#151
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#152
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Quote:
I’m a product of an era where jocks still held sway. Muscle equated to might. That paradigm has been completely flipped. Some gangly introverted kid, hunkered down in his parents basement, has the ability to speak the new Lingua Franca . That’s power. (Edit: I know Jimmy M is a racer, so this bit of hyperbole doesn’t apply to him. But still more than a kernel of truth to the scenario) I’m reminded of the time I was sued by a high-powered commercial law firm. They thought I was the “push-up” dude. But I actually had a background in both journalism, property management law. So, although, the legal profession is very cloistered and the jargon obtuse, I could actually speak that language, and I ended up winning the case. I initially thought my daughters should learn Spanish or Cantonese, which I thought would be the most useful languages. Since “remote” schooling, one of my daughters has become very adept at coding. In a few years, she will be (even at eight) more computer savvy than myself. I think I would like her to focus on this language, because this language is, for better or worse, the language of the future. Just to reiterate: I don’t have an effing clue what you were talking about in your post. But I totally respect your knowledge, and grasp of a completely different language. Last edited by XXtwindad; 05-12-2021 at 08:42 PM. |
#153
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If anyone is confused or curious about the idea of the keys, the best thing you can do to get a better understanding is just to make a bitcoin wallet. It doesn't cost anything, there aren't any bitcoins or dollars attached to it by doing this process. It is basically just creating a bitcoin address.
https://walletgenerator.net/ You'll eventually get an output like the one below. WHich includes a public key and private key. The key piece you need to understand is that the public key (the address you would give to someone and say "pay me here") can only be arrived at by doing a special calculation starting with the private key. So, when you are ready to "spend" your bitcoin, the way you prove you are the owner of the public address is to present the so called "private key", which can easily be verified using that special calculation, to see if it matches. That special calculation is called a hash, and is a secure, one way computer algorithm. To grasp bitcoin (or other similar crypto currency) you need to understand the the ideas around the public/private address system, the general idea of a distributed ledger and how transactions are recorded, and finally the block chain piece of it, which secures and verifies the ledger.
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And we have just one world, But we live in different ones |
#154
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Might be easier to learn Mandarin (from teaching/material availability perspective) than Cantonese, esp. since many schools are now offering this as a second language option.
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#155
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* I speak Italian, and my girls speak Hebrew. I think it’s great to learn another language - at any age. I’m merely talking about practical application. |
#156
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Please tell me what global economic value cryptocurrency provides. This type of stuff is like a war and can do more damage than some real bombs
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/colon...141548661.html |
#157
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On the other hand, one Bitcoin was worth $63,041 a month ago, and it's worth $48,630 now. On 12/1/17 it was worth $14,156, and a year later it was worth $3,743. It goes up and down based on silly things like Elon Musk's tweets or his appearance on SNL. Until Bitcoin is more stable, I'd just as soon accept payment in GameStop stock.
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It don't mean a thing, if it ain't got that certain je ne sais quoi. --Peter Schickele Last edited by fiamme red; 05-13-2021 at 01:39 PM. |
#158
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Quote:
It seems strange to hold cryptocurrencies to a standard that no other payment system in history has been able to achieve. And, I am not sure that the take away from a terrorist cyber-attack on our nation's critical infrastructure should be that bitcoin is bad. Also... this just in! Criminals are using cash in their illegal activities. Who knew?
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And we have just one world, But we live in different ones |
#159
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I don't know if it is bad. Currency is used in societies to buy and sell commodity or services. Seems like crypto currency is just used to buy and sell more crypto currency.
If crypto currency were to take hold globally to buy and sell commodities, and this were hacked on international scale, won't economies crash? I am naive here, not argumentative. Quote:
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#160
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Generally speaking, the Treasury has really dropped the ball here. They always do this with shadow banking (Crypto is just shadow banking) until there is a problem large enough to let them hammer.
I suspect the pipeline fiasco is the excuse. What can they do? Well for starters, USD is the currency of choice globally and it is the property of the United States Government. I expect they will use the threat of removing foreign banks that work with some of the crypto brokers and exchanges from the list of US corresponding banks counterparties. The threat of this is enough to starve banks of liquidity so given the choice of losing access to dollars or cutting off their crypto counter parties, they will cut off the crypto counter parties. It doesn't work for Russia as well, but it does work for the large Russian Banks who have access to global dollars. If the US is smart, I am sure they can orchestrate a cordinated effort from most countries even China. |
#161
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Quote:
Up until yesterday, you could buy a Tesla with bitcoin, and there are plenty of companies that will accept it for payment of goods/services. At this point, sure, there is much more attention and interest in holding bitcoin to get rich, but that is likely not going to be the case for long. Say you have a few more doublings and you're at 200-400K with a market cap of 4 trillion. That seems like a pretty optimistic picture, but still means if you're a speculator getting in today, you're hoping for a 4x return.... not turning a few thousand into millions. So, over time I'd expect lower returns and lower volatility, which means it may start acting more like any other currency. For instance, Swiss Francs. As far as the system getting hacked. There are around 50 known instances of bitcoin collisions in which people could or did take money from another account. That is "hacking" in a very rudimentary sense, but not an attack on the whole system. It is more akin to setting up a bank transfer into your account and randomly guessing a routing number and account number for the source of funds, and just getting lucky once. It is quite different than someone seeing your account has a lot of money in it, and specifically trying to steal your money. Not saying the system is infallible, but it has had a good track record to date. New technology or attack vectors could emerge that undermines the system. The hope is that the developers can update the algorithms and make improvements to the system so that it continues to be secure. As others have said, experience has shown that the weak spot from a security standpoint is the exchanges and specifically getting your money in/out, or storing it in a digital wallet controlled by an exchange. Check out the videos I linked in the previous pages of this thread to learn more.
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And we have just one world, But we live in different ones |
#162
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For those keeping score at home, Elon Musk (Tesla CEO) announced a couple days ago that Tesla would no longer accept bitcoin due to it being energy intensive and causing carbon emissions. This argument has been discussed on this site as well.
Anyway, it has breathed new life into the debate of proof of work (how bitcoin secures the blockchain) and an emerging approach called "Proof of Stake", which can be much more efficient and less energy intensive. There is already a path to transition Ethereum to a proof of stake system, and there are several articles that suggest bitcoin will switch also. I'll readily admit this could blow up in spectacular fashion, but if it doesn't, and crypto-currency emerges as a real asset class for the long term... well, it is pretty cool to be around to see it get adopted, and see how quickly it is able to address and respond to the needs of the market (such as less energy use). Here is a nice review on the concept from this investopedia article, for anyone that is really curious about this stuff: Quote:
infographic for those who find such things useful. [IMG]https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/1*UTvlKIjMW7DK-ztV5VL2fQ.png[/IMG]
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And we have just one world, But we live in different ones |
#163
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Yeah, I'm getting bugged by Coinbase to "stake" the next version ethereum. I'm new to all of this and can't quite figure out what staking means and why I should/shouldn't do it.
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"I used to be with it. Then they changed what it was. Now, what I'm with isn't it, and whats it is weird and scary." -Abe Simpson |
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