It’s called Bitcoin and at first I thought it was a scam, I followed it off and on for 3 months reading up on it and asking a ton of questions as I had much anxities about trusting my money in binary after much research and building a few applications for the Bitcoin community, I can see the amount of freedom is provides and how security was built right from the start. In fact I get paid in Bitcoins these days and I perfer it over getting paid with USD becuase no governement sees it as currency so its tax free check it out
www.WeUseCoins.com
I don’t think its something to jump on to. If it became a viable alternative then it would be stopped soon after, making any investments into bitcoins futile. That way it could be considered a large scam as the initiators know this just as well.
Its deffinatly not a scam you can review the code on Github its opensource 
It can not be shut down unless you somehow destory the internet
Some very very popular news websites reporting about it…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/02/bitcoin-digital-currency-traders_n_1395359.html
Canada to launch its own version of Bitcoin…
http://www.fastcompany.com/1829662/canada-to-launch-its-own-version-of-bitcoin-called-mintchip?partner=gnews
Bah. The title was suggesting this would be about beer. walks away
1 Like
@shanebeastlyb said:
It can not be shut down unless you somehow destory the internet
Yes, most governments do have the power to stop inofficial currencies from being used, including yours and mine. I know theres a lot of buzz around bitcoins at the moment but I know just as well that the wise decision is not to invest there.
Not to mention recent thefts and a market crash followed by roll-back.
BitCoin is a very interesting experiment and I wouldn’t be averse to using it in moderation. I certainly wouldn’t recommend “investing” in any significant sense in it.
It would be hard to shutdown bitcoin Normen just because it’s essentially cash, reasonably anonymous and fairly decentralized. If it became used to avoid tax on any significant scale though then governments would start taking steps … that’s something that gets them really interested and not in a good way 
my friend uses bitcoins to buy crack cocaine. I just see it as a way to trade illegal merchandise like drugs and weapons over the internet.
@wezrule said:
my friend uses bitcoins to buy crack cocaine.
Well time to say goodbye to a friend... One way or the other :P
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_rig
People should use their graphics hardware for 3D rendering, not this crap…
Graphics card is for securing verifying transactions.
I wouldn’t consider this for anything except a super high risk investment… Its value already took a major hit after they were hacked… and governments are hovering around it trying to figure out what to do with it.
Its true, money has only the value people give it, personally i would rather put my trust in the US government (> 200 years of history) then a bunch of computer nerds with an interesting idea… OH yeah, and if you loose your .dat file of your virtual wallet, all your bitcoins are gone…
Well bitcoin it self has never been hacked where money was generated out of thin air or wallets haven’t been compromised from the application it self, it was web servers that were vulnerable and hackers used different security exploits to get into the system and steal the Bitcoins, all due to neglagence of the owners or just inside jobs in my opinion…
@normen said:
Yes, most governments do have the power to stop inofficial currencies from being used, including yours and mine. I know theres a lot of buzz around bitcoins at the moment but I know just as well that the wise decision is not to invest there.
The best thing about bitcoin is that you need to do a few things to kill it, You would need to seize all computers and or miniing equiptment such as those found from http://www.butterflylabs.com/ then you would need to shut down the internet becuase even if my USA governement inforced it "somehow"(ban computers and internet?) My account balance is always on the network so I feel pretty safe, I've been getting paid oer $10/hour in bitcoin value. Bitcoin gave me a job, this is something I haven't found in two years a fullly sustainable freelance employment the work is great and i set my days of. So I have the obligation to defend Bitcoin becuase this is something that it has imensly improved my life in.
Feel free to defend it, as I said it’s an interesting idea
I strongly recommend you make sure you have contingency set up for unexpected problems in the bitcoin network…and also be aware that (while I’m not familiar with your local tax laws) most tax laws do account for people being paid in non-standard currency and still expect you to pay tax on it in one way or another.
@shanebeastlyb said:
The best thing about bitcoin is that you need to do a few things to kill it, You would need to seize all computers and or miniing equiptment such as those found from http://www.butterflylabs.com/ then you would need to shut down the internet becuase even if my USA governement inforced it "somehow"(ban computers and internet?)
Thats wishful thinking. A government can just go and say "you stop using this currency and use ours instead or you go to jail", simple as that.
They’ve already tried passing bills in the USA but they didn’t pass it becuase it was impossible to enforce let alone track who is using, spending or selling with bitcoins. There is a reason why Silk road continues to go on. Although I think that selling/buying drugs with Bitcoin is degrading Bitcoins potential in its self but the point is that Bitcoin has proved it self already, there is no speculation its impossible to shut down.
Yeah, as long as its not assets that are interesting for a country (like virtual goods in games or drugs) that might be true. But especially your country has some experience with private currencies and while its not illegal per se it can quickly be ruled illegal no problem: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_currency (see “Ithaca Hours”)
So again, its pretty naive to think that a government would just stand there and watch its tax payments go to nirvana. Like I said, as soon as it would become a viable alternative (not just for virtual swords and nose powder) it would be regulated immediately.
Oh no doubt I agree with you that the governement has the power to instantly ban the use of Bitcoins and most everyone would comply just becuase most everyone respects the law. There has been reports from some inteligence agengy ran by the USA(I think it was NSA maybe CIA I’ll have to find the report again) that acknolwedged bitcoin being under review so I guess its safe to assume that Bitcoins are having a case built right now. Until it becomes illegeal I’ll reap the benifits while i can
lol Apparently there are alot of people that dislike me already just becuase of this thread… Thank allah that I don’t care what my score says or what others judements are of me…