Discuss.

There is a lot of misinformation out there about it.
Im among one of the skeptics that have invested though.
I don't believe it is a ponzi scheme like some.

Im currently up $5k in profits from the last bust (bought in at 565).

 

Have you sold any and converted them to cash yet?

 

yes I've been buying and selling for about 3 months now.

Bitcoin isn't hard to sell/buy. You just have to use a wallet (Like a bank) that you trust.
CoinBase.com is the only one i trust.

 

explain mining for bitcoins.

 

Hey Joe-

Mining is simple!?!?!?!? While I don't get all of it, here's what I think I might know.... I believe the concept of mining is to put a traditional analogy against a new and relatively unknown 'something'. The idea I believe is that will only ever be X bitcoins available, just like there's only Y gold available, Z platinum, etc....

So, you run your PC all day and night with special applications designed to compare a value in a set of data against the next known (any known) matching value for a coin (or the results of the algorithm for a coin, or something). The current difficulty is a coin every 1,418,481,395 hash compares. There's also something like blocks and crap.... Every so often, the difficulty of finding one increases based on how long it took to find the last group. So, it gets harder and harder to find one.

Depending on your PC, some of its components, its speed, etc.. you will be able to compare a certain number / hour. If you're working by yourself, you'd get a coin theoretically every X days (weeks/months/years). You can also join groups that use a broker to divide the work up into parts (think the online SETI project or some of the Cancer grid computing stuff). Then, while you might not find one, if you contributed n% of the workload, you'd get n% of a coin, regardless of which user actually 'found' it.

I thought about this recently too, and it made no sense to me to try, unless you really think they are going to skyrocket in the future, and then, I'd question if you think that, why not just buy some on one of the exchanges out there? When evaluating the cost to mine, consider equipment, electricity, maybe even cooling from all the heat generated. However, I'll leave it to you to do your research.

I think that for those with the foresight to get onto the hype early enough, who did mining when it was more likely to find and get some in a reasonable timeframe, there were likely huge payoffs. Based on what I've seen, I don't think its there today at the current prices and cost to mine.

Some sources: http://www.bitcoinx.com/profit/ and http://bitcoinwatch.com/

To those who've dabbled, fairly accurate?

 

honestly for the average person, it is useless and does not make financial sense. At its current state (& should get progressively harder) it is only for bigger operations.

 

http://youtu.be/1cexawnOlR8

Check out this podcast interviewing Andreas Antonopoulos.

"Andreas Antonopoulos is a bitcoin entrepreneur, he also serves on the advisory boards of several bitcoin startups and serves as the Chief Security Officer of Blockchain."

First 10mins 30seconds is sponsor commercials interview starts at 10:30 mark.

 

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2014/02/...-goes-offline/

 

Good advice here...!!!

I hope the OP's still in the black.

[media]http://seekingalpha.com/article/2046083-get-out-of-bitcoin-now?source=email_the_daily_dispatch&ifp=0[/media]

 

I actually sold it @ 840ish than rebought two days ago for 440 and just sold for 590.

MT gox is a scam. But the problem people don't realize bitcoin is a currency while MT god, coin base; etc are the "banks" or wallets. You are not only betting on the currency but also on the bank. If the bank goes under you are screwed. thats why i only bought my coins thru coinbase.