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Some very smart people might tell you that the best way to avoid a crypto scam is to invest your money elsewhere, like in a diverse portfolio of low-fee stock-market index funds, say. Ethereum, Ripple and Litecoin prices keep climbing up as well. Our remarks are in bold: For instance, bitcoins are completely impossible to counterfeit. A confirmation means that there is a consensus on the network that the bitcoins you received haven't been sent to anyone else and are considered your property. It was to be deployed in two stages - first by activating SegWit in the summer which already tookplace , and then by increasing the block size in winter which is still pending.
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Based on the results of two recent studies exploring anticholinergic drugs and their effects on the brain, seniors are now being advised CCHR is a non-profit mental A common treatment for prostate cancer involves the use of androgen-deprivation therapy ADT drugs, The new research, published in The BMJ, found that statin drugs taken over two to five years to prevent a first heart attack added an average of only 3.
The experience he endured spurred him to decide that he would not likely renew his certification again, according to a blog post Otherwise known as allergic rhinitis, hay fever is a common condition that But new research shows that many of these come with a host of side effects and potential side effects that ought to make you seriously An estimated 73 million people have high LDL or bad cholesterol, which increases the risk of a heart attack or stroke.
Therefore, millions of people take statins, or cholesterol-lowering drugs. These inexpensive statin drugs — We've all heard about the conferences and exotic vacations for doctors funded by pharmaceutical companies, but it turns out that the medical journals that doctors In the case of current Attorney General Loretta Lynch, however, who recently released a video warning about the "potential No drugs should EVER be mandatory: As reported by The New American TNA , a new law in New Mexico to protect kids from coercive psychiatric screening and medication was approved last year The state of Hawaii is on the cusp of decriminalizing ALL recreational drugs.
If the resolution passes, Hawaii would become the first state to investigate alternative solutions for treating drug addiction other than One of the world's most popular snacks may be the secret to balanced heart health: Hummus, a mixture comprised primarily of mashed beans typically chickpeas, also known as garbanzo beans or bengal grams , lemon That is the implications of a major new report by The Lancet and John Hopkins University, which found that 50 years of restrictive drug policies have had "serious detrimental effects" on human rights and public health.
Based upon the results of the study, Tom Frieden, director of the U. Douglas Bremner, explores the symbiotic relationship between today's pharmaceutical industry and the U. The following is an excerpt from the book: The latest drive to get new pills on the shelves and into people's mouths Statin drugs like this one, along with other brand equivalents and generics, are a medical doctor's go-to "solution" for managing patient's cholesterol levels.
Great company and amazing food are always the premise of a successful evening, but a delicious meal is not always followed by instant satisfaction. In fact, one in five Americans have to suffer the consequences The campaign highlights the fact that This case, however, involves juvenile chinook salmon who never had the chance to "Just Say No.
As reported by NBC News, new research shows that more Americans than ever before are overdosing on anxiety drugs, And with so many different types of drugs, as well as different combinations of drugs available to consumers today, the threat of creating Peter Gotzsche, who arrived in Australia recently to talk to citizens Down This ailment is quite common, and most of the time nothing to be concerned about.
It can often be weathered through or even cured naturally. But, of course if we learned how to manage every disease In her book Psyched Out: But a new review published in the British Medical Journal BMJ found that, among all age groups, antidepressant drugs actually increase the risk of aggressive behavior and suicide, especially Additionally, they're a whopping percent more likely to develop the disease in conjunction with complications A study conducted by the UM School of Medicine revealed that teens who were given prescriptions for Why doesn't the U.
Yet, in a country that is increasingly FDA considers new, implantable treatment for heroin, painkiller addiction According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention CDC , nearly 7, people are treated in emergency departments on a daily basis, because they used prescription drugs in ways that are inconsistent Reports indicate that the fraudulent system currently allows payments for prescriptions filled up to 32 days after a patient The gotta-have-it-now mentality is the latest brainchild of a service called ZipDrug which does exactly as its name implies: It provides people with almost instant delivery of prescription These are the kinds of pills that cause wild delusions, aggressive impulses, erratic behavior, or in some cases, cause violent and suicidal thoughts The joke's on YOU: Researchers have found that statin drugs suppress the immune response that they say is needed to make vaccines work.
By taking statin drugs, you're nullifying your body's ability to react to an influenza vaccine, researchers Oh, the tragic irony: However, the real danger for average Americans isn't just getting ripped off while suffering horrific side effects as a result of taking drugs — it's the threat of going bankrupt simply due to having a chronic Guns are not the deadliest things in the only country on Earth with a recognized right to "keep and bear arms," as the political Left would have you believe.
Turns out that Big Pharma is the nation's most deadly killer. Record number of U. The number rose from 51 percent in to 59 percent in The number of people taking Medical madness sweeps America: However, the latest statistics show that more people than you might realize are taking prescription drugs. According to a study that was recently published in the Journal of the American Certainly we are exposed to far more neurotoxins than prior generations, and in much higher doses, in the form of the plethora of industrial chemicals that Doctors admit flu vaccines are useless to people taking statin drugs - and both cause brain damage!
The strain of virus manufactured in the vaccine did not match the actual dominant flu virus strains going around. Flu viruses mutate now so unpredictably that Weil observed way back then that the refinement of natural sugars into pure white crystals, for example, can trigger addictive Experimental drugs, toxic vaccines, fluoridated water, experimental brain surgery, two bullets to the head, and of course, Zyklon B — the main chemical ingredient of the pesticide used for the gas chambers, which just Seriously, nothing is too unethical for the drug industry to push.
