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Hacking and Security => Hacking and Security => : bubzuru August 01, 2012, 12:47:11 AM

: BitCoins
: bubzuru August 01, 2012, 12:47:11 AM
what are bitcoins and what is all this talk of mining ?
someone please enlighten me ?
: Re: BitCoins
: ande August 01, 2012, 01:34:16 AM
Come on man... You cant expect any other reply: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=bitcoin%20mining
: Re: BitCoins
: bubzuru August 01, 2012, 02:03:39 AM
haha i should of seen it coming.
i was hoping for a discussion to go with it.

so anybody have any ideas , want to talk to me about it ?
: Re: BitCoins
: theellimist August 01, 2012, 02:11:49 AM
Bitcoins are a digital currency that you can buy stuff online with. They are going for about 1 bitcoin for 9 USD at the moment, and still rising.
: Re: BitCoins
: Daemon August 01, 2012, 02:30:14 AM
Haha I was just trying to figure that question out last week. And in all fairness, it is an abstract concept that took me a solid day to figure out. So here goes with what I coukd figure out about them bubzuru

Bitcoins are a currency that is transferred virtually anonymously through complex mathematical algorithms called blocks. These blocks are super complex, and must be solved in order to allow future transactions. Bitcoin mining is the act of using your GPU to solve these equations, for which you are rewarded 50 bitcoins. This is also how bitcoins are added to make the available currency pool larger. These bitcoin.generations are severly reatricted however due to a number of factors.

First, they are capped at 21 million. After 21 million bitcoins are generated there will be no more
Second, every week an algorithm runs and adjusts the complexity of the blocks so that bitcoins are geberated at roughly the same rate that gold is mined. At this point it takes about 2 weeks to solve a block and only the person who solved it gets the coins. 

Also, I say virtually anonymous because anyone with no life can go back and look at blocks to trace transactions. However, it just aint worth their time cause of everything they would have to sort throufh. So it is possible, but 99% unlikely. Or thereabouts

So doing bitcoin mining on your own comp.just ain't worth the time tbh, however joining a bitcoin mining pool could be worth it. you'll have to check that out yourself. If I did a poor job explaining thia, ask for clarification and ill do what I can. Cahse I do think the hows and whys of bitcoins are quite confusing lol
: Re: BitCoins
: huck_fin August 01, 2012, 02:35:50 AM
you beat me to it.
remmeber bitcoins are over 6$ a piece, not 1$. It could be interesting just get a hands on with the security behind it.  I remember bitcoins being one of the more complicated things ive found.
: Re: BitCoins
: Ragehottie August 01, 2012, 02:47:14 AM
My brother got into bitcoins while the where like $0.10 and he, thinking it wasnt going anywhere, got like 50 bitcoins. Then they shot up to like 20-30 a piece. He was really pissed because he could have made a fortune.
: Re: BitCoins
: Kulverstukas August 01, 2012, 10:57:36 AM
bitcoins... when paypal ain't enough.
really tho, the idea is bullshit. I don't understand why people are so freaky about it.
: Re: BitCoins
: ande August 01, 2012, 04:54:20 PM
bitcoins... when paypal ain't enough.
really tho, the idea is bullshit. I don't understand why people are so freaky about it.

I disagree. It is a cool concept, no governments fucking shit up and so on. However, the big players are winning on this currency as well.
: Re: BitCoins
: Daemon August 01, 2012, 06:51:40 PM
bitcoins... when paypal ain't enough.
really tho, the idea is bullshit. I don't understand why people are so freaky about it.

Well part of it is the anonymity, not perfect but pretty damn close. And bitcoins can never go back on transactions, reverse them, anything of the sort. Once it's made, its safely yours and you wont lose it. Also, PayPal will turn over records if law enforcement asks for it whereas the Bitcoin record is publicly available but as a super complex math equation that would be a royal pain to track a payment and to add to the confusion if your doing something with bitcoins your probably going to use some sort of proxy as well... Finally, the investment opportunity like Ragehottie mentioned. While investing now won't be quite as good as it was when bitcoins first started, it could still be worth the cash as bitcoins rise in value. Pay $6 each now and sell for $20 each in 5 years, something along those lines
: Re: BitCoins
: p_2001 August 01, 2012, 06:59:22 PM
Well part of it is the anonymity, not perfect but pretty damn close. And bitcoins can never go back on transactions, reverse them, anything of the sort. Once it's made, its safely yours and you wont lose it. Also, PayPal will turn over records if law enforcement asks for it whereas the Bitcoin record is publicly available but as a super complex math equation that would be a royal pain to track a payment and to add to the confusion if your doing something with bitcoins your probably going to use some sort of proxy as well... Finally, the investment opportunity like Ragehottie mentioned. While investing now won't be quite as good as it was when bitcoins first started, it could still be worth the cash as bitcoins rise in value. Pay $6 each now and sell for $20 each in 5 years, something along those lines


