giving them any value at all is overvaluing them.

Crypto currency?

Like I always ask,if you had a car you needed to sell for $18,000 would you take three Bitcoins or would you demand a cashiers check before you signed the title over?

If I'm not buying something very, very illegal on the web, I see no purpose for bitcoins...

I also don't know why if bitcoin is such a great idea when so many people associated with it are trying to run major hustles and rip-offs....

If they use it for illegal activity which many have been charged with.

Edit - I just got an email from coinbase minutes after discussing this subject.

Exciting news Jonathan — Ethereum Classic (ETC) is now available on Coinbase.com and in the Coinbase app.

Be one of the first to buy, sell, or send our newest addition with Coinbase's secure, easy-to-use platform.

Who have JACKED prices when these "miners" came rushing in. Possibly part of the reason most system memory is still DOUBLE the price,or more from two years ago.

humans yet again surprise me. The next bubble....freeze dried unicorn horns.

Like a crappy stock these fools just keep watching it drop and drop just knowing a huge upward surge will happen anyday now.

In the 19th century.

“Who would ever need to go so fast”

It’s also not as simplistic as crypto-currency being just money.
There are a host of IT related issues in our new digital age that many crypto platforms attempt to address, some better than others.

In some cases, some are positioning themselves to address issues we don’t even know we have yet. There is nothing wrong with that. The list of innovations and research done on products we didn’t even know we needed at the time is a substantial list.

Not saying there are not scams out there and that as a technology it is a complicated and strange innovation but that doesn’t make it bad or a scam because of that.

Trying judging a little less and researching a little more.

Like, for example, "should I sell my Bitcoin when it drops under a penny, or should I double down?"

I don’t disagree that the bitcoin craze did the concept of crypto no favors.
As a platform, Bitcoin is trash and while it had its opportunity to innovate and expand on its concept, it choose to be just a profiteering pump and dump coin and created this air of sleaziness and attract a snake oil-like vibe into the industry.

It’s a technology in its infancy and some are coloring outside the lines, I get it.

There are valid technological uses for some of these platforms and there are true entrepreneurs and futurists that are laying the foundation for amazing possibilities but like any other industry or technology, Caveat emptor.

Haha "This chain is like reading about "horseless" buggies"

Exactly... glad someone stood up and said something. I'm no good at argument (the reasoning kind). People, including every comment before yours, don't really understand crypto at all. They see the craze and think it's the technology when the craze is just crazy people.

Tulips are still pretty flowers. They aren't inherently bad. A bunch of crazy people made buying them bad.

And anyone reading... if you strip away the coin nonsense, the people who are talking about using crypto technology to help with voting ... they're actually for real and it could be a legit way (assuming we make it through the midterms) to secure our voting in the future. It would essentially guarantee that you could vote, record that vote, have it validated by multiple computer systems across the country and then be able to LOOK up your vote both while in the booth and then forever (literally, as long as the voting system is continued to be used) see exactly your vote cast.

(I still think we need paper ballots too.. but this has the potential to be very secure compared to our current computerized voting systems...)

Something that would never even have been considered without cryptocurrency and bitcoin.

"It’s a technology in its infancy and some are coloring outside the lines, I get it..."

For example, secure electronic voting.

The more sophisticated blockchain technology becomes, the more sophisticated blockchain hacking becomes.

The most secure voting systems in the world haven't technologically improved since the invention of the ballpoint pen.

While I would never say anything is “hack proof” the weakness in any modern IT security model is the people, not the technology. I’ve been in IT for 25 years and by a huge margin it’s people getting hacked, not the technology.

The method for blockchain voting as a technology is bulletproof, far in away impossible to hack. You have to understand how it works to understand that it can’t be done in any realistic context.

Once you vote, it creates a block, there is no way to modify that block without it creating a difference in the record. It’s just not possible to change the data without changing the block. It’s not innocuous either. The record is compared and verified against every other block by each node, every time it’s used. Therefore it’s impossible to alter it after it’s created without every connection knowing it.
Once I vote, that vote is there forever and cannot be changed (as long as we have the ability to make electricity but if we lose that than we have bigger problems)
That is a very, very rough and simplistic explanation but hopefully it makes my point.

