5 ms·
Poll: How many Bitcoins do you have?
Given the steady stream of Bitcoin stories being posted here (guilty!), I'm interested to know whether the HN crowd has literally bought in or if it's just a technically interesting topic.
What's your involvement, in order of decreasing BTC support?
- vittore 14y agoYeah, I'm really interested if anyone who used to have like 10k bitcoins actually managed to sell it with rate more than 100$/btc
- ashray 14y ago10k bitcoins would be a very large amount at the current price of bitcoins. However, today someone sold around $100k worth of bitcoins and the price stayed steady.. of course 100k isn't much but right now it's a significant portion of the bitcoin economy.
- gst 14y agoThe #bitcoin IRC channel on freenode has a bot command/script that tells you how you will influence the total price if you sell a given amount of coins.
- subway 14y agoI've been kicking myself lately. I toyed with Bitcoin pretty early on and had a wallet containing roughly 200 BTC. I'm pretty sure that wallet was wiped just before turning in the work owned machine it sat on.
- mrweasel 14y agoInteresting, does that mean that those Bitcoins are lost forever? Regular currency, coin and bills, are replaced at a steady pace. If Bitcoins are not replaced when lost, then it would be possible to lose all Bitcoins a some point, or am I wrong? The idea is that there can only be 21 million Bitcoins, or something like that, but in the end there could be a lot less because they are lost.
- DiabloD3 14y agoYes, gone forever.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- chm 14y agoYes, they are lost. There are thus less bitcoins in circulation, and so their value goes up (it's deflationary).
- sschueller 14y agoSo eventually we will see someone try the 'Goldfinger' plot to wipe a large chunk of coins in order to increase the value of their holdings.
- mrweasel 14y agoBut you could then, worst case scenario, lose all Bitcoins in existence. Seems like an unfortunate feature in currency.
- anu_gupta 14y agoOver a sufficiently large timescale, I think is an inevitable scenario. However, I have no idea whether that large timescale is measured in decades, centuries or millennia. If it's the latter, then it's probably not a huge problem.
- Shish2k 14y agoAs long as a single bitcoin exists, there'll still be more fractional bitcoins available to divide among people than there are US cents* * may not be precisely true, but it's something along those lines.
- fr0sty 14y agoThis is off by at least three orders of magnitude. 1BTC = 10M satoshi. 2012 US Penny Production = ~6B 6bn/10M = 600 Total number of us pennies made in the last 10 years tops 43B which pushes the difference from 600x to 4300x
- Sprint 14y agoIf you took another turn on the 14th June of 1996 you might have found a briefcase full of money. ;) Bitcoin is gambling to me, it is pure speculation. Don't drop a tear for that. In general society would be better without such schemes.
- ramblerman 14y ago> society would be better without such schemes. This is still Hacker news right? crypto currency could be one of the most exciting things to come out of this decade.
- Sprint 14y agoTechnically absolutely yes, but morally and ethically I find the bitcoin scheme utterly disgusting.
- Fuzzwah 14y agoCould you elaborate?
- th3doubl3d 14y agoYes, PLEASE elaborate.
- Eleopteryx 14y agoLife is a gamble. Hide in the house or accept that you might fall off the bike and scrape your knees once in a while.
- VMG 14y agoSaid the guy on the venture capitalist's news site.
- mdelias 14y agoYou should add your loss to this list if you haven't already: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=7253.0 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=7253.0
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- base698 14y agoAt my peak I had 150. I'd gotten rid of 90% before it hit $40.
- verroq 14y agoBefore everyone gets too excited about trading bitcoins. This quote from my father always had an impact on me - "Don't ever think making money is easy". Trading now is about as high risk as it gets.
- freework 14y ago> Trading now is about as high risk as it gets That exactly what I would have said back in January 2013 when it was at around $34.
- rm999 14y agoI don't understand the point of the '0-1' option because it completely overlaps with other options. But it's one of the most popular choices so far with 17 votes.
- jspiros 14y agoYou can own partial BTC, so 0-1 really means >0 && <1.
- jeffplang 14y agoThink of it like: 0 < your bitcoins <= 1
- samworm 14y agoI currently hold 0.02429599. Does that answer your question?
- rm999 14y agoYep, thanks. I clearly don't know much about bitcoins :| In retrospect that makes a lot of sense with bitcoins going for ~200 USD each.
- fr0sty 14y agoIt is the non-committal answer. the other '0' options have an attached attitude (interested, not interested, scam) and I people are choosing "other". Also, you can own a fraction of a coin so 0-1 does not overlap completely with 1-9.
- crayola 14y ago0-1 is probably rightly interpreted as 0 < x <= 1. No overlap.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- asc123 14y ago0.97104476 BTC
- jordan_clark 14y agoWe're going to have to change the name of this site to Bitcoin News. Sick of it.
- asc123 14y ago0.97104476 BTC
- asc123 14y ago0.97104476 BTC right now don't know if i should round it up to one.