and what's the point in investing in bitcoin when there is stock and real estate?
10 % a month is not difficult in stocks.
: Re: BitCoins
: Daemon August 01, 2012, 07:17:43 PM

and what's the point in investing in bitcoin when there is stock and real estate?
10 % a month is not difficult in stocks.

Very true. But bitcoins can also be invested in without any cash. Just start mining, and either try to do it yourself or join a mining pool. Personally I don't think it's worth it atm, but other people seem to think it is.
: Re: BitCoins
: bubzuru August 01, 2012, 07:50:40 PM
Very true. But bitcoins can also be invested in without any cash. Just start mining, and either try to do it yourself or join a mining pool. Personally I don't think it's worth it atm, but other people seem to think it is.

ok how does a mining pool work , can i make my own with a bot-net ?
: Re: BitCoins
: Ragehottie August 01, 2012, 08:40:39 PM
ok how does a mining pool work , can i make my own with a bot-net ?


You can, I'm not sure off the top of my head, but I know you can.
: Re: BitCoins
: Daemon August 01, 2012, 11:06:14 PM
ok how does a mining pool work , can i make my own with a bot-net ?

Yes you can, though what I meant by pool is a bunch of people pooling their resources to do bitcoin mining, and they split the rewards. There is a list of current pools here (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Comparison_of_mining_pools)  that you can join, and it talks about how rewards/work is split.

edit* changed the misinformation
: Re: BitCoins
: Ragehottie August 01, 2012, 11:24:27 PM
Yes you can, though technically that's not a pool since it's all done by you. A mining pool is a bunch of people pooling their resources to do bitcoin mining, and they split the rewards. There is a list of current pools here (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Comparison_of_mining_pools)  that you can join, and it talks about how rewards/work is split.


No, it would be considered a pool, a pool is just more than one computer working together to mine bitcoins.
: Re: BitCoins
: Daemon August 01, 2012, 11:28:16 PM

No, it would be considered a pool, a pool is just more than one computer working together to mine bitcoins.

My mistake then, must not have read deep enough into it. thanks for the correction
: Re: BitCoins
: Ragehottie August 01, 2012, 11:43:42 PM
My mistake then, must not have read deep enough into it. thanks for the correction


Don't quote me on it, but that is what I understood.
: Re: BitCoins
: lucid August 01, 2012, 11:50:10 PM
This is also how bitcoins are added to make the available currency pool larger.

Is this to say that bitcoin mining will hurt the bitcoin economy in the long run?
: Re: BitCoins
: Ragehottie August 01, 2012, 11:53:48 PM
Is this to say that bitcoin mining will hurt the bitcoin economy in the long run?


Technically, Yes. But if it would take a while to get there and in the meantime it is helping it.
: Re: BitCoins
: p_2001 August 11, 2012, 07:34:57 PM
Hmmmm... But if more people keep joining it and trading in it... Mining won't farm will it...?
: Re: BitCoins
: Daemon August 11, 2012, 07:59:15 PM
Mining still has to happen, but it will become.more difficult for an individual to solve it by himself. Its readjusted every week or two so that the reward for solving blocks is payed out at the same rate that gold is mined. I forget the exact numbers, but its X payouts in a 2 week period. Which means more people equals less likely to earn the reward yourself, though the coins are "mined" at the same steady rate
: Re: BitCoins
: p_2001 August 11, 2012, 08:41:51 PM
Yes.. But if more coins are traded... More worth.. And thus earning smaller portion can be compensated...
: Re: BitCoins
: Simba August 13, 2012, 01:12:11 PM
I still don't know what is actually mining?
Miners could bruteforce passwords, help scientists do research, other stuff like one big supercomputer.
But miners are building super mining machines and they are wasting electricity for nothing?

