Bitcoin Mining Rigs?

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winnie said:
The 'blockchain' is an algorithm for creating a distributed anonymous ledger.

Imagine that I buy something from you by simply saying 'I owe you a dollar', and I record that transaction in a big book sitting in a gazebo in the town green. In that book it simply says 'winnie owes Joethemechanic $1'. Then you buy something from ggunn, by again making a record in the book. The actual dollar never changes hands.

The blockchain is a cryptographic algorithm for maintaining that book on a network of untrusted machines with the various users are also not trusted.

The bitcoins are simply numbers assigned value that are used to reward people participating in that network. The bitcoins have _zero_ value except for their perceived scarcity.

bitcoins are like dollars, in the sense that they kind of sort of represent promises from one person to another. But they have no hard value.

The blockchain ledger might have value separate from bitcoin, for allowing people to agree to exchange things of actual value. Say we use blockchain to write in the ledger 'winnie owes Joe a pint of beer'. You could use that pint of beer to buy something from ggunn. But at some point someone is going to want to drink that pint, and someone will need to deliver. And then everything will come crashing down when they realize that the fractional reserve bankers have shared 3 pints of beer out 19 ways.

-Jon
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You just described bernie pyriamid wall street high risk mortages crash v. 2.6..
 
winnie said:
The 'blockchain' is an algorithm for creating a distributed anonymous ledger.

Imagine that I buy something from you by simply saying 'I owe you a dollar', and I record that transaction in a big book sitting in a gazebo in the town green. In that book it simply says 'winnie owes Joethemechanic $1'. Then you buy something from ggunn, by again making a record in the book. The actual dollar never changes hands.

The blockchain is a cryptographic algorithm for maintaining that book on a network of untrusted machines with the various users are also not trusted.

The bitcoins are simply numbers assigned value that are used to reward people participating in that network. The bitcoins have _zero_ value except for their perceived scarcity.

bitcoins are like dollars, in the sense that they kind of sort of represent promises from one person to another. But they have no hard value.

The blockchain ledger might have value separate from bitcoin, for allowing people to agree to exchange things of actual value. Say we use blockchain to write in the ledger 'winnie owes Joe a pint of beer'. You could use that pint of beer to buy something from ggunn. But at some point someone is going to want to drink that pint, and someone will need to deliver. And then everything will come crashing down when they realize that the fractional reserve bankers have shared 3 pints of beer out 19 ways.

-Jon
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That’s the best, most understandable explanation of crypto/blockchain I’ve seen yet.
 
retirede said:
But because it’s all virtual, people have trouble understanding it. And I have trouble explaining it.
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And it can all vanish in a heartbeat

But then again, I think there was a time when this would buy a pint of beer

hundertbillionen.jpg

But at least you could burn them to keep warm or warm ish

inflation.jpeg
 
gadfly56 said:
Keep in mind that as time goes on, it's harder and harder to mine a bitcoin. At some point it's going to cost as much as it's worth.
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Until quantum computing gets good enough at doing the algorithm, and then it becomes trivial to mine a bitcoin, and the value crashes. Sounds to me like putting your assets into Zimbabwean dollars or tulips. I'll stick to USD.
 
ggunn said:
It reminds me of the infinite number of monkeys at an infinite number of typewriters scenario.
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Sort of along the same lines:. There is a thought experiment (actually a short story I believe) called the library of babel. It is a library that contains every book with every combination of letters/words (up to some number of pages). It contains your autobiography gunny, and describes every one of your posts on this forum. It describes your death too. This library is larger than the observable universe, but nonetheless contains that book about you .
 
electrofelon said:
Sort of along the same lines:. There is a thought experiment (actually a short story I believe) called the library of babel. It is a library that contains every book with every combination of letters/words (up to some number of pages). It contains your autobiography gunny, and describes every one of your posts on this forum. It describes your death too. This library is larger than the observable universe, but nonetheless contains that book about you .
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... Multivac [the computer] said, "Let there be light", and there was light.

- Isaac Asimov, The Last Question

That was one of the first SF stories I ever read way back when I was a kid, and I remain an avid reader of the genre to this day. One of my most prized possessions is a hand typed post card to me from Asimov where he conceded that I was right and he was wrong on a point in the math of imaginary numbers in one of his non-fiction books.
 
Apparently with bitcoin you can't reset your password if you forget it.
There is a legendary story about a fella that has 7,000 Bitcoin he got when it started, but forgot his password so has not been able to access them in like 10 years. Since then he just sees them going up and down in value but can't spend them.
I think he has two tries left out of 10 on the password.
 
ggunn said:
... Multivac [the computer] said, "Let there be light", and there was light.

- Isaac Asimov, The Last Question

That was one of the first SF stories I ever read way back when I was a kid, and I remain an avid reader of the genre to this day. One of my most prized possessions is a hand typed post card to me from Asimov where he conceded that I was right and he was wrong on a point in the math of imaginary numbers in one of his non-fiction books.
Click to expand...
I've use to wonder about the entities that exist on the negative side of zero. and how their multiplication worked. Then I stopped smoking weed 🤣
 
tortuga said:
Apparently with bitcoin you can't reset your password if you forget it.
There is a legendary story about a fella that has 7,000 Bitcoin he got when it started, but forgot his password so has not been able to access them in like 10 years. Since then he just sees them going up and down in value but can't spend them.
I think he has two tries left out of 10 on the password.
Click to expand...
You are refering to vern from s. Kings "the body", never did find his pennies but he found the rusted out grc feeder to the shed, and was 'lectyrecuded...
Stand by me for yalls who didnt read the short story book.
 
hillbilly1 said:
I knew of a guy and his family lived in his paper recycling plant in an industrial park. He turned the front office area into an apartment. When I got my inspection, he didn’t want the inspector to go up front! He had a massive shredder I hooked up for him.
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There actually was an apartment here when I bought the place. The only real changes I made were to install a better shower, and replace the fuses with breakers.
 
tortuga said:
Apparently with bitcoin you can't reset your password if you forget it.
There is a legendary story about a fella that has 7,000 Bitcoin he got when it started, but forgot his password so has not been able to access them in like 10 years. Since then he just sees them going up and down in value but can't spend them.
I think he has two tries left out of 10 on the password.
Click to expand...
One of the founders of Bitcoin accidentally threw out the hard drive containing his private keys. Each one is far more complex than any relatively easy to remember password.
 
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