- alexgaribay 14y agoThere should be another option for mining other types of cryptocurrencies. I'm mining ppcoins and litecoins instead of bitcoins.
- ashray 14y agoNot nearly enough. I decided that it's important to let people actually spend their bitcoins. That's why I started http://bitcoinsaresexy.com http://bitcoinsaresexy.com - Basically selling amazon gift cards and Paypal USD transfer in exchange for bitcoin. Response has been good so far :) The really important thing right now is widespread bitcoin acceptance. Until that comes around.. sigh we're in the wild west of bubble territory.
- sp332 14y agoBut how do you buy bitcoins? So far i haven't found a single website that actually worked for me.
- endriju 14y agoIf you are from Europe then https://bitcoin-24.com https://bitcoin-24.com Make a SEPA transfer, it costs 1.24 euro, then you can trade and withdraw any time. Beware, withdraws usually take couple of days.
- ashray 14y agoIt's very hard to buy bitcoins - unless you're in the US or a tier 1 european city. You need a verified account at an exchange (mtgox is the biggest one) and then need to wire them money, etc. It's complicated. The easier ways to get bitcoins are to sell something on bitmit or something like that. Or, you could try localbitcoins and try to buy from someone in your city. In the US it's fairly easy..
- corywright 14y agoWith MtGox you can also make cash deposits at any local Chase Bank branch. MtGox has extremely easy to follow instructions for this on the 'funding' page in your account. This may only be available to verified users, I am not sure.
- mrb 14y agoTry http://howdoyoubuybitcoins.com http://howdoyoubuybitcoins.com they have guides for many countries. In the US I would personally go with coinbase.com (I have used them). Or post to your local craigslist and ask to pay cash for bitcoins. If you are in a big city, anywhere in the world, chances are you will find a Bitcoin seller.
- rthomas6 14y agoI'm interested in mining. Buying feels too risky. What are the downsides of mining if I already own a decent GPU? Is it as easy as just joining a "pool" and leave my computer on overnight, and basically get paid to do it?
- rodly 14y agoThe cost of leaving your computer on all day would exceed the value of mining with your setup. see : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4120271 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4120271
- tych0 14y agoWell, no. Mining is as profitable now as it's ever been, since the price is so high. Sure, you won't be mining 1 BTC a day any more, but when 1 BTC is $200 it doesn't matter. Further, the announcement you linked to (by Butterfly Labs) isn't really all that accurate. They originally promised a ship date of early October. No products have shipped to date, and they've changed the specs and pricing on what they're going to offer a number of times. Some people think they'll never ship anything. There are, however, other companies who have shipped ASIC mining chips recently, hence the skyrocketing difficulty. At this rate within 6 months it will no longer be profitable to mine bitcoin on GPUs.
- teraflop 14y agoAre you just assuming that, or have you actually measured it? With my modest setup (a single Radeon HD 7850, mining only when I'm at work or asleep) I'm currently earning about 0.3 BTC/month, and the electricity only costs me about $5-$10.
- sp332 14y agoIn solo mining, chances are that the difficulty will increase faster than your GPU can increase the odds of solving a block. Statistically, it would already take years to find a block and collect just 25 BTC (and by that time the reward may be halved again to just 12.5). But right now, you can join a pool and still get some fractions of a bitcoin over time, and get some profit. It costs me $2.70 to run my GPU for a week and collect 0.05 BTC, or ~$10 at today's rates.
- dcminter 14y agoI looked into purchasing some bitcoins and found the barriers to entry significant. I find it hard to believe, at the moment, that bitcoins are generally acquired for non-speculative legal reasons. Illegal usage seems unlikely to bootstrap the bitcoin economy, speculative usage seems certain to crash unless legitimate usage arrives in tandem to bolster it. In principle I can see a crypto-currency economy emerging but I can't see how to get there from here without a crash on the way. So I'm not going to take the gamble. Made the decision at $100, I see it's now at $200, my guess is it will rise considerably further before the crash so good luck to those going into this with their eyes open.
- postscapes1 14y agoI bought 10 for $10. Sold 5 at $19 and lost the other 5 when upgrading my old system :(
- knodi 14y agoCrash is coming. In less then 30 days.
- shubb 14y agoI agree, you just need to look at the graph: http://i2.cdn.turner.com/money/dam/assets/130327160138-chart-bitcoin-620xa.png http://i2.cdn.turner.com/money/dam/assets/130327160138-chart... That doesn't mean the crash will kill Bitcoin though. In the longer term, government regulation may do that. A lot of fiscal policy, e.g. high taxes when withdrawing investment from china, or more significantly this [1] are very hard to pull off with something like bitcoin around. Thus it must die. [1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17301032 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17301032
- Fuzzwah 14y agoCrashes come when the log scale graph looks like that. At the moment it looks pretty healthy: http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/chart.png?width=940&m=mtgoxUSD&SubmitButton=Draw&r=180&i=&c=0&s=&e=&Prev=&Next=&t=S&b=&a1=&m1=10&a2=&m2=25&x=0&i1=&i2=&i3=&i4=&v=1&cv=0&ps=0&l=1&p=0& http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/chart.png?width=940&m=mt...;
- shubb 14y agoWhat you posted sounds sensible, but it looks like we did get a crash: http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/04/bitcoin-crashes-losing-nearly-half-of-its-value-in-six-hours/ http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/04/bitcoin-crashes-losi...
