Arguing with one of my other IT friends about bitcoin...

[tpmeredith]

Be prepared for reading a statement full of fail. I'm an IT person as well as my friend here who sells servers every day. He has willingly remained ignorant about bitcoin and he made a post on facebook today to "educate his friends about bitcoin". Later in the post he comments how if he had 2 Xeon E5's, 128gb ram, and SSD's he could "Deplete the whole networks 21million coins within 60 hours".

"Wanted to educate some people real quick on a term tossed around named; BitCoin. This term was derived in 2008 when trading of Magic the Gather cards, comics and baseball cards were at a low. As many of you knwo the primary place to trade or get updates on your bit coins is:
https://mtgox.com/
If any of you remember this site was the primary site for Magic the Gathering Online Exchange. A place to trade among users; Any gamer/collector would remember this.
Using a tool called the internet time machine you can enter this site into the search:
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.mtgox.com
Now the cool thing is that all the records for the Magic the Gathering have been requested for delete[Click removed files to see others].
Now the cool thing is even the last record in 2007 shows the original Magic the Gathering site  Now this site was created for online trading. They created MTGCoins.

They called the MTGO the virtual economy to reserve the game. One year later the infamous term BitCoin appeared for the MTGO community. Within three months because of viral spread through League of Legends and other platforms they dropped the gamer appeal to move to only a virtual economy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic:_The_Gathering_Online

If anyone remembers the days of selling your 'rare' Diablo items on eBay this was how BitCoin was formed.
Get swept away with this viral platform; great. yet, with any internet sensation it will have its fizzle point. The only people who are benefiting are the Japanese as they actually run all trades of BitCoins.

While the company is 100% private that owners the 'Exchange and creation of BitCoins'
http://imfed.org/ratings/mt-gox-tibanne-co-ltd/
[Created in 2009? The same company owned the Magic the Gathering Site as well]

Things to consider when trying to sell or trade is that your assets can accounts can be frozen by the government. As since the Tokyo based company does not consider a BitCoin currency but a virtual economy.
http://www.marketplace.org/topics/tech/bitcoin-blow-us-government-freezes-funds-trade-digital-currency

So all I say to people who are investing time in this ultiamte ponzi scheme, remember that your computer is just an a node in the larger network of data.
Think... create a small hadoop cluster with Intel 320s, dual 2667s and 128gb of ram... you would deplete the BitCoin 21m coins in the matter of hours.
The block rate is so small and being you could crunch millions of blocks in a second, that rate would literally be over 8000 coins a minute.
http://everythinginthesky.com/post/5554559874/bitcoin-p2p-currency-the-most-dangerous-project-weve

Yet if there was true value in such a currency why would it be so easy to deplete the coins?"

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[Mylon]

ROFLMAO!!!!

Thank you for making my day!

Go watch: www.weusecoins.com

After that go read: www.bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

After that, if you have the skills www.github.com/bitcoin for some code diving.

The system is so setup, that what your friend is suggesting is impossible. One of the very few ways to disrupt the system is through a 51% attack. Currently you would need the raw computing power of Google, in order to pull that off. And a few months from now with all the ASICs coming out... Even Google won't be able to pull it off anymore, and you need your own chip foundry to do so.

[Mylon]

As for the value of Bitcoin.
- For merchants and consumers, lower txnfees
- For merchants, no chargebacks
- For consumers, nobody able to stop you from spending your money. (your bitcoin addresses cannot be frozen)
- Instantly send money across the world. (international wire-transfers take at least 2 business days)
- No possibility to create new money out of thin air (like the banks are doing now) (see the white paper (pdf) for more details)

And beyond that, the market will decide what its worth (currently around $120 per bitcoin)

[aigeezer]

It's interesting that he tries to demonize BTC by trying to demonize Gox through telling us things we already know (Magic the Gathering Online Xchange being one teensy hint). Does he not realize that the BTC community itself is generally uncomfortable with Gox?

He's trying... very trying.

But why? Why is he on this noble crusade to bash BTC? You know the guy - what's he up to?
 