Like altering the code which creates the block.

But it’s inherently impossible to change it.

Unfortunately, one of the shortcomings of the technology is that it is not an easy thing to explain to people that do not have a pretty robust understanding of programming and IT Security/networking and so on. It’s a very complicated subject. There is no good one-for-one analogue in a non-IT context.

Think of it like this:
It’s a continuous, unbroken math equation that continually builds on itself with each new block (in this case vote). Each block of the equation has all the pieces of the equation of all the previous blocks that are validated and recorded to every other block as a new one is created. The entire thing is also recorded to a master ledger, that shows each and every new block (in this case vote) that ledger is completely separate and compared to the block each time a new block is added.

Meaning each block is unique and each block has all the parts of all the other parts of the chain. They all have to match.
Paper records can be lost, altered or just not counted. That is impossible with block chain voting. Plus that record exist forever and is each person’s voting record is accessible by them forever.

The biggest problem is that transactions take a long time: minutes.
Bitcoin purchases today take several minutes to clear. (Due to the proof of work approach and even though many transactions are batched.) until that’s finished, any bitcoin exchange can be rolled back.
That’s not acceptable for a currency.

Similar limitations can apply for blocking voting ideas.

Blockchain is a very creative idea, but it’s just another form of encryption algorithm. Blockchain can change the world in the same way public key encryption can change the world- as an application that is useful in some ways.

Nothing beats the transparency of a paper ballot.

Do you seriously want deeper levels of encryption for those who commit election fraud to hide behind?

Everybody understands paper ballots and how the system might be compromised, including what frauds to look our for, for example, stuffing ballot boxes, etc..

Very few people understand secure electronic transactions and the vulnerabilities of the software and hardware behind them.

For what it's worth, I think Bitcoin is a Ponzi-pyramid scheme, perhaps the greatest yet, and an absurd bubble. A specific number with peculiar mathematical properties isn't even anything you can plant in your garden like a tulip. At least a tulip is pretty.

Properly managed fiat currencies like U.S. Dollars or Euros represent debt that can be traced back to some origin, usually the government "printing" money or multiplied by reserve banking. Such currencies are stabilized by taxation, regulations, meticulous attention paid to the yields of government bonds, and the enforcement of a narrowly defined range of commercial contractual obligations.

Bitcoins are specific numbers calculated in the computers of the anonymous grifters who founded Bitcoin, true believers, criminals, and what-the-hell opportunists who figure they can game the system while it's hot and bail out when it's not.

Blockchain technologies have their uses, but voting isn't one.

Paper is far from 'hack' proof.

But yeah, crypto critics here don't understand the revolution going on... Ethereum especially... Smart contracts, side-chains, tokens...

Not to mention block chain tech for recording any permanent info you need to preserve, such as land records... Ownership of stocks and bonds, etc.

It’s not a computer or a piece of hardware, it hundreds of decentralized computers and networks.

Here is the explanation I post in #23:

Think of it like this:
It’s a continuous, unbroken math equation that continually builds on itself with each new block (in this case vote). Each block of the equation has all the pieces of the equation of all the previous blocks that are validated and recorded to every other block as a new one is created. The entire thing is also recorded to a master ledger, that shows each and every new block (in this case vote) that ledger is completely separate and compared to to every block each time a new block is added.

Meaning each block is unique and each block has all the parts of all the other parts of the chain. They all have to match.
Paper records can be lost, altered or just not counted. That is impossible with block chain voting. Plus that record exist forever and is each person’s voting record is accessible by them forever.

Blockchain has weaknesses. See subj.

It doesn’t change the fact that the new hash has to continue the string and cannot be altered. It’s not a computer or a piece of software.
The vulnerabilities are as they have always been, the people.
A Poorly secured private key can expose your data but not everyone else.
A theoretical Majority Attack hack vulnerability that is neither practical nor realistic in a large DSLT.
Untested source code, meaning you did not let it sit for public review on GitHub and make needed changes.
Again, The vulnerabilities are as they have always been, the people.
That risk is far more limited in scope than any existing voting method.
In real life, with tens of billions of dollars in crypto out there, exchanges have been hacked (unsecured endpoints outside of the block chain), individuals have been hacked(stolen private keys) but no one has hacked the DSLT (block chain) of a crypto-currency.

