Bitcoin: earning money through 'folding'

[That_Canadian]

Hey all.

The explanation put together by the writers at Lifehacker make the concept pretty clear.

Article

 

What are your thoughts on it?

(Read the comment from "umi.spam" on the lifehacker page, his comment appears to clear some things up.)

 

First things that come to mind worry me about its use as a gateway for viruses

(in the sense of its practice: create the hype and infect users) if its not legitimate.

Can anyone verify this product, any existing users here?

 

Also, we have a decent sized community with hardware that can more than spare the effort to run a client which is very similar to folding.

Could we put together a few members and see what kind of coin we can turn around?

It be interesting to see if this takes off what kind of value we may have gotten by getting in early.

 

Id like to hear your comments, let me know what you think!

 

Bitcoin Market Page

 

 

 

-Cdn.

[F13Bubba]

I find it interesting that ATI cards run better with the mnining client than Nvidia do. It's like a reverse of folding lol

[malmsteenisgod]

I'm kind of confused by this. Of course, finance has never been my strong point. Where do you go to see what you can trade these coins for?

[jlqrb]

I really liked this part "BitCoins are generated out of thin air."

 

I have heard of this before, but I can't imagine it goes anywhere.

[Locutus]

There's a cap, so at a point in the future they won't be able to be produced anymore, therefore making them a commodity only found on the internet by trading and/or buying with real money.

 

The whole thing is stupid, I wound up running one of the clients for a few hours and making like 50 cents, and I can barely see how this is profitable with as much power usage it's taking.

[Deathmineral]

It seems interesting enough to me but a little bit too complicated, I don't think I will be trying this.

 

Edit: I do use something similar though, it's not the same program but it's a digital currency. Not sure how many here have heard of SwagBucks but it generates a digital currency randomly when you search through them. It's pretty slow unless you really get into it but I don't, I just use them for searching.

 

I was actually introduced to that by someone else from OCC, Danrik.

 

For anyone that is interested in this, or just wants to be a pal, I'll post mine and Danrik's referral links.

Deathmineral Link

Danrik Link

Edited May 20, 2011 by Deathmineral

[SpeedCrazy]

I have looked at this bitcoin stuff before, and though it is made up to look very legit, i have a hard time seeing why they would just give away money for doing 'processes'. Looking at the comments on that article it sounds like you need high end GPUs to do anything worth the power consumption and even then you probably make less than you spend on it.

Put bluntly: I'm highly skeptical.

[IVIYTH0S]

watch out fellas lol: http://blogs.computerworld.com/18335/bitcoin_miners_busted_police_confuse_bitcoin_power_usage_for_pot_farm

[F13Bubba]

It seems interesting enough to me but a little bit too complicated, I don't think I will be trying this.

 

Edit: I do use something similar though, it's not the same program but it's a digital currency. Not sure how many here have heard of SwagBucks but it generates a digital currency randomly when you search through them. It's pretty slow unless you really get into it but I don't, I just use them for searching.

 

I was actually introduced to that by someone else from OCC, Danrik.

 

For anyone that is interested in this, or just wants to be a pal, I'll post mine and Danrik's referral links.

Deathmineral Link

Danrik Link

 

I use swagbucks I actually won a guitar in a swagstakes lol

[tazwegion]

I have looked at this bitcoin stuff before, and though it is made up to look very legit, i have a hard time seeing why they would just give away money for doing 'processes'. Looking at the comments on that article it sounds like you need high end GPUs to do anything worth the power consumption and even then you probably make less than you spend on it.

Put bluntly: I'm highly skeptical.

 

 

I was doing a little research into this stuff early last month (triggered by a post over at another PC forum), seems straight forward with a few irregularities however, I'll try to express what I discovered...

 

 

• Bitcoins are becoming rarer and thus mining solely with a CPU is no longer worthwhile
  
• Highend GPU's have replaced the CPU for raw processing power
  
• Mining for bitcoins is how the "virtual economic system" generates it's security (more bitminers better security)
  
• Bitcoins can be purchased and sold with actual existing currency
  
• Valuation of bitcoins is linked to demand
  
• Due to the encrypted nature of the system transactions are (supposedly) untraceable
  
• To prevent double spending a physical limit of existing bitcoins is capped (the last one becoming available in 2140)
  
• Transactions aren't immediate as the system verifies the bitcoins (and availability)
  
• Large transactions attract a voluntary fee
  
• These fees are intended for those who process the transactions and maintain system security (the bitminers) and this over time will replace the bitmining (bitcoin) rewards program
  

 

 

I hope that covers it sufficiently, personally I won't be adopting this type of financial system, however it appears to be an exceptional means of moving cash around without leaving an electronic trail and might appeal to illegal operators (cash launderers) should it prove viable

[SpeedCrazy]

Nah, i dont think i will buy into that. Edited May 24, 2011 by SpeedCrazy

[tazwegion]

Nah, i dont think i will buy into that.

 

 

Yeah I know what you mean... it appears late adopters are at a slight disadvantage as it now requires MORE processing power than during it's initial inception to process the bitcoins (moving from CPU based to high end GPU), to me it kinda' felt like a pyramid scheme where it worked great for everyone except those last on the scene, although there is promise of reaping rewards from those "transaction fees" for the bitcoin miners.