The report shows massive evidence for reducing the use of anti-psychotic drugs in favor of more individualized, holistic therapies. In fact, they're downright ineffective. While this hardly comes as a surprise when you consider the plethora of Despite deceptive reports in the mainstream media and lying politicians, the Umpqua shooting Some folks who take mind-altering prescription drugs to treat mental illness are now parading their use of these dangerous chemicals across They even have a catchy new hashtag campaign Widely prescribed drugs act as cellular poisons that accelerate aging Scientists at Tulane University in New Orleans found that statin drugs -- which generate tens of billions Sadly, many people take statin drugs, which are commonly known She says she is and, as far as that goes, she's the only one so far to address it, but more on that in a moment.
As noted by Zero Hedge, in recent days Some reckon it's a pyramid scheme and a con, others think it's the future of global finance. Bitcoin could 'destroy the dollar'. Imagine a world in which you can buy anything in secret. No worries inflation will make today's money worth less tomorrow. The digital currency Bitcoin promises all these things. And while it's far from achieving any of them -- its value is unstable and it's rarely used -- some have high hopes.
If people start using bitcoins en masse , "it'll go down in history as the destroyer of the dollar," Paul added. It's unlikely that Bitcoin would replace the dollar or other government-controlled currencies. But it could serve as a kind of universal alternative currency that is accepted everywhere around the globe.
Concerned about the dollar's inflation? Just move your cash to bitcoins and use them to pay your bills instead. Tired of hefty credit card fees? Bitcoin allows transactions that bypass banks. Bitcoins are mined by directing intense amounts of computing power at solving math problems. The faster and more efficiently you can solve math problems, the more bitcoins you get. Bitcoin is structured so that it gets harder and harder to mine bitcoins over time, so there's a huge arms race to build the most hardcore computers dedicated to mining the coins.
China bars banks from handling bitcoin. The central bank said bitcoins did not qualify as a currency but private individuals still are allowed to trade them at their own risk. Bitcoins are created, distributed, and authenticated independently of any bank or government. Their relative anonymity holds out the promise of being able to spend money across the Internet without scrutiny.
My editors thought the best present they could give me this holiday season was a bitcoin, the increasingly popular form of digital currency that uses cryptography instead of government regulation to validate transactions.
It was a kind gesture, and it made me very worried about my reputation at the office. But never one to turn down free money, I happily obliged. If I secured a bitcoin, I had to make one promise: An Easy Way to Access Bitcoin. Certain law enforcement agencies disapprove of the online currency, particularly because of its use in illicit transactions, while Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke spoke favorably of Bitcoin.
Meanwhile, Chinese officials are sitting back and waiting to see how Bitcoin will affect revenue streams. Known as the Travelers Box, users can convert foreign currency into Bitcoins for their e-wallets, or the money can be transferred to their Paypal accounts. This will save travelers the hassle of having to leave behind their old currency, and it will allow them to keep their money wherever they go.
It is also a big step in introducing Bitcoin into the mainstream. Silicon Valley catches Bitcoin fever. Silicon Valley is starting to catch Bitcoin fever — though the entrepreneurs and venture capitalists being drawn to the virtual currency claim that the biggest profits will come from using it to build a new digital finance industry rather than just as a vehicle for speculation. Digital currency companies that have attracted early rounds of venture capital in recent weeks include Circle Internet Financial, headed by Jeremy Allaire, a serial entrepreneur from the media technology industry, and Ripple Labs, whose founder, Chris Larsen, was behind pioneering peer-to-peer lending company Prosper.
Bitcoin bubbles but will it burst? After more than quadrupling in one month, many question whether bubble trouble is looming for bitcoin. Like it or loathe it, bitcoin is an entity of extremes. Not merely its value oscillations but also the vehemence with which its acolytes support it and indeed its detractors seek to destroy it. BTC supporters are ecstatic with a vertical leap from barely bucks to over dollars during November alone.
Prices never move in a pure straight line; rather they tend to ebb and flow like tides and emerging currencies are often very volatile. Indeed, bitcoin has been more volatile than most during its 4-year existence. Moreover markets can remain irrationally priced longer than contrary investors can remain solvent.
Readers vested with a dose of realism will recall great historical bubbles like Tulipmania, where Holland became obsessed with flower bulbs imported from Turkey. Vast inflation in blooms sadly led to bust. Leading Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox has released a new website that provides a simple explanation of what Bitcoin actually is.
Gox's site walks users through the basics — what Bitcoin is, why people use it, and how it works — before leading into a step-by-step guide on how to get started. It's certainly not a comprehensive rundown, but the site could prove useful for the uninitiated or those who struggle to understand the Bitcoin concept. Gox also released a new one-time password OTP card this week as part of an effort to strengthen the security of user accounts. Gox accounts, thereby preventing hackers and scammers from gaining access to compromised accounts.
Security has been an ongoing issue for Mt. Gox and other Bitcoin-related services. And, like many other companies this week, Mt. Gox is offering a Black Friday deal: The promotion runs from Friday morning through midnight on Monday Tokyo time.