I laughed at story that police did a raid on a farm suspected of growing marihuana due to increased electricity consumption. Turned out dudes were just mining bitcoins.
: Re: BitCoins
: EmilKXZ August 14, 2012, 02:34:08 AM
Now, hitting the ground, this is what I found about how to do mining (technically speaking):

  During mining, your computer runs a cryptographic hashing function (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Proof_of_work) (two rounds of SHA256) on what is called a block header (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Block_hashing_algorithm). For each new hash, the mining software will use a different number as the random element of the block header, this number is called the nonce. Depending on the nonce and what else is in the block the hashing function will yield a hash which looks like this:
93ef6f358fbb998c60802496863052290d4c63735b7fe5bdaac821de96a53a9a
You can look at this hash as a really long number. (It's a hexadecimal number, meaning the letters A-F are the digits 10-15.) Now to make mining difficult, there is what's called a difficulty target. To create a valid block your miner has to find a hash that is below the difficulty target. So if for example the difficulty target is 1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000, any number that starts with a zero would be below the target, e.g.:
0787a6fd6e0782f7f8058fbef45f5c17fe89086ad4e78a1520d06505acb4522f
If we lower the target to 0100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000, we now need two zeros in the beginning to be under it:
00db27957bd0ba06a5af9e6c81226d74312a7028cf9a08fa125e49f15cae4979
Because the target is such an unwieldy number with tons of digits, people generally use a simpler number to express the current target. This number is called the mining difficulty. The mining difficulty expresses how much harder the current block is to generate compared to the first block. So a difficulty of 70000 means to generate the current block you have to do 70000 times more work than Satoshi (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Satoshi_Nakamoto) had to do generating the first block. Though be fair though, back then mining was a lot slower and less optimized.
The difficulty changes every 2016 blocks. The network tries to change it such that 2016 blocks at the current global network processing power take about 14 days. That's why, when the network power rises, the difficulty rises as well.
Optimize this process to death, 'til you cannot optimize it anymore.

 
: Re: BitCoins
: Simba August 14, 2012, 10:04:06 AM
Yeah, but what's the point?
Couldn't the author implement some use of it?

Or maybe is it silently being used to bruteforce passwords, that would be funny.
: Re: BitCoins
: EmilKXZ August 15, 2012, 04:59:07 AM
Yes, it would be definitely funny lol.

Perhaps the author receives 150 bitcoins per challenge solved, and then the people get 50 bitcoins... That'd explain easily why Satoshi is retired and left development to others.
: Re: BitCoins
: namespace7 August 22, 2012, 10:41:26 PM
I had bad experiences with BitCoins. That stuff is unstable man, wouldn't waste my time on it. Not yet anyway.
I used to do bt mining with some of the most powerful GPU in the world and still it was a waste of time.
: Re: BitCoins
: Naer May 28, 2013, 04:56:21 PM
I had bad experiences with BitCoins. That stuff is unstable man, wouldn't waste my time on it. Not yet anyway.
I used to do bt mining with some of the most powerful GPU in the world and still it was a waste of time.

If someone is still intrested in mining, look for mining hardware like the ones from butterflylabs.com

I have started to think about buying these some weeks ago and there are really good feedbacks.
: Re: BitCoins
: vezzy May 28, 2013, 05:06:03 PM
The ASIC miners that are currently present will quickly go futile once they become used en masse. The difficulty will jump significantly.
: Re: BitCoins
: Naer May 28, 2013, 05:22:21 PM
The ASIC miners that are currently present will quickly go futile once they become used en masse. The difficulty will jump significantly.

How quickly? My idea was to start with a 270$ miner and after 1 month or 2 buy one again, and some months later guy the bigger one and so on.

If I don't need to pay for electricity, how big difference does it make in your opinion? Because I bet it makes a huge one.
: Re: BitCoins
: Mordred May 28, 2013, 06:44:23 PM
Given the current rate of ASICs coming up on the network, GPU mining of BitCoins has become retardedly hard. I barely get shit done with my 7970, and a friend of mine running CF'd 7970's is also saying it's starting to become too slow.

