What the Heck Is Bitcoin? Here’s Everything You Need to Know

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The problem with writing about Bitcoin is that the subject has become so emotional. The very name inspires triumph, greed, resentment, or fury.

Triumph from those handful of hodlers yes, really who are watching the destiny they long foretold actually come true before their eyes. Greed from those hundreds of thousands of newbies who just bought in.

Those two groups are, of course, bitcoin believers. As someone enmeshed in the outskirts of the San Francisco hacker scene I know more than a few of those. And fury from those for whom Bitcoin represents tech bros bitcoin what the heck is it and how does it work fiddling with some kind of bullshit libertarian Internet money while all around us Rome is burning:. Fuck your block chain Fuck your crypto currency Fuck your bitcoin what the heck is it and how does it work techno utopia built out of my burning world https: Those people are, to understate, bitcoin skeptics.

But wait, it gets worse! The bad faith, and generally correct assumption of bad faith, among bitcoin conversationalists on Reddit is really something even for Reddit. Even many of the cryptorati are, shall we say, not always exactly redolent of good faith. Even their most vicious critic would have to admit that they have had a truly extraordinary run over the last eight years. A good question to ask is: Is permissionless programmable money a fad which will go away?

Programmable money is too useful for people to give up on entirely, and permissionless money would now be very, very difficult to ban. Transactions can be fully anonymous, and while you could ban exchanges, exchanges are not actually necessary any more. Is Bitcoin going to become the dominant global currency for daily transactions? Will financial institutions make more and more use of blockchains and programmable money? To pick a single very simple example: Will financial institutions around the world wind up using Bitcoin as the global settlement currency?

Major financial institutions are quite comfortable with requiring permission; in fact they very much prefer it. Will Bitcoin be replaced by a better cryptocurrency?

This, if you ask me, is the most interesting question here, the one whose answer is not obvious. More chains are coming online every month. Is it really so unlikely that Bitcoin will be supplanted? First, Bitcoin is a complete, complex, highly engineered cryptographic, economic, and software system and network, now thoroughly battle- and time-tested, with enormous mindshare and a thriving ecosystem. Betting on some new idea with a whitepaper is a bit like deciding that a dude folding paper airplanes for kids will one day beat Boeing; maybe, but awfully unlikely.

Second, thanks to the immense — horrifyingly immense — number of watts poured into it by miners every hour, it is, by far, the scarcest of all our digital scarcities. That second point is a little wobbly, though. Yes, the estimate that made the rounds recently bitcoin what the heck is it and how does it work probably wildly off, but as its valuation grows, its power consumption will grow too, as miners are more and more incentivized. Second, even if Bitcoin succeeds, as Rusty Russell points out, people will want to change it e.

So what are we left with? Does that mean its current valuation is justified in the long term? I can give you a very firm answer for that: Disclosure, since it seems requisite: I mostly avoid any financial interest, implicit or explicit, long or short, in any cryptocurrency, so that I can write about them sans bias.

I do bitcoin what the heck is it and how does it work precisely one bitcoin, though, which I purchased a couple of years ago because I felt silly not owning any while I was advising a since defunct Bitcoin-based company. And fury from those for whom Bitcoin represents tech bros busy fiddling with some kind of bullshit libertarian Internet money while all around us Rome is burning:

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Coinye , formerly Coinye West , is an abandoned [1] [2] [3] scrypt -based cryptocurrency that became embroiled in a trademark infringement lawsuit for using the likeness of American hip hop artist Kanye West as its mascot , despite West having no affiliation with the project.

Coinye was originally slated for release on January 11, , but legal pressure prompted David P. On January 6, , Kanye West's lawyers sent the development team a cease and desist order on the basis that the then-unreleased currency constituted trademark infringement, unfair competition, cyberpiracy and dilution. On January 14, , a representative of Coinye announced on Reddit that "the developers basically dumped all their coins on the one exchange and left the scene.

Coinye has been called "defunct" by numerous publications. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved 19 June Retrieved 23 October Cryptocurrency gets hip with Kanye-inspired 'Coinye West ' ". Archived from the original on The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 14 January Archived from the original on 15 January Retrieved 17 January Retrieved 6 April Retrieved 3 June Coinye is back [infographic]". Retrieved 15 February Ethereum Ethereum Classic KodakCoin. Dogecoin Gulden Litecoin PotCoin.

Dash Decred Primecoin Auroracoin. Proof-of-authority Proof-of-space Proof-of-stake Proof-of-work system. Anonymous Internet banking Bitcoin network Complementary currency Crypto-anarchism Cryptocurrency exchange Digital currency Double-spending Electronic money Initial coin offering Airdrop Virtual currency. Retrieved from " https: CS1 Dutch-language sources nl Use dmy dates from June All articles with vague or ambiguous time Vague or ambiguous time from January Views Read Edit View history.

Languages Bahasa Indonesia Edit links. This page was last edited on 5 May , at By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Limited release, production rate before this limit re-evaluated with the production of every block at a rate of approximately 1 block per 90 seconds based on the difficulty with which COINYEs are produced, eventually leading up to a final total of ,,, coins.