It's Black Friday for Bitcoin too. Today, Black Friday bargains can be found at a more leisurely pace over the internet from the comfort of the sofa, and the retail marketeers that drive the Black Friday shopping hype call that sensible approach Cyber Monday. But this year, Black Friday has a new currency, and its name is Bitcoin. Bitcoin Black Friday has arrived, with retailers flocking to offer discounts on their goods to anyone paying in the cyber currency.
Most of the offers seem somewhat underwhelming, but what is notable is their sheer number, with companies from beekeepers to mobile phone unlockers offering their wares and services for prices denominated in Bitcoins. It is mathematically elegant, increasingly popular and highly controversial.
ALL currencies involve some measure of consensual hallucination, but Bitcoin, a virtual monetary system, involves more than most. It is a peer-to-peer currency with no central bank, based on digital tokens with no intrinsic value. Anonymity, while not assured, is possible with the right precautions and tools. No wonder Bitcoin is so appealing to geeks, libertarians, drug dealers, speculators and gold bugs.
And, judging by the fact that you read tech blogs, you're probably at least a bit of a geek. Know what that means? Today's the day you get to answer all of your extended family's tech questions! For the last few years, that's probably meant explaining the difference between iPhone and Android. Fortunately, one of the top Bitcoin exchanges has just launched an informational site that ought to make things a bit easier to understand.
Gox has just relaunched the domain as an introductory repository of information focused on all things Bitcoin. Gox is mentioned a few times on the page, it's generally alongside mentions of other exchanges.
The list of places that accept Bitcoin has grown into the thousands - making it hard to believe just one year ago this virtual currency was more associated with criminals than consumers.
Initially considered by some to be a rogue electronic currency best suited for trading on the black market, Bitcoin has quickly become a legitimate payment option for retailers worldwide. Even government officials are beginning to back Bitcoin. Several high-ranking officials spoke to the legitimacy of Bitcoins at a Congressional hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee on Nov.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke wrote to the committee that Bitcoin "may hold long-term promise, particularly if the innovations promote a faster, more secure, and more efficient payment system.
The spike in its price has some believing that it has become overvalued in a short period of time, owing to its limited supply and increasing demand.
According to a report published on virtual currency news aggregator Coindesk, the Robocoin Bitcoin ATM accepted over 1, transactions at more than CAD1 million since its launch in Canada on October The machine acts out the services of an automated teller machine, but processes sales and acquisitions of bitcoins.
It has biometric time locks and a privacy-shielded touchscreen, which is used to identify the user via a palm scanner. The Bitcoin ATM can dispense and accept cash in international denominations. Daily transaction is reportedly regulated with a daily limit of CAD3, in Canada. Bitcoin—the world's best boost to a brand? The debate may continue to rage over whether bitcoin is a viable alternative to the dollar or just another Ponzi scheme, but there's no denying of its ability to boost a brand's awareness.
His tweet confirming the move received nearly retweets and the corresponding story on CNBC received over 4, Facebook shares and was one of the most read articles on the site that day.
The viral nature of the cryptocurrency is also evident at a much lower level. A university in Cyprus, a sustainable grocer, a travel website, a delicatessen and a guitar repair shop are just some of the businesses that have received attention online with their decisions to accept bitcoins as payment. A simple tweet showing a business in Soho Village, New York was now accepting the currency received nearly retweets.
The spike was big news across the globe, from Washington to Tokyo to China, and it left many asking themselves: The opportunity costs of mining for money. Everything we do and every choice we make has an opportunity cost. In a world of scarce time and resources each choice necessarily means rejecting many other possible opportunities. One of the best illustrations of this concept was made by President Eisenhower in a speech.
Eisenhower criticized the use of scarce resources for military purposes because of the opportunity cost: The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: A modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60, population.
It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter with a half-million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8, people.
How much time, resources, and effort should be dedicated to military activities? It's still a contentious argument, and opinions greatly differ. Businesses face similar dilemmas. Every dollar spent on marketing is a dollar not spent on product development and testing. Every dollar spent on purchasing new equipment to expand the business is a dollar not given back to shareholders as profit. These are difficult choices.
Alternative coins rise to challenge bitcoin as the future of money. For many people, bitcoin seems like something from the day after tomorrow.
For Lawrence Blankenship, it's already a thing of the past. A software engineer from Springfield, Missouri, Blankenship is putting his money on PeerCoin, one of the biggest of the virtual currencies that are being promoted as alternatives to bitcoin. With mounting interest from prominent investors and growing acceptance from regulators, bitcoin - either the new gold or the next Dutch tulip craze, depending on who is being asked - is at the centre of the virtual money universe.
Yet there are dozens of digital alternatives, like PeerCoin, Litecoin and anoncoin, whose backers point to advantages they say their currency has over bitcoin. PeerCoin, according to Blankenship, is closer than bitcoin to perfect, communal money. Blankenship, 34, has arranged to accept PeerCoin as the virtual currency of choice at a Star Trek convention he is organising in his hometown.
Is Bitcoin about to change the world? If you want to buy drugs or guns anonymously online, virtual currency Bitcoin is better than hard cash. Canny speculators have been hoarding it like digital gold.
Now the world's leading bankers are even talking about as a rival for real money. This is a chicken and egg situation. For bitcoin's price to stabilize, a large scale economy needs to develop with more businesses and users. For a large scale economy to develop, businesses and users will seek for price stability. Fortunately, volatility does not affect the main benefits of Bitcoin as a payment system to transfer money from point A to point B. It is possible for businesses to convert bitcoin payments to their local currency instantly, allowing them to profit from the advantages of Bitcoin without being subjected to price fluctuations.