[Maged]

I hate to tell you this, but your IT friend is just trolling you  

[ex-trader]

As for the value of Bitcoin.
- For merchants and consumers, lower txnfees
- For merchants, no chargebacks
- For consumers, nobody able to stop you from spending your money. (your bitcoin addresses cannot be frozen)
- Instantly send money across the world. (international wire-transfers take at least 2 business days)
- No possibility to create new money out of thin air (like the banks are doing now) (see the white paper (pdf) for more details)

And beyond that, the market will decide what its worth (currently around $120 per bitcoin)

You might want to add some balance to that:

Downsides:

Loads of proven scams and thefts of BTC with no-one to complain to or any way of seeking redress.
Entire BTC universe was created and is being modified by a tiny unelected unaccountable body.
Small savings for merchants (I pay around 2% on Visa/MC in my businesses and BTC requires some fees)
No chargebacks mean I will never personally risk buying anything using BTC vs using a Visa/MCard/Amex - no price difference as a buyer, but I lose all protectionsagainst fraud or bad goods.
Price fluctuations vs Fiat mean unless you exist only in a BTC world the risk on fluctuations through the course of a transaction vastly exceeds the benefit of a small cost-saving in most cases.

Don't forget that almost all flows of BTC to date have been either speculative or gambling (SD is >50% of all BTC spend in history).

[TippingPoint]

This whole story is very hard to believe.  Especially the claim that you have friends.

[aigeezer]

It's interesting that he tries to demonize BTC by trying to demonize Gox through telling us things we already know (Magic the Gathering Online Xchange being one teensy hint). Does he not realize that the BTC community itself is generally uncomfortable with Gox?

He's trying... very trying.

But why? Why is he on this noble crusade to bash BTC? You know the guy - what's he up to?
 

I dunno, he made up his mind that its a ponzi scheme and does not want to admit the possibility of him being wrong.

Thanks. Another IT guy offered a similar "Ponzi" talking point in a dirtspace conversation a couple of weeks ago. I remember being startled and wondering where the meme was coming from. I still haven't found a source, so probably it's just coincidence. Please post though if you find your friend is using some specific source of "Ponzi" talking points.

As for your friend - any chance he tried daytrading BTC as a "game" and got clobbered when the price fell in April? Is it a "sour grapes" thing of some kind? People usually don't get passionate about stuff unless they have/had something at stake. His intensity seems too strong for a casual observer.

[aigeezer]

This whole story is very hard to believe.  Especially the claim that you have friends.

Trolling a suspected troll is probably not optimal, unless you're tag-team trolling of course.

Which begs the question - why am I replying to this?

I wondered about the "I have this friend" intro also, but decided to give the benefit of the doubt.

This thread is both a troll-bait classic and at the same time a refreshing gambit for a newbie.

My virtual popcorn is in hand.

[bitfair]

I hate to tell you this, but your IT friend is just trolling you  

Nah I was actually trolling him yesterday and he got mad and made this entire post. Yesterday's conversation was when he let loose his idea that the entire BTC network is data mining and selling information to marketing firms. I was kindve egging him on yesterday so he got mad and made this post today.

There is a type of person (I know many of this type, don't know why) that (1) is a complete idiot, (2) is unwilling to learn anything from others, and (3) will insist he is right about everything all the time - even when presented with clear evidence that he is not.

There are surprisingly many of this type around, and in my experience a lot of them are actually in IT. There is probably some kind of psychological profile for this, but I digress. It can be frustrating to be around this type of person, but it makes for a hell of a wind-up!

[cbeast]

If IT folks would spend half as much of their time learning about Bitcoin as trashing it, they would have a better understanding. Posts like these just confirm my opinion that most IT (present company excepted) have tunnel-vision and limited intelligence.

[netzwerg]

Loads of proven scams and thefts of BTC with no-one to complain to or any way of seeking redress.

This one is a lie. You can take them to court if you wish and prove your case.
Scams happen all over the internet, you need to be vigilant.

