Live Stoner Chat All about Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies

[Groff]

Exhanges!! Very very important!

Groff, do you have a preferred potcoin broker/exchange?

Yes I do. There are two types of exchanges. One that deals with FIAT currencies like EUR/USD/YEN. These are the most "serious" ones, but please NEVER think of them as banks to store your money. But since they do deal with FIAT, they are under much more scrutiny. These exchanges usually only handle a few select crypto-currencies. That is why these will ask for proof of identity, ID scan, address etc. See, this is where anonymity can fade... But, at the same time, much more secure as they have links to established and regulated banks.

www.bitstamp.com - Bitcoin
www.kraken.com (my choice for EUR/BTC) - Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ripple, Stellar, etc
www.BTC-e.com (never used them as they dont have EUR)
www.bitfinex.com (advanced trading platform) - Bitcoin, Litecoin and Darkcoin

Any of these are absolutely solid !

There is ZERO regulation right now for crypto-currencies... well.. because its almost impossible as there is no central authority. Governments around the globe are still trying to figure them out! That is both good and bad. So exchanges that do NOT trade government issued currencies are not subject to scrutiny right now. And these exchanges trade dozens/hundreds of crypto's. Most crypto-currencies are worthless though...

My favorite was Mintpal.com, it was bought off by a fraudulent individual who ran away with everyone's money. Luckily I didn't get burnt. Never ever ever leave large quantities laying around in exchanges. Its ok to leave a few if you're into day trading, just dont treat any exchange as an on-line bank. MtGox was an exchange that had the vast majority of the BTC marketcap and did deal with USD, and it turned out to be fraudulent operation.

With crypto-currencies, transferring money around takes minutes, not days. So fund an exchange, do all your trading, and get out. Or leave just a bit for those stop-limit buy and sells.

This is brand new tech, just like early internet where having an email = child porn, drugs and terrorism. Which is certainly not true, but the news love this angle. What I mean is, there is still a long way to go, but its rock-solid technology!

I'm not trying to scare you, just alerting. Get in, do your stuff, get out.

I highly recommend these to trade alt-currency markets

www.bittrex.com (right now the one I use)
www.poloniex.com
www.cryptsy.com (one of the oldest tried and tested and biggest one, but suffers from horrible GUI and periodic shut-downs. I really dont like them, but they do have a proven track record)

 

[Groff]

What kind of power consumption and heat generation does mining cause to your machine/devices? Is it true they are very taxing on the CPU and GPU, depending on the type of mining? Is the mining venture profitable after paying increased power costs due to the machines running longer and drawing more power? Those have been some of my concerns; I have a few buddies that mine for fun and they say it can get pretty taxing on your gear. Would be nice to get some more opinions on it! :Sharing One: Appreciate the work you're putting into this Groff!

Disclaimer, this is the UBER nerd part of crypto-currencies and you dont need this at all to simply use crypto-currencies.

Mining! Getting payed to secure the bitcoin/crypto-currency network! The peer-to-peer network. Similar to bit-torrent. It simply cannot be shut down.

Mining is absolutely out of the question right now, unless you're a super-geek. It used to be CPU friendly, but half the planet jumped that train. Bitcoin mining is ridiculous right now, with ASICs, these are purposely built machines to mine Bitcoin. Litecoin used to be GPU mineable, but not anymore. Other crypto-currencies are still sort of profitable with multi-GPU rigs, but return of investment is dropping fast. It is a highly specialized "hobby". I do not recommend it. I was a miner for 6 months witha 5x Raedon 280x Vapor-X rig and I barely recovered my investment. Well, I did because the coins I mine went massively up in value right after (early 2014), but then stabilized. Direct profit requires expertise.

Massive heat, electricity and noise, software and hardware tweaking is involved. I absolutely LOVE it! :xlaugh:

To give you an idea, this is what an entry level mining rig looks like nowadays; You would need about 10x of these to make a living off of them.

But for geeks, it is hands down one of the funnest hobby's there is! "pher Wiggle"

Depending on the coin's algorithm, yes it can be very taxing. Litecoin is EXTREMELY taxing - 80-90ºC and full power consuption.

Newer algorithms like x11, x13, Nist5, Quark exc not so much, GPU running into the 60ºC and 45% consuption, but that is only until the mining software gets optimized to perfect the hashing power and increase these values.

My 5x 280x rig consumed 1150w under scrypt algorith (Litecoin, Potcoin, etc) and around 650w under x11 (Darkcoin, Cannabiscoin, etc)

So yes, consider mining as extremely taxing to your hardware.