1. hostile intelligence service works out a majority attack
2. the system is too dang *slow* for currency use
3. MtGox gets hacked and you lose all your money


amongst others

So I’m not sure why you are. All I’ve done is attempt to explain what block chain is and how it applies to voting and how infinitely more secure and different it is than existing voting machines or paper ballots.

Second, this is a message board forum therefore I do my best to limit the amount I type as it is more likely to be read the shorter and more to the point i can make it. More importantly, as is my policy on Twitter, I’m not Google, I will drop links sometimes and some superficial research but if you want answers to specific questions, the internet is your friend. I’m not putting hours of typing and sourcing into a message board post just to try and prove a point that likely will be arbitrarily dismissed with superfluous nonsense based more on emotion than facts.

You imply that paper ballots have not fallen victim to being destroyed, ignored, forgotten or miscounted.
Every system has its pros and cons
Paper ballots are not wrong, they are just not ideal and limit accessibility to some sectors of society.
That said, a block chain, proper name for the technology is DSLT (Distributed Shared Ledger Technology), is lightyears more secure and accessible as a voting solution than anything used today. Because it isn’t simple or because people don’t easily understand it, does not make it wrong or bad. The list of things that people use everyday and don’t understand how it works, from their car radio to their computer, is a long and broad list.
They may not understand how it works but they do understand that it makes their lives safer, easier and more enjoyable.

Angrychair


I have to give you credit for showing such patience with some who really should just head over to Youtube and watch one of the many documentaries on blockchain..before saying things like 'the block code can be hacked' lol

There is a weakness as you mentioned its called a 51% attack .. and like you said not feasible..

VERY surprised to see so many Du'ers spouting nonsense on a subject they obviously know little about.

There must be a hundreds blockchain and crypto currency for dummies tutorials on youtube as well a many documentaries. It IS VERY CLEAR MANY HERE HAVE NOT DONE THEIR HOMEWORK.

This innovation is the biggest thing since the Internet.

Perfectly possible for a country to control enough of the voting parts to hijack the consensus algorithm. That’s a bigger concern for smaller blockchain applications.

Blockchain is just another form of proof-of-ownership encryption algorithm like public key cryptography. Asymmetric encryption was not as big as the internet and neither is blockchain. Be careful in blockchain markets: don’t get fleeced.

Nobody is advocating a Proof-of-work model for elections. There are other models that are far better suited for elections.

Crypto was being relentlessly pumped (pimped) by everyone who had undisclosed positions they bought themselves. They fool people with dreams of "getting rich" on "the next big thing." People fall for it, buy it up like crazy, then these very same hucksters cash out and walk away with a nice juicy profit. This is the same thing they did on the old PBS show "Wall Street Week with Louis Rukeyser" back in the day.

Crypto is "used" only in the underworld of drugs, child porn, ransomware infection ransoms which never get honored, and other similar nefarious activities. It's silly to think there's anything there worth investing in.

Bitcoin and crypto currencies and blockchain are interesting technologies and have some useful applications. But right now they are just way overhyped.

DU is not a haven for Crypto experts. Just saying...

Not even the basics

my first thought was that it's a scam.

The more I read about them, the more I was convinced it was a scam.

It seems kind of like a bunch of people pretending the big chocolate ball in Candy Crush is spendable in the real world.

At least physical currencies are.... physical.

It is true that all currency is fiat currency.

That’s why I said all currencies are fiet currencies. Even gold. These things have value because we agree they do. That’s all.

But my point was I can convert dollars in my account into physical cash if I wish to. Not so with cryptocurrencies.

A dollar's value is not solely based on belief or confidence.

There are a lot of folks standing around with big fat portfolios of nothing. They should have known better.

Bitcoins are computer based.

Am I missing something?