Since Bitcoin offers many useful and unique features and properties, many users choose to use Bitcoin. With such solutions and incentives, it is possible that Bitcoin will mature and develop to a degree where price volatility will become limited. What if someone bought up all the existing bitcoins? Only a fraction of bitcoins issued to date are found on the exchange markets for sale. Bitcoin markets are competitive, meaning the price of a bitcoin will rise or fall depending on supply and demand.
Additionally, new bitcoins will continue to be issued for decades to come. Therefore even the most determined buyer could not buy all the bitcoins in existence. This situation isn't to suggest, however, that the markets aren't vulnerable to price manipulation; it still doesn't take significant amounts of money to move the market price up or down, and thus Bitcoin remains a volatile asset thus far.
What if someone creates a better digital currency? For now, Bitcoin remains by far the most popular decentralized virtual currency, but there can be no guarantee that it will retain that position. There is already a set of alternative currencies inspired by Bitcoin. It is however probably correct to assume that significant improvements would be required for a new currency to overtake Bitcoin in terms of established market, even though this remains unpredictable.
Bitcoin could also conceivably adopt improvements of a competing currency so long as it doesn't change fundamental parts of the protocol. Transactions Why do I have to wait for confirmation? Receiving notification of a payment is almost instant with Bitcoin. However, there is a delay before the network begins to confirm your transaction by including it in a block. A confirmation means that there is a consensus on the network that the bitcoins you received haven't been sent to anyone else and are considered your property.
Once your transaction has been included in one block, it will continue to be buried under every block after it, which will exponentially consolidate this consensus and decrease the risk of a reversed transaction. Every user is free to determine at what point they consider a transaction sufficiently confirmed, but 6 confirmations is often considered to be as safe as waiting 6 months on a credit card transaction.
How much will the transaction fee be? Transactions can be processed without fees, but trying to send free transactions can require waiting days or weeks. Although fees may increase over time, normal fees currently only cost a tiny amount. By default, all Bitcoin wallets listed on Bitcoin. Transaction fees are used as a protection against users sending transactions to overload the network and as a way to pay miners for their work helping to secure the network.
The precise manner in which fees work is still being developed and will change over time. Because the fee is not related to the amount of bitcoins being sent, it may seem extremely low or unfairly high.
Instead, the fee is relative to the number of bytes in the transaction, so using multisig or spending multiple previously-received amounts may cost more than simpler transactions. If your activity follows the pattern of conventional transactions, you won't have to pay unusually high fees. What if I receive a bitcoin when my computer is powered off?
The bitcoins will appear next time you start your wallet application. Bitcoins are not actually received by the software on your computer, they are appended to a public ledger that is shared between all the devices on the network.
If you are sent bitcoins when your wallet client program is not running and you later launch it, it will download blocks and catch up with any transactions it did not already know about, and the bitcoins will eventually appear as if they were just received in real time. Your wallet is only needed when you wish to spend bitcoins. What does "synchronizing" mean and why does it take so long? Long synchronization time is only required with full node clients like Bitcoin Core.
Technically speaking, synchronizing is the process of downloading and verifying all previous Bitcoin transactions on the network. For some Bitcoin clients to calculate the spendable balance of your Bitcoin wallet and make new transactions, it needs to be aware of all previous transactions. This step can be resource intensive and requires sufficient bandwidth and storage to accommodate the full size of the block chain.
For Bitcoin to remain secure, enough people should keep using full node clients because they perform the task of validating and relaying transactions. Mining What is Bitcoin mining? Mining is the process of spending computing power to process transactions, secure the network, and keep everyone in the system synchronized together.
It can be perceived like the Bitcoin data center except that it has been designed to be fully decentralized with miners operating in all countries and no individual having control over the network. This process is referred to as "mining" as an analogy to gold mining because it is also a temporary mechanism used to issue new bitcoins. Unlike gold mining, however, Bitcoin mining provides a reward in exchange for useful services required to operate a secure payment network.
Mining will still be required after the last bitcoin is issued. How does Bitcoin mining work? Anybody can become a Bitcoin miner by running software with specialized hardware.
Mining software listens for transactions broadcast through the peer-to-peer network and performs appropriate tasks to process and confirm these transactions. Bitcoin miners perform this work because they can earn transaction fees paid by users for faster transaction processing, and newly created bitcoins issued into existence according to a fixed formula.
For new transactions to be confirmed, they need to be included in a block along with a mathematical proof of work. Such proofs are very hard to generate because there is no way to create them other than by trying billions of calculations per second.
This requires miners to perform these calculations before their blocks are accepted by the network and before they are rewarded. As more people start to mine, the difficulty of finding valid blocks is automatically increased by the network to ensure that the average time to find a block remains equal to 10 minutes. As a result, mining is a very competitive business where no individual miner can control what is included in the block chain.
The proof of work is also designed to depend on the previous block to force a chronological order in the block chain. This makes it exponentially difficult to reverse previous transactions because this requires the recalculation of the proofs of work of all the subsequent blocks. When two blocks are found at the same time, miners work on the first block they receive and switch to the longest chain of blocks as soon as the next block is found.
This allows mining to secure and maintain a global consensus based on processing power. Bitcoin miners are neither able to cheat by increasing their own reward nor process fraudulent transactions that could corrupt the Bitcoin network because all Bitcoin nodes would reject any block that contains invalid data as per the rules of the Bitcoin protocol.
