Is it normal what do you think of the bitcoin?

Bitcoin is based on nothing. Most money is based on a countries Gross National Product. But bitcoin is not based on anything. It's fictional. How anyone thinks it's an investment but it's not. Some people have made a lot of money from suckers and a lot have lost a lot.

It's the same thing as those 401(k) accounts that stockbrokers used to trade with. You would hear your uncle on the phone telling you how he'd invested his life savings into it and his voice would have that element of amazement that his "worth" had tripled.

Eventually and inevitably, it went KABOOM and everyone lost all their life savings apart from a select few who were in the know and withdrew their money just at the right time.

It may be a good investment short term, but since you don't know when the "bubble will burst" so to speak, I wouldn't put my house on it.

If you are looking for a technical explanation I would recommend the 3blue1brown video on cryptocurrency.

But essentially there are problems that can occur when sending money online. And bitcoin solves this by using cryptography.

A long string of binary numbers is attached to each bending transaction. This string is created using SHA-256 which is known as a hash function and what most of the internet uses to encode private info. It is basically a complex mathematical function that no one can reverse engineer. So while say, if the function were multiplication and addition, you could use division and subtraction to find the reverse function. But there is no reverse SHA-256.

So the only way this number can be guessed is by chance. This is where 'mining' bitcoins comes into play. Any person with a graphics card can run software that guesses numbers at random very quickly, if they are lucky and it guesses correct the person is rewarded with bitcoins. This also verifies a transaction and allows 2 people to send/receive money securely.

The reason this works is there are actually multiple hash functions at play, one for the specific transaction but this is also generated from encryption of previous transactions.

Meaning that in order for a buy or sell order to be fraudulent it would need also for previous ones to be fraudulent as well because it uses the binary from those previous transactions in order to generate the binary for the new one.

This linking together of transactions is what's known as the blockchain.

The other benefit is it eliminates a need for a centralized entity creating money, and the amount of bitcoin miners are rewarded with decreases over time so that the amount of bitcoin in circulation is kept under control.

(Also it eliminates all currency being essentially debt to the bank, which is true of fiat currency. I don't know why this doesn't get mentioned but I think this is the best thing about bitcoin)

So to break it down, starting from a different place in the cycle.

You say you want to send me $5. An encryption is placed on that pending transaction, utilizing the SHA256 hash function on a set of numbers derived from previous transaction in this block chain. People from all over the world run graphics cards guessing and checking until they verify this binary sequence. The first computer who guesses correctly means that you can send your money and I can now receive your money. And the lucky person who guessed gets a little bit of new bitcoin as reward.

A transaction fee is also placed to insentivize miners to guess this transaction and decrease delay time.

If the cryptography part is still complicated, its important to know that without cryptography bugs can occur where you will accidentally send twice, or perhaps I could say you sent me money, when you did not. The use of cryptography and the block chain guards against this, because instead of it being my word against yours, each claim is backed by the entire chain of verified transactions leading up to it, and an incredibly complex function encoding the new transaction that uses the information of previous ones.

Bitcoin has plummeted from around $20,000 to around $12,000 over the last week. I wonder how many late-arrivals are shitting themselves right now, and frantically searching for articles on the web to convince themselves that it will soar even higher if they just hold on.

There will always be the need for untraceable money for illegal activities. But huge supplies of crypto-currencies are being mined. With excess supply, prices will eventually stall. Speculators will sell breaking the price bubble.

Then crypto-currency will be used for its intended purpose: prostitution, human traffic, money laundering, drugs, illegal weapons, tax evasion, smuggling operations, and corporate/political bribes.

once the big news hits bout how everyones gittin rich doin somethin its already too late

theres a next big thang that yall could buy into right now (ie bitcoin in 2009) and be rich in 10 years but theres 1000 other thangs thats gonna fall on theys fuckin faces and yalld be a fool to git involved

slow and steady wins the race

Bitcoin is a scam in the sense that all money is a confidence scam.

If you can find someone who is willing to accept two Venezuelan bolívars in exchange for serving you a grilled steak, then the bolívar obviously has some real value. In reality, only the Venezuelan government believes the bolívar has any real value, so you'd probably find it difficult to find anyone in Caracas willing to give you a cheese sandwich in exchange for 500,000 bolivars.

Bitcoin has value because some people believe it has value, and they will provide a service, or give you other currencies or tangible objects in exchange for bitcoin.

A large part of the reason the Venezuelan bolívar is perceived as having little value is because the Venezuelan government printed vast amounts of bolívar banknotes to pay for its projects. Bitcoin (supposedly) has an upper limit of 21 million coins. Once the last bitcoin is mined, there will be no more produced. This hard limit means that bitcoins have scarcity value.

Bitcoin also appeals to those who want to carry out transactions which governments and law enforcement agencies cannot trace.

Finally, bitcoin is highly volatile, and so it appeals to those who like to gamble on currency exchange rates.

i think its a good way to hide illegal untaxed money weather its stolen or made legit or made from the sale of firearms or illegal campaign contributions , a way to finance ISIS a way for the federal reserve to fund its private armies. In the end it will fail when people need all the money they invested for spending purposes they will pull money out and it value will sink like a rock . the last in will be slaughtered and the first in first out make millions of money but it comes from the bottom feeders , the last ones in. its just a pyramid scam. I wasnt meant to be it was meant to be a way to hide cash. without shipping the cash to another destination. like i can sell my house for bitcoin and just say i gave it away, no taxes paid on the bitcoin income . but the value of the coin could sink to zero overnight. they dont call it cryptocurrency for nothing. i think of you have large sums of legal money you should invest it in a local private business so if the dollar fails the following day whatever money replaces the Fed dollar you are right back where you started on the top of the food chain. bitcoin is a bit like gold that last year was at 2000 and ounce and goes for 1200 today but the guy selling pizza oddly enough will be making the same amount no matter what money we use.