What Happens When Anonymous Gets a Bank?

[Peter Lemkin]

I follow the bitcoin phenomenon with caution. Theoretically, it makes good sense, but I'm still suspicious that those white hacker types who invented it skewed it in their favor and this needs to be corrected. There are a few bitcoin forums and I'm a member of one. Much of the talk is about building monstrously powerful parallel computer systems at home [multiple very powerful computers working in tandem generating the bitcoins]. It is the 'creation' of bitcoins that seems unfair and odd to me....and it is very complex how this is done. It is beyond my mathematics skills to fully understand and it would be nice if some mathematician would weigh in on the matter, regardless of how they feel about bitcoins.

I agree Peter. It does leave a lot of people out of the system when they don't have the skills to create them. Another reason I like time as a unit of exchange. It is universal and democratic. Every one gets that 24 hours a day regardless of skills or social connections. Still on the conceptual level I like that Bitcoin exists if only to get people thinking that alternatives actually do exist and that there is life out side the bank and money system.

Its too complex to go into [as far as I understand it], but one can buy and sell bitcoins and [at some places for some things] items or services for/with bitcoins...that part is pretty strightforward [with the exception that it seems an inflation bubble may be forming with them now - or alternatively - their value is going sky high due to the failures of other funny money [the kind the central banks issue]. However, there are bit coin generators. These are computer programs that actually GENERATE from nothing but your computer's processor and memory + electrical costs of running the computer ==> bitcoins. What upsets me about these is all are not equal. There are debates about this bitcoin generator v. that one and with all of them, the more powerful [and expensive] your computer set up the faster and more bitcoins will be created*. The details are highly complex math and logic...I can follow to a point, but not verify certain assumptions and what are taken as 'facts' by the core bitcoin community [who developed the idea and system]. It needs someone independent to verify if their mathematical pronouncements are true and if bitcoins are as susceptible as other 'currencies' [I assume they are] to manipulation and bubbles. Caveat Emptor even with bitcoins! It is an interesting new model, however and may evolve into a way to undermine the central banksters - which I sure most of us here would just LOVE!

* Some bitcoin forum posts are about how this or that person, for example, has a room completely filled with a hundred powerful computers ONLY generating bitcoins and how they monitor electrical consumption to make sure they gain more wealth with the created bitcoins than they spend on computer equiptment + electrical costs.