Consequently, the network remains secure even if not all Bitcoin miners can be trusted. Isn't Bitcoin mining a waste of energy? Spending energy to secure and operate a payment system is hardly a waste.
Like any other payment service, the use of Bitcoin entails processing costs. Services necessary for the operation of currently widespread monetary systems, such as banks, credit cards, and armored vehicles, also use a lot of energy. Although unlike Bitcoin, their total energy consumption is not transparent and cannot be as easily measured. Bitcoin mining has been designed to become more optimized over time with specialized hardware consuming less energy, and the operating costs of mining should continue to be proportional to demand.
When Bitcoin mining becomes too competitive and less profitable, some miners choose to stop their activities. Furthermore, all energy expended mining is eventually transformed into heat, and the most profitable miners will be those who have put this heat to good use. An optimally efficient mining network is one that isn't actually consuming any extra energy. While this is an ideal, the economics of mining are such that miners individually strive toward it.
How does mining help secure Bitcoin? Mining creates the equivalent of a competitive lottery that makes it very difficult for anyone to consecutively add new blocks of transactions into the block chain. This protects the neutrality of the network by preventing any individual from gaining the power to block certain transactions. This also prevents any individual from replacing parts of the block chain to roll back their own spends, which could be used to defraud other users.
Mining makes it exponentially more difficult to reverse a past transaction by requiring the rewriting of all blocks following this transaction. What do I need to start mining? In the early days of Bitcoin, anyone could find a new block using their computer's CPU. As more and more people started mining, the difficulty of finding new blocks increased greatly to the point where the only cost-effective method of mining today is using specialized hardware.
You can visit BitcoinMining. Security Is Bitcoin secure? The Bitcoin technology - the protocol and the cryptography - has a strong security track record, and the Bitcoin network is probably the biggest distributed computing project in the world. Bitcoin's most common vulnerability is in user error. Bitcoin wallet files that store the necessary private keys can be accidentally deleted, lost or stolen.
This is pretty similar to physical cash stored in a digital form. Fortunately, users can employ sound security practices to protect their money or use service providers that offer good levels of security and insurance against theft or loss. Hasn't Bitcoin been hacked in the past? The rules of the protocol and the cryptography used for Bitcoin are still working years after its inception, which is a good indication that the concept is well designed.
However, security flaws have been found and fixed over time in various software implementations. Like any other form of software, the security of Bitcoin software depends on the speed with which problems are found and fixed.
The more such issues are discovered, the more Bitcoin is gaining maturity. There are often misconceptions about thefts and security breaches that happened on diverse exchanges and businesses. Although these events are unfortunate, none of them involve Bitcoin itself being hacked, nor imply inherent flaws in Bitcoin; just like a bank robbery doesn't mean that the dollar is compromised.
However, it is accurate to say that a complete set of good practices and intuitive security solutions is needed to give users better protection of their money, and to reduce the general risk of theft and loss. Over the course of the last few years, such security features have quickly developed, such as wallet encryption, offline wallets, hardware wallets, and multi-signature transactions. Could users collude against Bitcoin? It is not possible to change the Bitcoin protocol that easily.
Any Bitcoin client that doesn't comply with the same rules cannot enforce their own rules on other users. As per the current specification, double spending is not possible on the same block chain, and neither is spending bitcoins without a valid signature.
Therefore, It is not possible to generate uncontrolled amounts of bitcoins out of thin air, spend other users' funds, corrupt the network, or anything similar. However, powerful miners could arbitrarily choose to block or reverse recent transactions. A majority of users can also put pressure for some changes to be adopted.
Because Bitcoin only works correctly with a complete consensus between all users, changing the protocol can be very difficult and requires an overwhelming majority of users to adopt the changes in such a way that remaining users have nearly no choice but to follow. As a general rule, it is hard to imagine why any Bitcoin user would choose to adopt any change that could compromise their own money.
Is Bitcoin vulnerable to quantum computing? Yes, most systems relying on cryptography in general are, including traditional banking systems. However, quantum computers don't yet exist and probably won't for a while. In the event that quantum computing could be an imminent threat to Bitcoin, the protocol could be upgraded to use post-quantum algorithms. Given the importance that this update would have, it can be safely expected that it would be highly reviewed by developers and adopted by all Bitcoin users.
Help I'd like to learn more. Where can I get help? You can find more information and help on the resources and community pages or on the Wiki FAQ. By Bitcoin 2 comments 0 likes Like Share Dec 12, Buy - Bitcoin bitcoin. How to buy Bitcoin There are several ways you can buy Bitcoin. Use a Bitcoin Exchange Our Bitcoin Exchange page, lists many different businesses that can help you buy Bitcoin using your bank account. Discover people selling Bitcoin in your community Local Bitcoins lets you search and browse through various sellers of Bitcoin in your area.
Sellers have reviews and feedback scores to help you choose. Bitcoin Bitcoin Learn how to buy Bitcoin here. The basics you need to know 1 0 1 vote Reply Dec 12, This is a question that often causes confusion. Here's a quick explanation! The basics for a new user As a new user, you can get started with Bitcoin without understanding the technical details.
Once you have installed a Bitcoin wallet on your computer or mobile phone, it will generate your first Bitcoin address and you can create more whenever you need one. You can disclose your addresses to your friends so that they can pay you or vice versa.
