What do you think about such cryptocurrencies as bitcoin?

[Medivh]

Lol that guy just joined the forum and he straight up started commenting about Bitcoins and cryptocurrencies? Damn, those crypto scammers really don't sleep. With hawks such as our mods, I don't think such individuals can fly under the radar .

 

[rbscebu]

Where many retail "investors" go wrong is they think in absolute dollar terms when they should be thinking in percentage terms. A $100 investment that grows to $150 ($50 profit), is exactly the same in percentage terms as a $20k investment that grows to $30k ($10k profit).

I read of many who wished they had got into crypto a decade ago so they could be rich(er) now. Who is to say that $5,000 invested into crypto now will not be worth $1M in 10 years time. That would be the same percentage return as the past 10 years. Not saying this will happen, just pointing out the differences in thinking.

I also feel that society has become much more risk (volatility) adverse over the past decades to where they expect their governments to protect them from their own stupidity.

 

[The Count of Merkur Cristo]

Radiowave:
It was bound to fail...a lot of people lost some 'serious' money.

Glad the Mrs. and I didn't 'get in on that action'.

“Stay away from it. It’s a mirage,...". Warren Buffet

 

[Fookistand]

Wouldn't swear to it, but think that blockchain is simply a way of maintaining data across multiple computers. Thus, in theory, everything is in the open and it becomes harder to alter. Think there was a case where the blockchain split and everything got shut down until it was fixed.

The security is from public key encryption. At the risk of taking coal to New Castle, public key encryption is based on the difficulty of determining prime numbers. The beauty of public key encryption is that you can share one key the public portion, use it encrypt the information, and use the other, secret key, to decrypt. No, you can't use the known public key to decrypt thanks to one-way mathematical functions (no, I do not have a good handle on that, but it sounds good, doesn't it). Note that it isn't impossible for a computer to break the key, but a good strong one would take to the heat death of the universe.

E-Commerce uses RSA public keys generated on the fly. This secures data between the user and the retailer. These are one-time keys that are tossed when the user logs off the site. I think, but again won't swear to it, that E-Commerce uses 256 bit keys now. With current tech, it might take longer than the universe has been around to crack.

Bitcoin uses 256 bit keys - I think. As far as us in the general public know, that's still secure. But if a mathematician developed a method of calculating all prime numbers other than by brute force, then all bets are off. The same if quantum computing becomes a thing, since that would be some serious paralleling of computational power.

BTW, if you've noticed, web sites are moving to encryption to preserve the exchange of user name and password between the user and the host computer. This is usually* indicated by https instead of http in the URL. B&B uses https.

*Just because it says https doesn't mean it's encrypted. Some web browsers warn of that now. Also look for the nice padlock symbol in most browsers that indicate it's encrypted. For those interested in the practical applications of cryptocurrency and e-commerce security, I recommend exploring the top crypto payment gateway. These gateways not only ensure secure transactions through advanced encryption methods but also streamline the process of accepting and processing cryptocurrency payments.

You’re absolutely right about the importance of public key encryption and its role in securing data. The system relies heavily on the mathematical difficulty of factoring large prime numbers, making it incredibly robust against brute force attacks with current technology.

 

[Quaznoid]

Never invest in something you don’t understand.

 

[Mojo88]

It reminds me of the dotcom bubble in the late 90s. We had just sold our home and the owner of the company I was working for was all in. He tried to convince me that I could triple my home profits with his “guy”. I declined as I didn’t understand how it could possibly be true. As it turned out the bubble burst and he lost significant money that could have helped the company. I see some renewed interest in crypto and bitcoin. I feel the exact same way about it as I first did. I don’t understand it and it has that way too good to be real feel.

 

[nortac]

I began to dabble in crypto early this year. Not enough to get hurt if it all goes south. It will be interesting to see what happens in the next year or so. Very volatile and speculative. Don't risk more than you can afford to lose. But the financial community is starting to take crypto more seriously. Time will tell.

 

[Doc4]

Never invest in something you don’t understand.