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According to the FAQ it takes about a year to generate 50 bitcoins, and at the current exchange rate they'll be worth about $12.50 USD. That's very little value

According to the FAQ it takes about a year to generate 50 bitcoins, and at the current exchange rate they'll be worth about $12.50 USD. That's very little value for a year's worth of computation, and they're still quite rare. As more are created the exchange rate is going to drop unless they become very widely accepted, but there probably won't be enough of them to support a large economy.

Groxx 16y ago
The idea behind it is that they're (nigh-) infinitely divisible. One bitcoin in existence, forever, would be enough; 21 million just makes the numbers nicer to look at. The ability to generate more offers the ability to make up for lost coins, and slightly mitigate deflation, and not much else.
- hugh3 16y ago
  The ability to generate more offers the ability to make up for lost coins, and slightly mitigate deflation, and not much else. It's also a key part of the marketing spiel -- selling people on the idea that they can get bitcoin-rich for free is a key part of getting people hooked on bitcoins. If I tell you "I've invented a new currency, want to buy some?" you'll tell me to sod off, but if I tell you "I've invented a new currency, you can mine it yourself as a background process" then you might be persuaded to give it a go. Pretty soon you've got some bitcoins of your own, and every incentive to start talking them up to everyone you meet.
  - kiba 16y ago
    Bitcoiners already downing everyone that think they can generate bitcoin for free. "Unless you have a GPU farm, go buy bitcoins instead" and variations thereof.
    - hugh3 16y ago
      And as a computational physicist I think the thing that probably annoys me most about all of this is the amount of CPU time which is going to be wasted before this particular bubble ends. I could be using those millions of CPU hours to actually do stuff, y'know.
      - cypherpunks01 16y ago
        Agreed - it would be really great to be able to have a currency that gets issued to the solver of protein folding problems or something, but unfortunately I don't think those solutions have as nice mathematical properties as spinning and computing SHA hashes all day.. : )
      - vessenes 16y ago
        I think the BitCoin community would be interested if you could combine folding@home, say with BTC. It seems possible to me, but of course, you'd need to be able to verify the work quickly. I agree it would be nice to do something useful with the GPU/CPU time.
      - iwwr 16y ago
        The total ammount of BTC is fixed and so at some point it won't be worth it to allocate any more computing resources to it. Even right now, I doubt you can just grab a high end GPU and get cranking for a profit, unless you manage to steal electricity or steal access into a computer you don't own.

Groxx 16y ago

The idea behind it is that they're (nigh-) infinitely divisible. One bitcoin in existence, forever, would be enough; 21 million just makes the numbers nicer to look at. The ability to generate more offers the ability to make up for lost coins, and slightly mitigate deflation, and not much else.

hugh3 16y ago
The ability to generate more offers the ability to make up for lost coins, and slightly mitigate deflation, and not much else. It's also a key part of the marketing spiel -- selling people on the idea that they can get bitcoin-rich for free is a key part of getting people hooked on bitcoins. If I tell you "I've invented a new currency, want to buy some?" you'll tell me to sod off, but if I tell you "I've invented a new currency, you can mine it yourself as a background process" then you might be persuaded to give it a go. Pretty soon you've got some bitcoins of your own, and every incentive to start talking them up to everyone you meet.
- kiba 16y ago
  Bitcoiners already downing everyone that think they can generate bitcoin for free. "Unless you have a GPU farm, go buy bitcoins instead" and variations thereof.
  - hugh3 16y ago
    And as a computational physicist I think the thing that probably annoys me most about all of this is the amount of CPU time which is going to be wasted before this particular bubble ends. I could be using those millions of CPU hours to actually do stuff, y'know.
    - cypherpunks01 16y ago
      Agreed - it would be really great to be able to have a currency that gets issued to the solver of protein folding problems or something, but unfortunately I don't think those solutions have as nice mathematical properties as spinning and computing SHA hashes all day.. : )
    - vessenes 16y ago
      I think the BitCoin community would be interested if you could combine folding@home, say with BTC. It seems possible to me, but of course, you'd need to be able to verify the work quickly. I agree it would be nice to do something useful with the GPU/CPU time.
    - iwwr 16y ago
      The total ammount of BTC is fixed and so at some point it won't be worth it to allocate any more computing resources to it. Even right now, I doubt you can just grab a high end GPU and get cranking for a profit, unless you manage to steal electricity or steal access into a computer you don't own.