In fact, this is pretty similar to how email works, except that Bitcoin addresses should only be used once. Balances - block chain The block chain is a shared public ledger on which the entire Bitcoin network relies.
All confirmed transactions are included in the block chain. This way, Bitcoin wallets can calculate their spendable balance and new transactions can be verified to be spending bitcoins that are actually owned by the spender. The integrity and the chronological order of the block chain are enforced with cryptography.
Transactions - private keys A transaction is a transfer of value between Bitcoin wallets that gets included in the block chain. Bitcoin wallets keep a secret piece of data called a private key or seed, which is used to sign transactions, providing a mathematical proof that they have come from the owner of the wallet. The signature also prevents the transaction from being altered by anybody once it has been issued.
All transactions are broadcast between users and usually begin to be confirmed by the network in the following 10 minutes, through a process called mining. Processing - mining Mining is a distributed consensus system that is used to confirm waiting transactions by including them in the block chain. It enforces a chronological order in the block chain, protects the neutrality of the network, and allows different computers to agree on the state of the system. To be confirmed, transactions must be packed in a block that fits very strict cryptographic rules that will be verified by the network.
These rules prevent previous blocks from being modified because doing so would invalidate all following blocks. Mining also creates the equivalent of a competitive lottery that prevents any individual from easily adding new blocks consecutively in the block chain. This way, no individuals can control what is included in the block chain or replace parts of the block chain to roll back their own spends. Going down the rabbit hole This is only a very short and concise summary of the system.
If you want to get into the details, you can read the original paper that describes the system's design, read the developer documentation , and explore the Bitcoin wiki. By Bitcoin 1 comment 0 likes Like Share Dec 12, Bitcoin Bitcoin You need to know about this! Getting started - Bitcoin bitcoin.
Getting started with Bitcoin Using Bitcoin to pay and get paid is easy and accessible to everyone. How to use Bitcoin 1. Inform yourself Bitcoin is different than what you know and use every day. Before you start using Bitcoin, there are a few things that you need to know in order to use it securely and avoid common pitfalls.
Choose your wallet You can bring a Bitcoin wallet in your everyday life with your mobile or you can have a wallet only for online payments on your computer. In any case, choosing your wallet can be done in a minute.
Choose your wallet 3. Get Bitcoin You can get Bitcoin by accepting it as a payment for goods and services. There are also several ways you can buy Bitcoin. Spend Bitcoin There is a growing number of services and merchants accepting Bitcoin all over the world. You can use Bitcoin to pay them and rate your experience to help honest businesses to gain more visibility.
Find merchants and products How to accept Bitcoin 1. Inform yourself Bitcoin does not require merchants to change their habits. However, Bitcoin is different than what you know and use every day.
Processing payments You can process payments and invoices by yourself or you can use merchant services and deposit money in your local currency or bitcoins. Most point of sales businesses use a tablet or a mobile phone to let customers pay with their mobile phones. Find merchant services 3. Accounting and taxes Merchants often deposit and display prices in their local currency. In other cases, Bitcoin works similarly to a foreign currency. To get appropriate guidance regarding tax compliance for your own jurisdiction, you should contact a qualified accountant.
Gaining visibility There is a growing number of users searching for ways to spend their bitcoins. You can submit your business in online directories to help them easily find you. You can also display the Bitcoin logo on your website or your brick and mortar business.
Bitcoin Bitcoin Here is a quick way to get started with Bitcoin for your investment portfolio, payments to others or just spending 1 0 1 vote Reply Dec 12, Bitcoin for Businesses - Bitcoin bitcoin. Bitcoin is a very secure and inexpensive way to handle payments. Choose your own fees There is no fee to receive bitcoins, and many wallets let you control how large a fee to pay when spending.
Most wallets have reasonable default fees, and higher fees can encourage faster confirmation of your transactions. Protection against fraud Any business that accepts credit cards or PayPal knows the problem of payments that are later reversed. Chargeback frauds result in limited market reach and increased prices, which in turn penalizes customers. Bitcoin payments are irreversible and secure, meaning that the cost of fraud is no longer pushed onto the shoulders of the merchants.
Fast international payments Sending bitcoins across borders is as easy as sending them across the street. There are no banks to make you wait three business days, no extra fees for making an international transfer, and no special limitations on the minimum or maximum amount you can send.
No PCI compliance required Accepting credit cards online typically requires extensive security checks in order to comply with the PCI standard. Bitcoin still requires you to secure your wallet and your payment requests. However, you do not carry the costs and responsibilities that come with processing sensitive information from your customers like credit card numbers.
Get some free visibility Bitcoin is an emerging market of new customers who are searching for ways to spend their bitcoins.
Accepting them is a good way to get new customers and give your business some new visibility. Accepting a new payment method has often shown to be a clever practice for online businesses. Multi-signature Bitcoin also includes a multi-signature feature which allows bitcoins to be spent only if a subset of a group of people authorize the transaction. This can be used by a board of directors to prevent any member to make expenditures without enough consent from other members, as well as to track which members allowed each payment.
Accounting transparency Many organizations are required to produce accounting documents about their activity. Using Bitcoin allows you to offer the highest level of transparency since you can provide information your members can use to verify your balances and transactions.
Non-profit organizations can also allow the public to see how much they receive in donations. Bitcoin Bitcoin Bitcoin is great for businesses too!
