The Magical Bitcoins

Post Date

Sun, 03/02/2014 - 09:03

Categories

Tech News

The big financial news of the week was the collapse of the Bitcoin trading giant, Mt. Gox. This should not come as a real surprise, if you know anything about Bitcoins. I also don't know why anyone would even trade with a company that sounds like Dr. Suess invented it. The company lost millions of make believe coins that really don't exist other than in your computer. I have lost lots of emails, not to mention draft blogs that disappeared. I can't imagine feeling secure having my wealth in a virtual on line wallet.

Take for instance the guy who left his computer on all night, with his virtual wallet open, and while he was asleep dreaming about all of his Bitcoins a hacker snuck into his computer like a bear into an open refrigerator. He woke up and it was all gone. And it can't be traced, which is part of the attraction but which also means that once gone you can never get it back. Half a million dollars, poof!

Bitcoins are issued according to a complex mathematical formula. Some companies have sites where you can buy them. Other people mine for them for which you need very powerful computers. That is beyond me, I am still figuring out how to use my new iPhone.

But don't cast aside the Bitcoin yet. The Winklevoss twins -- remember them, the ones who really invented Facebook -- have just started a company that tracks the value of Bitcoins in dollars and are apparently big supporters of Bitcoins. Can two Harvard guys that handsome be wrong?

It all may be the wave of the future, but sounds too magical for me. Watch the magician, his fingers never leave his hands.

Comments

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Too good Double H.

- WrongWay

Corey Bearak

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I do not feel secure about the 'coins at all; on the other hands we read real stories of bank and credit accounts getting hacked. In addition, the concept of virtual money via paypass, others like apps and use of smartphones heads us more into a virtual money direction. Imagine the savings from less reduced need to print and mint cash and coin.

Vik Rajan

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One of my CPA clients wrote a great review of Bitcoins; it's due to be published in a financial magazine. Last week I read this; this exposes its underlying platform, protocols, that can have future economic impact... like the PC & Internet protocols in nascent form. Very interesting futurism

http://thenextweb.com/insider/2014/02/15/bitcoin-platform-currency/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheNextWeb+%28The+Next+Web+All+Stories%29

Re: safety & security & fraud....
Technically, encrypted currencies are safer transcations (with an automatic triple entry); they are thus called crypto-currencies - tho this has a sinister overtone, thus ironically, making it sound less safe.

Yet, it is unregulated & not adopted by major organizations (many corporations are more powerful than gov'ts). Even still, the dollar is and is obviously subject to fraud.

Moreover, theft over the Internet is much harder to do than a kid with a photocopier in the back (once you had him/her your Credit Card at the gas station, restaurant, etc.)

We're off the gold standard & conduct most of our transcations via credit card & online banking: How is this any different from an Internet-only currency? We just need greater adoption by people & orgs. Save the trees.

Erik Scheibe

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I posted the other day on Facebook about people complaining that a town in California has banned the American Flag on t-shirts on certain days. I said that if you choose to live in California, you bring this type of thing on yourself.

Likewise, if you see fit to somehow invest in virtual money, I have no sympathy if it gets eaten by virtual bears, or if you computer is destroyed in a virtual mine collapse, or if Catherine Zeta Jones and Sean Connery break in and virtually steal your virtual bitcoins...or, or, or, or...ah the hell with it.

Mitch Tobol