The solution is to mine LiteCoins. LTCs run on a different system which requires a complete redesign of the ASIC chip, which means current ASICs can't mine LTC. Also their implementation of a E-Coin system is newer, better and designed with an accent on fairness for the miners.

However LTC are still fairly cheap being new and all. Last I checked it was around 4-5-6 $ per LTC. However that's the same price BTCs had on the 1st of January 2013, so yes.

The LTC systems has also been designed with ASICs in mind. As in, to not have ASICs profit so much. I'm not exactly sure on the technical details of this, but I imagine it has something to do with the inherent nature of the chip of ASICs being specially designed and all.

As a final point, I wanted to say that whilst currently mining LTC is not very profitable, I'm personally betting that it will eventually override BTC as the main E-Coin currency system. Also, LTC mining is still done in pools, since that is the most profitable and fair way.

Extra details:
Litecoin website (contains download for the wallet software): http://litecoin.org/
The pool that I'm currently using, which seems to also be one of the biggest, fairest, lowest fee and nice to manage: https://www.wemineltc.com/
: Re: BitCoins
: vezzy May 28, 2013, 08:21:50 PM
The reason why ASICs for LTC are infeasible is because of LTC's usage of scrypt as a proof-of-work scheme. On the negative side, scrypt is quite new and further cryptanalysis might reveal some vulnerabilities.

Not to mention migrating to an altcoin is often just a desparation move. Some notorious altcoin failures have occured before, and their main flaw is that they're all codependent with each other and especially the node from which they all originate: Bitcoin. If Bitcoin falls, altcoins will suffer along the way.
: Re: BitCoins
: Mordred May 29, 2013, 03:52:00 PM
That's why I went for LTC. Most of the others will crash and burn, but these guys claim they are independent from the operations of BTC and the BTC peer network.

Actually out of the mass of altcoins that have cropped up, by process of elimination, me and my friends ended up only with LTC as the most viable replacement for the shitty system that BTC turned out to be.

Also this: http://www.reddit.com/r/litecoin/comments/1cssqr/the_math_why_litecoin_is_more_secure_than_bitcoin/
: Re: BitCoins
: namespace7 May 29, 2013, 06:14:22 PM
That's why I went for LTC. Most of the others will crash and burn, but these guys claim they are independent from the operations of BTC and the BTC peer network.

Actually out of the mass of altcoins that have cropped up, by process of elimination, me and my friends ended up only with LTC as the most viable replacement for the shitty system that BTC turned out to be.

Also this: http://www.reddit.com/r/litecoin/comments/1cssqr/the_math_why_litecoin_is_more_secure_than_bitcoin/ (http://www.reddit.com/r/litecoin/comments/1cssqr/the_math_why_litecoin_is_more_secure_than_bitcoin/)

Just look at the exchange charts of LTC and BTC over the last 3 months and you will see that at the moment, LTC is very related and tied to Bitcoin.
: Re: BitCoins
: Naer May 29, 2013, 07:10:29 PM
So the current situation is that mining only worth the time/money with hardware.

Choosing between LTC/BTC is still a question for me, but seeing that the BTC ATM are coming also, I think LTC will grow with BTC since it's a similar system.


: Re: BitCoins
: Mordred May 29, 2013, 07:43:27 PM
Just look at the exchange charts of LTC and BTC over the last 3 months and you will see that at the moment, LTC is very related and tied to Bitcoin.

It's related and tied to BitCoin within the market because it didn't manage to gain momentum yet. I see where you're going with this, but I was referring to them being separated more from a technical stand-point. They are still currencies, and all currencies of the world are somehow linked together.  ::)
: Re: BitCoins
: Chef June 20, 2013, 07:03:37 PM
Haha I was just trying to figure that question out last week. And in all fairness, it is an abstract concept that took me a solid day to figure out. So here goes with what I coukd figure out about them bubzuru

Bitcoins are a currency that is transferred virtually anonymously through complex mathematical algorithms called blocks. These blocks are super complex, and must be solved in order to allow future transactions. Bitcoin mining is the act of using your GPU to solve these equations, for which you are rewarded 50 bitcoins. This is also how bitcoins are added to make the available currency pool larger. These bitcoin.generations are severly reatricted however due to a number of factors.