Learn more how to apply it 1 0 1 vote Reply Dec 12, Bitcoin for Individuals - Bitcoin bitcoin. Bitcoin is the simplest way to exchange money at very low cost. Mobile payments made easy Bitcoin on mobiles allows you to pay with a simple two step scan-and-pay. No need to sign up, swipe your card, type a PIN, or sign anything. All you need to receive Bitcoin payments is to display the QR code in your Bitcoin wallet app and let your friend scan your mobile, or touch the two phones together using NFC radio technology.
Security and control over your money Bitcoin transactions are secured by military grade cryptography. Nobody can charge you money or make a payment on your behalf. So long as you take the required steps to protect your wallet , Bitcoin can give you control over your money and a strong level of protection against many types of fraud. Works everywhere, anytime Just like with email, you don't need to ask your family to use the same software or the same service providers. Just let them stick to their own favorites.
No problem there; they are all compatible as they use the same open technology. The Bitcoin network never sleeps, even on holidays! Protect your identity With Bitcoin, there is no credit card number that some malicious actor can collect in order to impersonate you.
In fact, it is even possible to send a payment without revealing your identity, almost like with physical money. You should however take note that some effort can be required to protect your privacy. Be part of the Bitcoin future 1 0 1 vote Reply Dec 12, The surprise success of Bitcoin has opened the floodgates to a torrent of new cryptocurrencies competing for investor dollars. Bitcoin is an invisible digital currency with no physical backing that can be sent from one internet user to another.
It runs on blockchain technology. The blockchain works by recording financial transactions on a shared digital ledger that's encrypted on a peer-to-peer network. Instead of relying on a large financial institution or centralized servers to process payments, the blockchain runs on thousands of computers or "nodes" worldwide. Advanced cryptography keeps financial information secure and largely anonymous, so data breaches are impossible.
Investors, eager to get in on the ground floor of this potentially revolutionary technology, are throwing money not only at Bitcoin, but at the more than 1, crypto-competitors known collectively as "altcoins" Bitcoin alternatives. Skeptics are comparing this to the dot-com bubble. Bitcoin was first released in by anonymous coders under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto.
Critics initially dismissed Bitcoin as a futurist pipe dream — or worse, a boon to black market criminals — but now Bitcoin's underlying technology is being hailed as the future of finance. He thinks the bubble talk is irrelevant. What's more important is that investor speculation is fostering rapid innovation, creating hundreds of "really exciting experiments" in the form of new cryptocurrencies, each with unique functionalities.
I thought we were talking about cryptocurrencies. Well, you can't have cryptocurrencies without the blockchain, and the impact of the distributed blockchain infrastructure will likely be far bigger than any individual cryptocurrency. Ethereum isn't just a cryptocurrency. It's a platform for building applications that run on the blockchain. Like Bitcoin, Ethereum has its own programming language, but it's much more powerful and versatile than Bitcoin's.
And unlike Bitcoin, Ethereum isn't out to replace conventional money, but simply to enable more secure transactions on the blockchain. Ethereum has its own cryptocurrency called ether, but it's only useful within the Ethereum platform.
He thinks that the surge in new cryptocurrencies will soon stabilize, leaving only a few dozen in circulation.
He also thinks that Bitcoin's position at the top may not be permanent. One of the biggest, says Goyal, is the idea of "smart contracts. Smart contracts enforce themselves, even imposing penalties for a breach. Before coming to CMU, Goyal worked for Microsoft India, where he says the company was moving contracts for real-world properties like office buildings onto the blockchain to avoid costly legal disputes.
Ethereum also makes it easier to use what Miller at the University of Illinois calls "programmable money. Miller thinks that programmable money is one of those ideas that will quickly spread into mainstream banking. Other Cryptocurrencies Besides Ethereum, some of the other altcoins gaining traction promise greater security and anonymity than Bitcoin. Miller says that the initial media buzz over Bitcoin's unbreakable privacy was "only partially true," and that the original version of blockchain still leaves users vulnerable to hackers.
There are still plenty of obstacles that may delay or potentially derail the widespread adoption of cryptocurrencies. Transaction speed is a big one. With Bitcoin, transactions need to be verified by half of all active nodes on the network, which Goyal says takes 30 minutes on average. Another potential monkey wrench is government regulation. One of the benefits of cryptocurrencies is that they operate outside of highly regulated financial systems and government control.
Learn even more from How Stuff Works here: By Admin 0 comments 1 like Like Share Dec 4, How business schools teach cryptocurrencies ft. David Yermack is a man in great demand. In , the professor of finance at the NYU Stern School of Business helped it become the first major university to launch a course in the nascent field of blockchain and cryptocurrencies.
Since then the course has taken off and as well as teaching it in New York, Prof Yermack now travels the world as a visiting professor to lecture on the fast-moving field of cryptocurrencies at universities in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Basel and Stockholm.
The technology allows encrypted data on anything, from money to medical records, to be shared between many companies, people and institutions. This protects data from fraud while instantly updating all parties concerned. Experts say the demand for expertise is coming from all sectors — from financial services to retail — and it is far outstripping supply.
Continue reading on Financial Times here: By Admin 0 comments 2 likes Like Share Nov 29, edited. What is blockchain for research? Digital Science has recently published a new report, Blockchain for Research: Perspectives on a New Paradigm for Scholarly Communication. The report explores the potential impact blockchain could have on scholarly communication and research. Blockchain technology has the potential to transform research, and in particular scholarly communication.
