…through £3000 per coin.

Let's see what the future holds.

Jamie Dimon is a banker, Andreas Antonopoulus is an expert in Bitcoin. This link is an excellent explanation in straightforward language about the background of money and its evolution into Bitcoin. Very easy to understand – 30 mins duration.

Martin.

These arguments remind me of those between the pro & anti CNC advocates, where the debate centres around the validity of CNC in the home workshop environment and whether it amounts to cheating by the assertion of a misapprehension of being able to "have the machine make something for you" by simply drawing it. Only once you've embarked on the CNC journey do you realise that there is much more to this topic than drawing a few lines and circles and leaving the rest to the machine. I think you have similarly misunderstood Bitcoin.

Every government on the planet, as well as every hacker, has had the opportunity (for eight years) to "nip round the back" to wipe out Bitcoin, but non have managed to do so.

Bitcoin isn't being regulated by governments because it can't be regulated by governments – who would be held responsible for implementing these third-party regulations when Bitcoin is just an open source protocol? Anyway, regulation is already part and parcel of the protocol and working correctly without needing to trust any middle-man or his regulations.

I don't get the emphasis being used to steer the belief that Bitcoin is the currency of choice for criminals – are you saying there was no crime before Bitcoin? Remember that every transaction is recorded on the blockchain.

Satoshi Nakamoto's white paper is easy to find on the web and details the workings of Bitcoin & Blockchain.

Edited By blowlamp on 14/10/2017 23:20:48

I wouldn't argue that more could be mined, because I know it's part of the protocol that production of coins is capped at 21 million. This figure is unalterable and is what makes the supply limited in a similar way to that of gold. Each bitcoin is divisible to eight decimal places.

When talking about Bitcoin, Moore's Law becomes irrelevant because the protocol regulates the mining difficulty to change in proportion to processing power. This means that the time between mined blocks stays fairly close to ten minutes. The number of bitcoins produced currently is 12.5 per block and is halved every 210000 blocks (approx four years). The last fraction of a bitcoin will be mined around the year 2140

Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Cyprus and Greece had currencies underwritten by their governments, but still suffered either hyperinflation or bank bail-ins.

There may be government cryptocurrencies in the future, but no one can be compelled to use them. Why would I choose to use a bank/government generated currency that can be seized, frozen, bailed-in or have a negative interest rate applied to it when I can have a trustless alternative that gradually increases in its purchasing power?

Please be aware of how and where bitcoins are produced – it's not done by some guy firing up his laptop when he runs low on money for drugs. See here for some pictures of the equipment necessary to run the Bitcoin network.

Bear in mind that currently it costs over $1000 in electricity to mine a bitcoin, so compare that to the cost of paper & ink to print a banknote or to mint a coin (called Seigniorage) and you should start to see which currency is more rooted in reality.

Anyone can grow a tulip bulb, but try faking your own bitcoin – take as long as you need.

Martin.

Edited By blowlamp on 15/10/2017 09:45:07