Wesley

I am not sure which altcoins are doing this yet, but many bitcoin miners participate in pools. When anyone in the pool finds coins, it is split up to the entire pool based on the percentage of computing power you contribute (with a small percentage going to the pool for hosting and such). This leads to a much more consistent income schedule for mining. I am sure that once you get to a point with a coin that you cannot reliably and regularly mine without participating in a pool, then pools will start to crop up where people band together to get rid of the inconsistency.

You can mine several altcoins fairly effectively with GPUs. However you take the "adoption risk" as to whether the coin will gain popularity or not. Especially if it is just a hobby and not a money-making plan then it is possible to mine altcoins.

As of my writing this, the rebound to over 1000 has occurred.

Altcoins like litecoin, peercoin and many others are a great option to get in early on the bitcoin arena. The bet would be that they gain in popularity as bitcoin does, and then eventually some bitcoin users may be looking for good alternatives and switch over. It is higher risk as it may not gain any popularity and people will just forget about it. Or the differentiating features are integrated into bitcoin rendering the altcoin obsolete. However, relative to bitcoin you can make a decent risk investment in a couple altcoins. Back to the OP I will second what others have said that you can never know. However, I think that in the long run bitcoin will go up and that is why I have bitcoin. In the short run it could literally do anything, but I am an investor and not a trader so I do not care what it does in the short run. Also, in your YouTube videos or under them or something you could add an address for tips/donations. You might gets some bitcoin that way, probably not worth a ton right now but could be a way to get in and bitcoin will gain in value for the future.

I very much think that in the future, bitcoin will just be a protocol (like TCP/IP) by which systems upon systems will be built upon. I think that this guy is reinforcing this idea in his own way. In the future, only tech-nerds will know what bitcoin is, but everyone will use it in the same way that tech nerds know what TCP/IP is, but everyone uses it.

The small loss of coin will cause a natural deflation over time in a similar way that currencies did for hundreds of years when tied to hard assets. Even more interesting is that the current bitcoin cryptography will not last forever. At some point, code breaking will reach the point of possibly being able to crack bitcoin and code making will have gone 10 steps past the current bitcoin code. At that point there will be a fork in the code and bitcoin users will be asked to upgrade in which everyone moves over to a new code and then everthing is fine. A couple years after that, code breaking for the old code will be difficult but manageable. Thus, a new breed of miners will be hacking old "unowned" wallets in a similar way that the homesteading principle would work for land you haven't touched in several years. Then the coins will be added to circulation, though the constant loss of coins will cause a natural deflation from there. Obviously this is a theoretical idea of how things will develop, but I have hear it a few times and find it interesting. Even if the coins are lost forever, I think a natural deflation would be a beneficial thing to a currency once it has established a sort of stability. I do not know the best ways to get alt coins. I do know that they are easily and cheaply exchanged from bitcoins and that I probably would buy some bitcoin and then exchange it for litecoin or other altcoins. A brief search turns up the litecoin wiki market exchanges section: https://litecoin.info/Service_Directory#Market_exchanges I am sure you can browse through the options and see what works best for you- a USD to LTC or USD to BTC local exchange into a BTC to LTC exchange. I am glad this thread is helpful to you.

It would not do anything in the long run. Bitcoin hype would probably ride the wave up and power right through the sell off in a frenzy. It could easily backfire and Bitcoin is stable enough to survive something like that the the gains would be small. That could have easily collapsed the thing back in the day- or at least set it back for a few years. However, the longer it goes the more popular and stable it gets (and the more they want to derail it) the harder it is to do so.

Bitcoin is math. There is nothing in bitcoin that says where it is. I do not understand what you mean by limit traffic coming in and leaving the US. Other countries can mine bitcoin or bitcoin mining can move to the black market and it will not affect bitcoin at all. If this is your standard, then this could easily say this is true about any advance in technology.

Bitcoin broke 1,000 just now. This means nothing in reality, but in a psychologically driven market, it could send things way higher as a breakout or way lower as it becomes a resistance point. For myself, I am starting to think that bitcoin might be getting ahead of itself in the short run and might be due for a correction of a couple hundred. However, it is nearly impossible to predict these things, but that is just my feeling.