First, they are capped at 21 million. After 21 million bitcoins are generated there will be no more
Second, every week an algorithm runs and adjusts the complexity of the blocks so that bitcoins are geberated at roughly the same rate that gold is mined. At this point it takes about 2 weeks to solve a block and only the person who solved it gets the coins. 

Also, I say virtually anonymous because anyone with no life can go back and look at blocks to trace transactions. However, it just aint worth their time cause of everything they would have to sort throufh. So it is possible, but 99% unlikely. Or thereabouts

So doing bitcoin mining on your own comp.just ain't worth the time tbh, however joining a bitcoin mining pool could be worth it. you'll have to check that out yourself. If I did a poor job explaining thia, ask for clarification and ill do what I can. Cahse I do think the hows and whys of bitcoins are quite confusing lol


Very nice response man. But, what is a bitcoin mining pool? And how do you join one? What sort of skills/specialties must you have?


Thanks
: Re: BitCoins
: vezzy June 20, 2013, 08:02:42 PM
Four letters: RTFM.
: Re: BitCoins
: lucid June 20, 2013, 08:17:32 PM

Very nice response man. But, what is a bitcoin mining pool? And how do you join one? What sort of skills/specialties must you have?


Thanks

Ok seriously. I just read all ten of your posts and most of them are a bunch of questions that you obviously didn't even bother to research for a second on your own, and the others are just unnecessary/silly statements. If you want to know about bitcoins, you will find more information than you can get from asking us by just googling bitcoins.

A question here and there is fine, but making a post every time a question comes to your head is not good. Clean your shit up and you'll do fine here.

: Re: BitCoins
: Chef June 20, 2013, 11:06:18 PM
Ok seriously. I just read all ten of your posts and most of them are a bunch of questions that you obviously didn't even bother to research for a second on your own, and the others are just unnecessary/silly statements. If you want to know about bitcoins, you will find more information than you can get from asking us by just googling bitcoins.

A question here and there is fine, but making a post every time a question comes to your head is not good. Clean your shit up and you'll do fine here.



I know I can easily Google most of my questions but I'm new to the community and want to be known for being willing to learn and help others.

Plus, I ask a lot of these questions to see how in depth this forum really goes, which honestly seems it goes pretty far. This is why I plan on sticking around.

Really you should work on your attitude.
: Re: BitCoins
: ande June 20, 2013, 11:30:07 PM
Four letters: RTFM.

Totally off-topic but: Oh man! Been a long time since I saw anyone say RTFM. Why dont we use that more often? Such a great thing to say.

(http://bojanberan.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/rtfm_featured.jpg)


I know I can easily Google most of my questions but I'm new to the community and want to be known for being willing to learn and help others.

Plus, I ask a lot of these questions to see how in depth this forum really goes, which honestly seems it goes pretty far. This is why I plan on sticking around.

Really you should work on your attitude.

I will speak a bit of pure truth here. I am not sure if I like you or dont like you. You seem like a decent guy but then I read one of your questions and I am not so sure anymore. But then I read another post of yours and like it. Maybe it is just because you are new and I don't know you very well yet, but you are confusing.

You look like an idiot with that avatar and the too-big quote in your profile field and some of your questions are way to short/simple/easy (do some research on your own as mentioned). However your writing is good and you seem to be of an mature mental age. So yeah. I am confused.

I would advice to just look around the boards to see how "deep" our forum really goes instead of trying to fish it out with questions. We are (most of us) more than willing to answer good questions. In fact, I love to answer complicated well-phrased questions that interests me.
: Re: BitCoins
: lucid June 21, 2013, 05:48:08 AM
Really you should work on your attitude.

ande pretty much said it but I will say this. First off, I'm not trying to fight with you it's rough for most new members starting out here so don't feel too bad I've definitely seen worse from others. On the other hand, it's the staff's job to 'moderate' what goes on in the forum, so if I feel someone needs a little guidance on how to behave in the forum then I have the right to do that. I don't need to work on my attitude. This is Evilzone. Not everyone is going to give you hugs and say nothing but nice things to you.

Totally off-topic but: Oh man! Been a long time since I saw anyone say RTFM. Why dont we use that more often? Such a great thing to say.

They still say it on Arch linux forums... alot.