Bitcoin
Basics
- The First Decentralized Cryptocurrency
- May not be the best, but it is widely in use compared to other cryptocurrencies
- Part of the Open Source Currency Construction Set
Valuation
Stock to flow ratio of Bitcoin indicates that price would reach $100k by end of 2021 [1]. It could also drop to as low as $17k. See low and highs for 2021-2025 - which shows highs and lows getting close to $100k in 2023. [2]
Seminal Books
- Andreas Antonopoulos - Mastering Bitcoin - [3]
- Top 3 books by Investopedia - [4]
- Article on Medium - follow this thread - simple nontechnical examples for aha moments - [5]
Notes
- The wallet is a public-private key pair
- Hardware wallet or paper copy is safest - ledger nano s, or https://trezor.io/
- The hardware wallet should have a display. The display is used to generate your key pair if you lose - you can recreate your key pair by 20 words that you write down or remember.
- Exchanges typically store your private key.
- Private key is what is used to access your wallet
- Miners - ant miners pay for themselves in a few month.
Tactical
- Leger Nano S - [6]. What happens if the device is not made any more? You can move coins to a newer device by Ledger [7]. What happens if the company goes out of business? No problem - you can use your recovery phrase to restore your coins using any other wallet platform.
- Custodial vs non-custodial accounts ? Blockchain.com has both. Blockchain.com custodial in the main feature - [8] - meaning Blockchain.com holds the btc securely for you.
- Blockchain.com stores your private keys
- Exodus is a desktop wallet, you hold keys. Blockchain.com holds your keys. [9]
Hardware Wallets
Lex Comments
Saw your post about skycoin...
I would say *any* crypto currencies that relies on CPU intensive mining is not "appropriate" technology. It's wasteful and dumb :-)
Even the 2nd most popular crypto currency, Ethereum, is very actively looking to move away from wasteful mining and actually already is pushing out a new Proof-of-Stake algorithm:
https://www.coindesk.com/ethereums-big-switch-the-new-roadmap-to-proof-of-stake/
Basically, look for anything other than PoW (Proof-of-Work).
Here is a short primer on the various other census algorithms:
https://www.coindesk.com/short-guide-blockchain-consensus-protocols/
Why People Don't Get Bitcoin in the USA
There is a very good talk by a bitcoin guy (Andreas M. Antonopoulos) of why average people in US don't really get bitcoin right away as compared to someone from a less stable country, I think the same applies to OSE (I see a lot of parallels between this talk and OSE):
https://youtu.be/QoiR4aNbTOw?t=136
Eric's Comments
In regards to wasteful mining, that is why i find FairCoin more appealing than bitcoin. Really worth a look. I mainly added this page because bitcoin is really common, and it was the first major cryptocurrency to take off.
See Also
Links
- Bitcoin Whitepaper: https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf
- Understanding Change Addresses - [10]
- Wikipedia Page on Bitcoin
- Article iun Wired 2014 - on the soul of bitcoin - [11]
- NYT article on bitcoin regulation - [12]