They will collect physical bitcoins.

1&2) There is a special transaction in each block called the "coinbase" transaction. This transaction creates new bitcoins and sends them to an address belonging to the miner (or the pool). The miner (or the pool) creates this transaction and adds it to a block before hashing it.

3) The problem that is solved is this: Given a block of transactions, find a number such that the double SHA-256 hash of a summary of the transactions along with the number results in a value that is less than the target. The target is determined by the difficulty.

4) The difficulty (and thus the target) is recomputed every 2016 blocks. The new difficulty is derived by a simple formula based on the old difficulty and the average rate at which the last 2016 blocks have been added. If the average time for a block was less than 10 minutes, then the difficulty is increased. If the average time was more than 10 minutes, then the difficulty is decreased. Each miner computes the difficulty (and the target) for themself, and since every miner uses the same values, they get the same results. Cheaters are rejected.

5) Yes. By design, the only known way to find a number that solves the problem is brute force guessing.

220000 satoshis is 0.00220000 BTC, and it is worth about about $0.50. So, if you can't recover it, then at least you haven't lost much.

The value of a bitcoin is different for each and every person, so saying that the price of a bitcoin doesn't represent its value is stating the obvious. The difference between price and value is that price is objective and value is subjective.

I'm curious why there are so many Satoshi worship threads. If there were a sub-forum devoted to Satoshi, how much activity would it see?

I would pay up to 15.44243457 BTC.

There are a few. This is probably the most well-known: https://coinapult.com/locks/info

The Reinhart and Rogoff paper was initially very influential, but the results were later found to be flawed due to errors in their spreadsheet. Are you citing the original results or the corrected results?

I want to point out that nowhere in the article is Gavin quoted saying they they are a "disgrace to the crypto industry".

Actually it is an S-curve. The difficulty did not rise for the first year, so average confirmation times were much higher than 10 minutes and bitcoins were being created at a reduced rate. There was a slow release for the first year.

The difficulty adjusts every 2016 blocks regardless how many miners are mining. The time it takes to mine 2016 blocks is about 2 weeks and does not depend on how many miners are mining*.


The time it takes to confirm a transaction does not depend on the number of miners or the network hash rate*. The hash rate today is 10000 times the hash rate two years ago, yet transactions are still confirmed in about 10 minutes.


* Every 2016 blocks (about 2 weeks) the average confirmation time is adjusted to 10 minutes. During a 2 week period, if mining increases, then confirmation times are shorter by the relative increase in hash rate, and if mining decreases, then the confirmation times increase by the relative decrease in hash rate. For example, a 10% change in hash rate means confirmation times change by 10%. This lasts only until the end of the 2016 block period when the average confirmation time is adjusted to be 10 minutes again.

Purse.io: A company that matches bitcoin buyers with people that want to buy stuff from Amazon with BTC at a discount. Purse.io is legitimate, though some of the bitcoin buyers may not be. I use purse.io a lot and I have never had a problem, yet.

Amazon4u: He seems reliable, but take note that he appears to have several sockpuppet accounts posting here claiming to send him $1000's with no escrow in order to make real people feel comfortable doing the same thing. He has never divulged how he can buy $2000 gift cards at huge discounts, possibly because he doesn't want people to compete with him or go around him, or because he is obtaining them illegally.

A person that calls Bitcoin a Ponzi scheme either doesn't know anything about Bitcoin or doesn't even know what a Ponzi scheme is, or both.


Nothing in that quote applies to Bitcoin.

Bitcoin is not fraudulent. It is 100% transparent.
Bitcoin has no operator.
Bitcoin does not earn a profit and it pays no returns.

Utoken is not a cryptocurrency.

In short, no. Something that has no utility ultimately has no value, and something with no value cannot be a "store of value".

Bitcoin's utility as a medium of exchange gives it value, so it can be a "store of value".

Gold has some utility as a component of jewelry and some industrial uses. In the past, it had utility as a medium of exchange, but not as much now. Its utility is what gives it its value and the ability to be a "store of value". In my opinion, its current value is overblown because its utility as a medium of exchange is so much less now. Without that utility, its current value cannot be supported in the long run.

The Ledger wallet comes with a lanyard and a key ring and other various ways to attach it to something. I attached it to the security card (after punching a hole in the card). I don't think there is a problem with losing it.

I like the Ledger wallet. The security card is a little inconvenient, but it is cheaper than the Trezor. Also, shipping cost is high so you might want to buy several at the same time with some friends.

The video shows someone assembling coins with their bare hands. Those coins are going to have fingerprints all over them.

Keep in mind that utoken is not a cryptocurrency and it is completely unrelated to Bitcoin.

I was banned for that reason. Keep in mind that high-volume activity is apparently only a few thousand dollars in a month.

"pillar of the community"? Are you sure about that? Coinbase is tracking your bitcoins and will ban you if you spend them on something that they don't approve of.