Your contributions will help us continue to deliver the stories that are important to you
- Australia's largest state hits record-high COVID-19 cases despite weeks of strict lockdown. 'It's a tinderbox ready to explode,' one official said.
- eToro says crypto made up 73% of trading commissions in the last quarter, as retail customers dived in
- A flight attendant says she was too exhausted to report a passenger who shoved her when a flight was overbooked: report
- US jobless claims climb for first time in 5 weeks, to 353,000
IS BITCOIN THE new gold?
Some former gold bugs certainly think so.
And its value has skyrocketed in recent months.
But many readers at this point are probably wondering … what exactly is Bitcoin?
Robert McNally, an iOS developer at parking payment startup QuickPay, gave the following presentation to last year’s Hackers’ Conference in Santa Cruz, answering exactly that question.
With his kind permission, we have republished it here.
Bitcoin
Start with the basics
For some, Bitcoin *is* money
Among those who use it, bitcoin has same properties as cash
Some think it's more akin to gold due to its durability and limited supply
But technically, it's a cryptocurrency
That means there are no records or files on transactees
Bitcoin's principal benefit for many currency hawks...
There have been previous attempts at cryptocurrencies...
In theory, no-one controls it and you can take it anywhere...
Here's how Bitcoins are made...
Computers 'mine' for it by cracking a predetermined encrypted programme
As Boromir would say...
This is the arc of known gold stocks - and in theory, could be for Bitcoins
Here's what 'miners' look like in real life
One 'block' of Bitcoins is created every 10 minutes
Again, mining for Bitcoin requires a lot of dedicated computer memory
Do Bitcoins look like anything?
As previously stated, they're basically just code
So how much is a "block"? It's been changing every day. (this chart is outdated)
Who's accepting Bitcoins? Originally it was just gamers or programmers
But as its popularity - and value - grows...
...so does the range of things you can buy with it
How about this for poker night?
COMMENTS (65)