- Fuzzwah 14y agoI was indeed wrong, glad my wife gave me the evil eye when I started talking about buying ~5 BTC at around $190 because I was starting to get confident that it'd climb to ~$500 before it crashed. Wives hey.
- zalzane 14y agoBased off of what monetary statistics do you make this claim? Who is going to crash the coin - and how?
- napolux 14y ago0 - not interested (yet)
- citricsquid 14y agoI think Bitcoin is going to crash at some point and I am not a very good gambler, I don't have the balls to risk everything on trying to get rich so I'm just staying out of it. I should regret not buying back in early 2011 (when I first saw HN submissions about it) but I know if I had I would have sold as soon as it hit anything close to $20. At least that's what I'm telling myself to make it easier to swallow. Therefore I have bought 0, but I do have 0.05 that someone gifted to me on reddit, which is worth $10 I think.
- steven2012 14y agoAs long as people think that bitcoin is going to crash, it will continue going up. In stock parlance, that's called "climbing the Wall of Worry". It's only after the last cynics have been suckered in, most believe that "you just can't lose" is when it is going to crash.
- mcherm 14y agoWhat? That's absurd. A bubble crashes when people LOSE confidence, not when they gain it.
- abentspoon 14y agoIt's not just about confidence. If the price is being driven by new speculative investment (ie, a bubble), the price should stagnate as fewer speculators join the pool. If the price stagnates, there will be little incentive for purely speculative investors to keep their money in BTC. The last cynic buying in is just an indicator of late-adopters hitting the market, signaling little gains left to be had.
- steven2012 14y agoI wonder how many bitcoins are lost, ie someone mines them, and then loses the information, hard drive crashes, etc. Once they are lost, aren't they lost forever?
- andyzweb 14y ago88.48131 Early adopter, alpaca sock purchaser, conduct all my business pseudo-anonymously over #bitcoin-otc and in forums. No silkroad. I've bought hosting, shell accounts, audio gear, video games, gift cards, etc. I've sold audio restoration services, video games, custom AudioUnit/VST plugins, sound effects, etc. I mined a block back when CPU mining was a thing.
- incision 14y agoI think it's a technically interesting topic, but I wouldn't say I've bought into it even though I figure into the upper end of this poll. I just happened to have multiple high-end GPUs and discovered bitcoin about the time GPU miners were coming to the fore. I expect the stream of stories, particularly those which are little more than price reports have more to do with those who have "bought in" seeking to spread and re-affirm their bullishness than any technical merit or interest. The type of story and the nature of comments within are virtually identical to what you'll find on traditional trader forums during any strong trend.
- myspace 14y agoFools gold
- nekgrim 14y agoBought 2 coined bits (http://www.coinedbits.com/ http://www.coinedbits.com/) when a bitcoin was about $5. And I also lost 50 bitcoins after a pc cleanup. A block mined solo, with my CPU. A long time ago.
- Torgo 14y ago0 - Just cashed out over 200 of them for a big pile of money, will buy again when the bubble pops.
- mrb 14y agoYou should have cashed out only half (to bet both that the bubble will crash, and that the price will continue to rise). That would have been obviously the best compromise and less stressful. Now you risk regretting it. Effectively you did the equivalent of picking B out of the following choices, and you are about to flip the coin...: A. Flip a coin. Head you win $50k, tail you win $50k. B. Flip a coin. Head you win $5k, tail you win $95k.
- Torgo 14y agoYeah, I had done exactly that at 128-134. Then I put the other half in with a sell order if it hit 200, thinking it never would get that high. Imagine my surprise. I already regret it. I still think we're in a giant bubble, we have to be. The rise is crazy. But I am not an investor, I just thought Bitcoin was cool at the time, and got really lucky.
- verisimilitude 14y agoSometimes I'll have the "isn't money/currency a weird concept/abstraction" conversation with my dad, so I want to tell him about bitcoin. The Wikipedia article is good, but is there a better article I can have him read?
- mcherm 14y agoThe number is changing because I am slowly reducing my position in BTC given that it appears (to me) to be in a bubble. (Note: I DO think it has an inherent value and it is unquestionably an interesting technical advance. That inherent value may someday be around or above $200USD/BTC. But I believe that the current behavior is a bubble.)
- ooooak 14y ago0 - not interested
- Satoshietal 14y agoWe arranged things so that we held onto 25% at the outset. Now worth ¥25B+ ($250M+), split six ways. Some of us have already cashed in a small fraction, but we're mostly holding out for another few years. Thanks everyone. S et al.
- argumentum 14y agoI bought 100 at $7. I'm just going to leave them there ..