Um, no I wouldn't think so, because cryptography is the mainstay of the whole bitcoin system.

When the P=NP puzzle is solved or when quantum computing reduces P to NP, then basically bitcoin will become worthless. It's a main reason why so many of my mathematician and computer science friends won't invest in bitcoin.

That's why so many white hat hackers are stating that passwords, encrypting, hashing and salting are going to be dead in the future.

You need to earn 0.0001 BTC or 0.1 mBTC or 100 uBTC to get 5 cents per minute, otherwise you are just wasting electricity and your computer components are dying too. Even then most people would rather signup for "get paid to click" websites, cashout in payza, paypal or another of the various wallets and then convert to bitcoin.

A modern computer + monitor uses around 200 watts an hour. That's just for a basic one, if you have a graphics card and other features, well you are looking at much much more. Multiply it up to get 1000 watts = 1 kw, then find how much a kwh costs. Example: Here in Australia it costs around $0.50 a kwh during peak periods. It costs around $0.10 just to keep my computer running per hour...

Freeco.in basically gives away a quarter of a cent each time you visit. So it's worth thinking about whether it is worthwhile or not. For most people it probably isn't unless they are getting free power or are bludging at work. Once I had a friend tell me that he was getting free energy from your family, well that's even more deluded because any money that goes to paying bills is probably less of an inheritance for him in the future.

Remember it's a lot of clicks before your computer eventually fries itself and may end up being pointless. Most computers would last roughly 5 years and cost $500 for basic builds. So you would have to earn $100 a year by clicking, which is no doubt impossible. A year of clicking Get Paid To ads barely pays for a month of ADSL. I should know, I tried it as a kid! So, basically every click needs to be around 5 cents before it becomes worthwhile and that won't even pay for your broadband (so you really need to be using $1 a month dialup or something to breakeven). Either way, we will always have illogical people that will do it for the novelty.

In short, probably something like what rellix has said. lol.

No, because they provide liquidity as well as exacerbating bubbles and busts.

As long as you aren't speculating, the extra liquidity is good for us using it as a temporary exchange medium..

*Bows down to Bobby Lee*

China is about keeping things cheap.

I mean no one likes to get a yuan that is all dirty, but they have bank cards for this. Furthermore, you won't be able to use bitcoins at the smaller places where you are likely to get a dirty yuan note. Those smaller shops won't be able to afford bitcoin terminals or to run a computer 24/7 without the risk of someone running off with their laptop. Theft is common...

I've been to China, and those dirty notes, well you don't know where they have been. My western tour group made fun of the fact that it may have been used as toilet paper as it is a luxury in China's public toilets. So my opinion is that the uptake in China will be severely limited even without government intervention. If the government intervenes, we can only guess what disaster awaits.

Either way, I trust Bobby Lee's judgment.

BTCubbles

I think I need to go to sleep. So many past memories being brought up today...

It's actually called Puzzle Bobble. Although, I do also remember playing Bubble Bobble where your bubbles eat the monsters.

At least some of these memories are pleasant rather than my past memories of money vanishing.

Hear, Hear. +1

For History. For Liberty Dollars. For E-Gold. For Liberty Reserve. For Stormpay. And Much Much More.

The problem is a takedown is coming sooner rather than later.

The CIA has already had a chat with one of the developers... It's a fact.

The bitcoin infrastructure is vulnerable to an attack. It's centralised.

I read on another website that the government can confiscate the domain, mess with the dns servers, shutdown the hard coded nodes. You won't be able to rollout new updates because they have the main website. Note: All this infrastructure is located in the United States. I'll try find the site, but it's a really popular forum. It's as easy as shutting down a botnet. They will destroy confidence. Furthermore, the wealthy elites don't have their money in bitcoin. Warren Buffet, George Soros, and other billionaires aren't moving their money into bitcoin. Even a small guy like Peter Schiff says it's stupid.

Furthermore, no wealth is destroyed if bitcoin disappears, because it never existed. Value is only transferred when a transaction against fiat or another commodity takes place. You can't argue that it will destroy value if it never existed. There is still the same amount of USD out there in the market. It's like the stockmarket, you gambled, you played, you lost. A Zero Sum Game.

Why any anti-government person would risk all their life savings in bitcoin is beyond comprehension. Even Alex Jones says to tread cautiously.

That's why bitcoin should only be used as a temporary medium of exchange. It might pay to use one of the altcoins instead as a result of this. Which really leaves bitcoin without it's clothes.

This brings back old memories of being scammed on an e-gold transaction.

Surprisingly, soon after the United States government stepped in and shutdown e-gold. The thieves I guess wouldn't have used their real name and thus it would have been forfeited under the money laundering rules.

I haven't invested in any digital currencies ever since.

Do you still need to give identification if you are trading LTC for BTC on the BTC-E exchange?

It seems counter intuitive that they advertise as "instant deposit/withdrawal".

All these exchange fees and other transactional costs are basically keeping me away from putting any considering savings amount into BTC.