state of bitcoin?

[rcjordan]

Seems to be dying overall, certainly in the media. Anyone here still mining?

[JasonD]

The price has been climbing over the last few weeks

http://www.coindesk.com/price/

[rcjordan]

But what is the future of bitcoin usage? Niche only?

[JasonD]

> Niche only?

In it's current form, I think so.

However, I do think the Big Corp will take the principles of a distributed and verifiable ledger system and create something meaningful with it. It may not be financially related the way Bitcoin BTC is, but the ledger itself.... I think that's something special... 

[Rumbas]

33 Indicators That Bitcoin Growth Isn't Slowing Down in 2016

https://news.coinify.com/33-indicators-bitcoin-growth-isnt-slowing-2016-infographic/

[bill]

According to this article Bitcoin did have great potential, but now it is damaged beyond repair and a replacement is badly needed.  http://techcrunch.com/2016/01/19/is-bitcoins-promise-going-up-in-smoke/
We saw a big BitCoin price drop after this article...

[ukgimp]

Posted this in another thread

https://medium.com/@octskyward/the-resolution-of-the-bitcoin-experiment-dabb30201f7#.xuovc596o

[bill]

I haven't meddled much with BitCoin. Mined a few in the winter to heat my computer room a few years ago, but other than that...nada. Loved the idea of a crypto currency, but that article quelled a lot of my enthusiasm.

[ukgimp]

Mining is bollocks. The cost does not stack up. Did at $1000 but now, don't think so.

I love the idea, but it is too wild west to be serious.

http://techcrunch.com/2016/01/13/coindesk-acquired-by-digital-currency-group/

Shak is pretty switched on, when he bows out so quietly, you know he is not keen.

[bill]

My mining foray didn't last too long. Having multiple CPUs and GPUs pegged at 100% for a few days made me realize the futility of it all pretty quick. I probably broke even with the amount I made vs. the electricity bills, but I thought it would be nice to actually use my machine again.

Shak is pretty switched on, when he bows out so quietly, you know he is not keen.

That's telling. I'd trust his judgement more than a lot of the "pros" in the field.

[rcjordan]

Looks like bitcoin has jumped the shark. You can buy a miner on amz now

http://www.amazon.com/AntMiner-S3-441Gh-0-77W-SHA-256/dp/B00NZDBWKG/

[ergophobe]

Interesting perspective on growing energy requirement to mine a coin

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/bitcoin-could-consume-as-much-electricity-as-denmark-by-2020

[bill]

I wonder what sort of impact quantum computers would have on this. Using current processor technology doesn't look like it will be very affordable to mine new bitcoins. Unfortunately the whole process depends on continued mining...

[BoL]

>quantum computers

I think they'd work well, as they're good at the kind of parallelism that works so well with bitcoin. If you take today's most powerful classical computer and wanted to double its speed, you could just double the amount of machines. With a quantum computer, you'd simply add 1 more qubit (or bit) as each qubit provides an exponential increase in computing power. Truly a game changer.

It does seem like the tech is a while away from the Desktop though, as they're still having to freeze the computing environment to near absolute zero. A lot is being learnt from biology (at room temperature), though.

[Mackin USA]

http://futurism.com/hacked-bitcoin-exchange-bitfinex-distributes-losses-to-all-users-equally/