+1 for a good post explaining some issues in the discussion, thanks!

That is an interesting concept and I would like to see it implemented. The problem with gold-backed electronic currencies is there needs to be that central exchange of gold. That central exchange then can easily be shut down. I cannot think of how a true P2P gold-backed currency would work. This way would essentially be an individual issuing gold certificates in the form of bitcoins, which even if someone is trusted I do not think it would be a very popular method. Maybe I am wrong.

Ways to hold and transfer coins: 1. Send them before you leave. The idea that you need to transfer coins by carrying them anywhere was silly and showed that Peter Schiff had no idea how bitcoins worked. You can send the coins to a cold wallet or another wallet or import your private key into a computer that is overseas, or just take you computer or many other things. There is 0 need to take anything physical with you when transferring bitcoin overseas. Thus, there is no need to declare that you are carrying bitcoin overseas. 2. Paper Wallets. Put any amount on the wallet and then hand the piece of paper to someone. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Paper_wallet https://bitcoinpaperwallet.com/ https://www.bitaddress.org/bitaddress.org-v2.6.2-SHA1-4d98755d7e78caa4361228a2b11b0faa0f65e6de.html 3. Use Cassius coins. (same idea as the paper wallet, but they are coins) https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Casascius_physical_bitcoins https://www.casascius.com/ 4. As with the smart phone app with bitcoins, that already exists. However, iPhone is notorious for kicking wallets off of their app store. However, if you jailbreak your phone then you can get an app or you can use a browser app as a wallet. Android, just go to the app store and download it. I would advise against storing large sums using these methods. Only carry around spending change that wouldn't be terrible if you lost. 5. Make your own cold storage-type thing in the path of Cassius Coins or paper wallets. 6. I am sure there are many others. The problem with a local transaction is that it cannot be verified by the network. The receiver is then taking a massive risk that they actually received the coins and that they are not an attempted hack. Once the transaction is broadcast is verified or rejected by the network, you know whether to accept the coins or not. Thus, transactions do need the network, however using one of the paper wallets or coins has ways for you to check the balance of the wallet in a secure way where it is apparent that the wallet hasn't been compromised through physical means. You can then hand the hidden private keys to someone else and thus there is no need to broadcast the transaction.

Stef vs The Pope Seems like something I should grab popcorn to see!

If the idea of a son could be changed to "your inner child" then you could very much view them as a son. I also think that is how you as a child would have felt if you had done that to him at that time.

I know there are workbooks by Nathaniel Brandon and John Bradshaw. Alice Miller is great to read. I am sure others will be able to provide many more resources. Psychological treatment is very much an individualized process. Everyone experiences different traumas, and even if you did experience the same traumas, multiple people will still react differently to them. There are a lot of similarities, analogies, and categories, but the process of discovery and healing is very, very individual. The best thing you can do is to start journaling. Record your dreams, record your thoughts, record anything you can think of. Set aside time every day for as much journaling as you can consistently do. It will do wonders in helping you find things as well as making therapy quicker and easier once you go as you will have already mapped things out in your mind pretty well. Journaling can be amazingly helpful to develop as a habit if you want to work on self knowledge.

I think the child in the bed was you. Your current self was comforting that child by which horrible things happened to and feeling that strong feeling of comfort and connection that you so desperately wanted at that time. Thus, it is not your son, but you are comforting and loving yourself. Large bed indicates you are young in the dream, as well as the room seeming darker than it actually would be in real life as darkness and unknown can be scary for kids. I am so sorry for whatever you as a child went through that you felt so scared and alone and needed the comfort and still wish to not share it. It must have been horrible. I also am glad that you are able to meet with him and comfort him. Visiting childhood events as an adult (hopefully with the help of a therapist) in order to be there and protect or comfort the child can be very helpful experiences in processing trauma.

