUP PLAN FOR YOUR BACK PLAN AND THEN ANOTHER BACKUP PLAN FOR YOUR BACKUP PLANS.
If you lose your bitcoin wallet, it is GONE. Forever. Do not lose it. Guard it like nothing you have ever guarded before. Print it out on paper as well. (I think the name of the program that lets you do that is something like "armory wallet".)
Using BTC very easy. It's so simple that you'll wonder if you're doing something wrong.
All you need to do it type in an amount, enter the address that you are sending it to, and click. Done.
Mining is an easy way to get a small amount of BTC. It isn't economically feasible to do it on a typical desktop, but you can.
Well, that's not really true. RIGHT NOW it isn't economical, but, if you manage to mine a small amount, and BTC takes off, then you'll be glad that you did.
E.g. Say you manage to mine 0.01 BTC per day. That's about $0.75 or so today. If BTC hits the lower end of Falkvinge's target (won't be for years though), then you'll be sitting on 0.01 BTC worth $1,000.00. So, if you mined for a month, in 10 years or so you might have $10k.
For the BTC market, you can think of BTC the "gold" of the crypto-currency world and Litecoin (LTC) as the "silver".
I just started mining LTC and will be looking into it more in the near future. I have no idea about whether it will be worth anything, but there is a market for it and it is growing. I missed out on the very early days of BTC as I was just too damn lazy. I don't plan to let this potentially lucrative opportunity pass me by like I let the last one.
One other thing, if you read the MSM, you'll see numerous hit pieces on BTC. Tonnes of them. BTC is HATED there, which in "I'm not a complete moron"-speak means that there has to be something good about it.
The dominant theme in the hit pieces right now is "illegal drugs". And you can use USD or CAN or GBP or JPY or AUD to buy drugs too... Their point is total garbage. It's like saying that because someone was killed by some idiot with a hammer, hammers are bad. Pfft.
Got to run again...
app103:
It was going to eventually happen...
US to regulate Bitcoin currency at its all-time high
LOOKS like Bitcoin has got too big to ignore. Virtual currencies are to be regulated by the US Treasury after the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) moved to clarify their status under anti-money-laundering laws.
The move comes as Bitcoins doubled in value in just a few weeks to hit a record high of more than $70 each, possibly fuelled by the banking crisis in Cyprus and the rest of Europe.
--- End quote ---
FinCEN's new guidelines don't mention Bitcoin by name, but say that anyone involved in exchanges of decentralised virtual currency for real currency must register as a money services business and obey existing regulations. The same applies for centralised virtual currencies, such as Facebook credits.
--- End quote ---
I wonder if this will also apply to this site and our donation credits?
app103:
A better explanation from Bitcoin Channel:
And you can read the document from FinCEN yourself: https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://fincen.gov/statutes_regs/guidance/pdf/FIN-2013-G001.pdf&chrome=true
wraith808:
An interesting bit from that...
The same applies for centralised virtual currencies, such as Facebook credits.
--- End quote ---
So, though they say Facebook credits, does this apply to others also, such as XBox live points, Sony Points, etc?
40hz:
So, though they say Facebook credits, does this apply to others also, such as XBox live points, Sony Points, etc?
-wraith808 (March 26, 2013, 12:32 PM)
--- End quote ---
I think they'll probably mostly restrict it to transactions not already locked into a single company's business like most of the gaming currencies seem to be. Anything that can act as a ready substitute for cash (i.e convertible to real cash - or - broadly accepted) will probably come under the rubric.
Look at it this way - if they're even slightly serious (and in the USA they certainly are) about all Internet transactions soon being subject to some form of state sales tax, you can bet they'll regulate things like bitcoins since you could potentially do an end run around the tax system using them. And that brings up a much more powerful way of going after non-cooperative alternative currencies and their users - TAX EVASION! (That's how they ultimately got Al Capone.)
When it comes to monetary equivalents, governments generally take one of two approaches: (a) regulate it, or (b) outlaw it. Paypal learned about that the hard way early on and decided to play ball with the regulators by getting licensed as needed. But that was easy compared to what Bitcoin will be facing. Because Bitcoin can also be (and is) viewed as a speculative or investment vehicle. So that also will likely make them subject to securities regulations as well as money-transfer or banking rules. And good luck with that. Since there's no central authority or clearing center with a clear line of traceable responsibility, who exactly is going to sign on behalf of all bitcoin? Especially since its decentralized P2P structure is its biggest selling point...
I'll stand by my earlier comment: The reaction was inevitable. The outcome is predictable. :tellme:
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version