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Posted by on 15th January, 2014

Cloud mining Datacoin

Cloud mining Datacoin

I missed the boat on buying hardware mining equipment but still wanted to try mining for myself. Besides the initial cost, the financials of electricity costs with diminished returns, it just didn’t seem profitable at the time, and even less now. Now, without owning any hardware, one can still mine with cloud hosted solutions; whether it is Azure, or any other cloud service, you just create a Virtual Machine, install the wallet software for the crypto-coin you want to mine for and let it run for days on end. Just come back after a while to check on your balance. On Digital Ocean, you can run a single instance for about US$5 per month. I picked a coin that is not very popular with low difficulty, so I could get some decent amount of coins in return for experimental purposes and not necessarily to make money. I picked Datacoin [datacoin.info] and here are the steps I followed for mining this coin: Go to digitalocean.com and create an account. Once...

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Posted by on 15th October, 2013

China leading next Bitcoin rally

China leading next Bitcoin rally

The capture of Ross Ulbricht a couple of weeks ago, and with it, the demise of the Silk Road and the largest underground market ever, was big news in Bitcoin social circles. Forget the ethical dilemma: this market moved a lot of money… a lot… about 1.2 Billion dollars in sales every year. No small fry. Much had been speculated by analysts and sceptics that much of the Bitcoin economy was stimulated mostly by these kind of illegal transactions. In fact, this news, was going to be the end of it: this was Bitcoin’s blow to its  knees. Except, that it wasn’t. Let’s say it was a stumble, if one can call it that. The price dropped for a day or two and recovered to its previous levels in a few days. So, if Silk Road wasn’t driving the Bitcoin economy, then who is? The sceptics are asking who else is accepting Bitcoins. No legitimate, public company does, right? With current events in US politics causing some doubt in the financial...

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Posted by on 6th May, 2013

Explaining Bitcoin to my 9 year old

Explaining Bitcoin to my 9 year old

I decided I wanted to create an address for my son and store 1 Bitcoin in it and give it to him. This way, he could be part of this new technology, way before it was mainstream and watch the value of his single coin grow or shrink. So, inevitably, when I told him I had given him one Bitcoin, the questions began: A bitwhat? What’s a Bit… oin? Well, first, it’s Bitcoin… B-i-t-c-o-i-n. Bitcoin is money, but instead of it being a coin, like you know it, it is computer money. You know how email isn’t paper and is really computer mail..? An email is a message that is inside the computer and when you send it, the recipient can read it from their computer. The same with Bitcoin. The money is inside the computer and when you send it to someone that person then has the money in their computer and can use it to buy things online. Can I see it? Where is it? It’s computer...

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Posted by on 6th May, 2013

Bitcoin address collision

Bitcoin address collision

A Bitcoin collision is when two different people in the world randomly generate the same Bitcoin address. They would both have access to any funds in that address. Is that even possible? The answer: yes However, the chances of that happening are pretty much nil. Read on. A Bitcoin address consists of mainly two parts: an address (public key) and the key (private key) to that address. The address is the container for the funds and the key, well, opens the container. How this works, is that when you generate a new Bitcoin address, you are really generating a key pair. That is a private key is created first and the corresponding address is then mathematically computed and derived from that private key, so that there can only be one address for each key. Now, Bitcoin keys and corresponding addresses can be generated at will. Yes, you can create as many as you want. 100, 1000, 100.000? Go ahead, you can. In fact, when you create a wallet on...

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Posted by on 5th May, 2013

Create a Bitcoin paper wallet

Create a Bitcoin paper wallet

A paper wallet is nothing more than the information of a Bitcoin key pair, printed on a piece of paper. This key pair, contains the address of where the funds are stored and the private key is the key to send or withdraw those funds. In other words, it is a pre-signed check with bitcoins. A paper wallet might look like this: The reason we want this on paper, is because, ultimately, having this on paper and away from any digital access is the best place to have the key to your funds. Away from your PC. Anywhere else, your data could be compromised by spyware or key loggers. There are many ways of doing this and everyone seems to have an opinion and a better way of doing this. Many will argue that you have to generate the key-pair on a computer that is air-gapped, or, in other words, is completely disconnected and has never been connected to the Internet, in order to avoid any possible mal-ware intercepting...

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Posted by on 5th May, 2013

Why Bitcoin?

Why Bitcoin?

Bitcoin has been all over the news and many opinions have been posted and shared. Good news, positive opinions, bad news, negative opinions and everything in between. Just a year ago, the currency could be bought for just a few dollars. Just last month it was around $76 and jumped $12, to $90 in one single day. Two weeks later it was at $250 and then a hard crash to $60. Since becoming somewhat of a celebrity overnight, there has been quite a bit of demand and speculation about this new currency. Media sensation and  speculation made many people try to get a piece of the fortune to be made with Bitcoin. Many profited and many lost a small fortune by betting on Bitcoin. So, now that the bubble has burst and the dust has settled, the question remains: should you buy bitcoins? You’ll need to ask yourself what it means to you, since buying bitcoins means different things to different people. Here are a few reason why people...

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Posted by on 5th May, 2013

What is Bitcoin?

What is Bitcoin?

Bitcoin is an entirely digital, global currency launched in 2009: it is a fully decentralized monetary system with no central authority that regulates the monetary base. What does this mean? Well, it is money, currency, that can be sent over the internet to transfer money or to make payments to anyone. However, it is not physical money. Think of how email allows us to send a digital message to anyone in the world, for free. Bitcoin is very much the same concept, but for money: Email is a digital version of paper mail. Bitcoin is a digital version of paper cash. You can store digital cash in your wallet or send a payments instantly to anyone, without having to register or sign up. You just send your bitcoins to the right address. Key properties of Bitcoin: Open source Completely open source, it is not managed, backed by, nor belongs to any central authority, country or government. It does not depend on any one economy or institution. RedundantUsing the internet, the...

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