It allows data to be stored in an open, decentralised database, without any central authority. As the technology progresses and is adopted, some of the familiar challenges facing research — transparency, accessibility, reproducibility and assignment of credit — may become solvable. There are hundreds of blockchain initiatives, but the best known is the digital cryptocurrency, or crypto asset, Bitcoin.
Financial transactions are conducted using bitcoins and broadcast to the peer-to-peer network. A ledger of all historic transactions is created and shared. Ethereum is another well-known example - it is broader than a financial transaction system and runs smart contracts that are safeguarded from any other third-party interference.
Developers are able to build applications on top of the infrastructure. The organisation maintains a living document collecting ideas on how blockchain could open up science and knowledge creation. According to Bartling, the use of blockchain in research instead of working on separate, disconnected systems would bring significant advantages to researchers.
It would make larger parts of the research cycle open to self-correction, and could be a new potential to addressing the reproducibility and credibility crisis as well as reducing overhead. The team proposes an array of applications for the blockchain within science, including: The blockchain could change the business model underlying the dissemination of research articles.
The subscription model and open access, the current dominant business models, each come with disadvantages. Access and usage could be granted with micropayments on a blockchain, and this would be a different, and possibly sustainable model. Research on the blockchain could also have an impact on the way researchers build their reputation.
Whenever a researcher creates data, performs statistical analysis, writes an article or reviews a manuscript, it could be automatically tracked and recorded. This would allow for more sophisticated and reliable metrics. An academic endorsement system AES is put forward built on the blockchain, based on academic endorsement points AEP , which can be used to reward work worthy of validation. Researchers whose output is endorsed to a high degree obtain more points, and thus greater influence in the community.
Any research output or contribution — blogposts, data sets, software etc — could in theory be be recorded and endorsed instantaneously. Significantly faster than the time it takes for citation metrics to accrue, at least. But this is just one of the possibilities. Research appears to be highly amenable to the blockchain but any new technology is susceptible to hype and overstatement of its potential impact.
So will research and scholarly communication eventually take place on the blockchain? However, science has evolved over hundreds of years, and with its history comes a significant amount of legacy in technology, systems, organisation as well as culture. This legacy makes any change difficult, despite the challenges associated with the current system. Moreover, there is an aspect of blockchain that makes a transition to this technology even more challenging.
Adopting a blockchain for research successfully implies that it is adopted widely, and this requires a fundamental transformation at the level of funders, institutions, publishers, as well as researchers themselves, which increases the level of change required. The likelihood and success of a blockchain for scholarly communication also depends on its level of implementation. For example, information stored on the blockchain could be restricted to traditional researcher roles, publications and use of content e.
But it could also reward unconventional roles and affect wider aspects of the research workflow including peer review, publication of datasets, hypotheses, etc. The blockchain, however, could have an even broader scope, transcending scholarly communication. Lab equipment and resources could be shared amongst research groups using the blockchain, with aspects such as credit or financial compensation being managed through the platform. Funding could also take place using a blockchain, and spending could be tracked and made transparent.
Whether scholarly communication takes place on a blockchain will also depend on developments in adjacent fields. In education, for example, blockchain developments are moving at a faster pace. By Admin 0 comments 1 like Like Share Nov 29, Blockstream vs miners - looking at the incentives around the SegWit Piotr Piasecki is a master of science and a double bachelor in the field of computer science and informatics.
More specifically, I will be focusing on the incentives both of those parties have when it comes to dealing with SegWit2x. It was to be deployed in two stages - first by activating SegWit in the summer which already tookplace , and then by increasing the block size in winter which is still pending. Basic incentives for everyone When examining why people would be for or against a certain change, it is often useful to look at the incentives they have for being on either side of the fence.
An incentive shared by every Bitcoin user and company is to see Bitcoin succeed, be used by more and more people and to gain in value. You can occasionally see someone stating the opposite along the lines of "it's good the price is going down, it will slow the adoption rate so the project will be developed further before mainstream starts to use it", or people wanting to buy the dip in price , but most people that are invested in Bitcoin want to see it grow, that's pretty much a given.
Beyond that, things tend to get murky. You can see some ideologies come into play and so on. But if you focus on SegWit2x, the basic incentive for both sides appears to come down to the good old money As such, it is expected it will increase in value and, at least eventually, start generating revenue.
So with this, we have a clear picture - Blockstream's revenue stream will come from off-chain transactions. Now, let's look at the other side of the debate. At the moment the block reward is So the miners are incentivised to include as many transactions in their blocks as they can, giving priority to those that pay more fees than the others per unit of size. Clash of incentives Both sides of this debate get their money from the same source - transaction fees. Blockstream wants more transactions to flow through their proprietary service to collect more fees from institutions and individuals.
The miners on the other hand benefit from more transactions taking place on the blockchain - they earn transaction fees only for the transactions that are included in the block and get nothing from off-chain transactions until they come back onto the chain. With finite amount of money flowing through the network, this is a classic zero-sum game - the more transactions flow through your preferred channel, the more money you have and the less money your opponent has.
In an ideal scenario, we would let both of those options onto the free market and let the consumer choose what they want to use. Some would choose off-chain transactions for their speed, others would prefer on-chain transactions for the immutable records, etc.
In a truly free market, the best product will win and the market will reach equilibrium.