Entire BTC universe was created and is being modified by a tiny unelected unaccountable body.

What universe? Bitcoin is just a protocol.

Small savings for merchants (I pay around 2% on Visa/MC in my businesses and BTC requires some fees)

People generally don't hand over their card details to smaller merchants on the internet (eBay seller for eg). PayPal charges 3.9% + $0.30 for each transaction and eBay charges up to another 10%. If you sell someone something for a dollar on ebay, you will receive $0.66 into your PayPal account + owe eBay around $0.10, so you'll get half your money. With BTC you'll get the entire dollar, but the buyer might have to pay a tiny fee.

No chargebacks mean I will never personally risk buying anything using BTC vs using a Visa/MCard/Amex - no price difference as a buyer, but I lose all protectionsagainst fraud or bad goods.

You don't have to risk anything if you use a 2 of 3 escrow payment.

Price fluctuations vs Fiat mean unless you exist only in a BTC world the risk on fluctuations through the course of a transaction vastly exceeds the benefit of a small cost-saving in most cases.

The reason for this is MtGox. To put it simply, they suck.

You need to give it time, back in the early days people would have to spread their BTC buying over the course of weeks as the exchanges didn't have the liquidity and they would loose too much due to slippage.

Once we have properly designed currency exchanges with decent volume & liquidity this will no longer be an issue.

Don't forget that almost all flows of BTC to date have been either speculative or gambling

What about Silk Road? What about BitMit? What about BitcoinStore? What about namecheap? What about Wordpress? What about 4chan? What about Reddit?

(SD is >50% of all BTC spend in history).

Not of all spends, but of all transactions as SDice makes 2 transactions for every single bet. And 90% of SDice transaction are automated plays by bots.

[J35st3r]

Think... create a small hadoop cluster with Intel 320s, dual 2667s and 128gb of ram... you would deplete the BitCoin 21m coins in the matter of hours.
The block rate is so small and being you could crunch millions of blocks in a second, that rate would literally be over 8000 coins a minute.

I wouldn't call that a small cluster. The current nethash rate is what, around to 100TH/s mark (roughly speaking), giving 25 coiins every 600 seconds. So for 8000 coins per second you'd need 19 ExaHash/sec I reckon. Some cluster that. A million of the #1 supercomputer might just about do it. And anyway, once 2016 blocks (50400 coins) are mined the difficulty adjusts and the rate is back to 10 coins a minute one block every 10 minutes (all from that one HyperCluster, so yes bitcoin is doomed by the >>51% monopoly, but not coin exhausion?)

Am I right? Just a very recently ex-noob looking for enlightenment.

[Edit] Oops, so I get my 8000 coins per minute mixed up with per second. but its still a thousand hypercomputer cluster, yes? And  no I didn't work out how many hashes a 20 PetaFlop machine can actually do, so its all a bit of a guess, but somewhere in the ballpark? Perhaps I should quit the math after all  

[Gabi]

[Elwar]

He posted a full article's length of information on Facebook? Sure.

I agree with the sentiment that you are just trying to make it look like you have a friend.

[Jace]

[Trongersoll]

Heh, I was a Software Engineer for 25 years. I've had any number of arguements/discussions with our IT types. They forget that just because they run the department that administers our computers, it doesn't make them Computer Scientists or Engineers. Don't get me wrong, some do know their stuff and can be miracle workers, but others...

[ThatDGuy]

This one has served me well in the time I've spent learning about BTC:

I know that I know nothing

[fourd00rgtz]

He posted a full article's length of information on Facebook? Sure.

I agree with the sentiment that you are just trying to make it look like you have a friend.

Way to leave the address bar in that pic.


So now the trolls are gonna be after https://www.facebook.com/chris.sullivan.33821
and you've given yourself up as https://www.facebook.com/tpmeredith

-Bitcoin, only as anonymous as you make it

[chriswilmer]

These are the sorts of statements that give one confidence that the price of bitcoin has a lot of room to go up.
(apologies in advance if you think this post belongs in the speculation thread...)