I have a theory, but I would like to ask a few questions. How big was the bed? was it large compared to you or large compared to the child? What was your experience as a child when you were laying in bed at night waiting to go to sleep? How old was the child? Did anything specific happen around this age? What happened in your life about 6 months ago?

What if my post consists of something so bad or nonsensical that you cannot come up with good feedback for it? Like I advocate abuse or am racist or something else that is horrible?

How would the government get over 50% of the market? Currently, there is more hashing than the worlds largest super computers combined. Very shortly it will be nearly impossible to be able to do it. Even if they did do it, bitcoin could fork to a new system or migrate over to other cryptocurrencies. Not to mention that as the system increases in popularity to make it more desirable to take over, it also will vastly increase in the amount of computing power needed to take it over, still making it out of reach. Not to mention that they could always add more security against this if it ever became a threat, however just by running the numbers it would not make sense as it would cost more than it is worth to try to accomplish. Just connect your node through tor if you are worried about them knowing your node. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Tor However, my coin is in cold storage and is not a node connected to the network. Also, you should read the sections on mixing coins and other such solutions. There are ways to own untainted coins if you wish to have them. If you mix the coins properly onto cold storage the NSA would not know you had the coin. Even if this wasn't included with the ability to remain anonymous through these tools, most people's transactions exist fully online and accessible to the state, so it is hardly worse than the current system. Even if somehow they were able to know all transactions, it still is not to the advantage of the state as they cannot produce more to constantly inflate the system. There is an upper cap. Even if the US made a whole bunch of laws restricting things, you still could dump your coins on the majority of the world that does not have these regulations and issues. There are solutions to these problems if they are worries. Bitcoin is as safe as you want it to be and are willing to put time into obfuscating your ownership. There are ways to encode your key or use a brain wallet that make its discovery impossible outside of you telling someone.

Just thought I would add a book/interview to the discussion. Congratulations! Your kid's brains will thank you.

Children can differentiate between fantasy and reality much younger than 8 in my experience. By 3 - 4 they usually tell me that something in a movie is not real. If they cannot tell the difference, then as a caregiver, I would be guiding them to learn to differentiate effectively between fantasy and reality. Then again, some people never realize the difference between reality and fantasy... **cough**cough**religion**cough** So maybe I am totally wrong and I would be open to what others have to say on the topic.

Oh the things I bought with bitcoin / or wasted bitcoin on... I would have quite a bit of money if I didn't get rid of some of my coin.

This is a fun thread to read back on. Bitcoin hit 50 at the bottom of the last crash. This most recnet crash it "hit bottom" around 450. Currently we are still going up with bitcion around 830. I look forward to this thread necro-bumping in a few months to a few years to see what the price is. Just thought I would throw in a couple prices for our progeny's sake. Not to mention the potential for altcoins to enter the mix. Maybe I won't have bitcoin anymore and have 3 other cryptocurrencies. It shall be entertaining.

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/11/24/in-bitcoins-orbit-rival-virtual-currencies-vie-for-acceptance/?_r=0 Here is a New York Times article released last night on altcoins.

Bitcoin is well known and Litecoin is not. That is the only difference. In the long run, Litecoin will approach 1/4 the price of Bitcoin as its base is exactly the same. They do have different development teams, so it is possible that one will develop more/better features over another. However, having a nice chunk of your cryptocurrency in LTC and trading from BTC to LTC at a time when you think that BTC has reached its peak would be smart. It also provides a small amount of diversification, which can be good if one of the development teams does some weird things. Beyond that, there are maybe 10 other bitcoin-based cryptocurrencies with different advantages. In the long run people will probably inter-trade many of them with a handful emerging as commonly accepted as having the best features. This would be a potential area for speculation. You can do research and buy a couple units for literally nothing. Hopefully in 10 years it becomes at least a somewhat recognized unit and you can make many multiples of your investment. There is a lot of development in the area and it is very interesting to see the changes happen and where the different development teams think cryptocurrency should head toward. The only "altcoin" that I think is pretty guaranteed to grow in ratio to Bitcoin is Litecoin.