 

[pop22]

Creating a Wallet.

Ok, lets get down and dirty! We'll be using Potcoin as AFN uses it. First off, head over the the official website;

http://www.potcoin.com/

Under the wallets tab, select Desktop



Choose you Operating System and download & install. When you run the wallet you will be presented with this;



Notice the red notice saying it is "Out Of Sunc" ? And at the bottom "No Block Source?"
That is because its the first time you're running the software, and you have to download the... drum roll ... Potcoin Blockchain! The blockchain grows everyday a bit, so the first time you run the software it will take a long time until it is up to sync. Just let it run! Soon you will see the progress bar grow. This is the reason I didn't choose Bitcoin as the Bitcoin blockchain is around 20 GB right now. There are light-wallets out there that dont download the blockchain, but this is ideal for you to really get whats going on.



This will be a very slow process the first time, as it needs to get block-by-block, so be patient.

In the meantime, you can explore the immense complexity of the wallet :no: :xlaugh:

You have 5 tabs.



Click on Receive to create a receive address, one without label will be there as default, I created a few for you to see...



So there! Now I just need to copy one of my receive addresses and give it out, and anyone can go to the Send tab, and send me Potcoin to that address. Transaction tab keeps a record of your transaction (duh) and Address turns your USB ports into a grinder.

I hope this will be fun, I would be cool for people to start sending out coins to each other and see how wonderfully simple and exciting this is!

I'm going to get some Potcoins, so anyone who wants free coins just has to provide me with an address! Post it here, and I'll send some!

Any and all questions welcome!

On the surface, it looks like Potcoin software may have improved. I must say, I tried it a while back, and they had they worst, most useless, buggy, software I'd ever dealt with. I never got it to work, and I'm a computer tech! Even their"support" was useless. Maybe I'll give it a try and see if they fixed their issues.

 

[Waximus]

That's some serious BTU hardware, right there! lolol
So, looking around at the various exchanges, it appears that the concept of "I want $100 in potcoins"=click here- is not how this works... (The day trader in me is clearly underdeveloped)
So, is it "easiest" to buy bitcoin, then go to an exchange and convert to potcoin?

 

[MikeyB420]

Disclaimer, this is the UBER nerd part of crypto-currencies and you dont need this at all to simply use crypto-currencies.

But for geeks, it is hands down one of the funnest hobby's there is! "pher Wiggle"

I was always told that you should use Radeon cards for mining?

PAL

MB.

 

[Groff]

That's some serious BTU hardware, right there! lolol
So, looking around at the various exchanges, it appears that the concept of "I want $100 in potcoins"=click here- is not how this works... (The day trader in me is clearly underdeveloped)
So, is it "easiest" to buy bitcoin, then go to an exchange and convert to potcoin?

Precisely the case! Not until there is a huge market-cap that creates a demand so USD/EUR/YEN exchanges open that pair. Basic supply & demand.

Right now Potcoin is the 52nd most valued crypto-currency.

1 Potcoin = 0.00000484 BTC = 0.001810 USD

http://coinmarketcap.com/

I'm no trader at all, but it all seems so logical after a while of using it I forget the fundamentals. Thank you for bringing it up!

I was always told that you should use Radeon cards for mining?

PAL

MB.

This used to be the case, but the real metric is hashpower VS electrical consumption, and Nvidia, despite having lower hashrates, seems to have a better ratio right now. I'm not entirely sure as I've been out of the game for a while, and things do change weekly.

I think I saw someone post they got 10 MH/s from a radeon 280x, about 6 months ago I was super excited when a new mining software came out that bumped my 280x from 3,75 MH/s to 5 MH/s.

 

[Groff]

Ladies and gents...

I have exactly...

3860.74397321 POT Available do give away!!
(sold all my CannabisCoin and bought Potcoin)

Provided you solemnly swear to give it all away to AFN once you're done playing around with them!

Post your Potcoin address!!

 

[Waximus]

Agreed! I'll PM a receive address

 

[Groff]

Agreed! I'll PM a receive address

Please do post it here! The worse that can happen is someone using it to send you coins
I really hope people use this chance to send each other coins. In reddit people tip each other very low amounts instead of "liking" or "poking". This could very well be a thing here.

I invite you all to post your receive addresses here, publicly. That way we can help each other to understand the inner workings of crypto-currencies. Dont worry about anonymity, unless you hand over personal information. If you're worried about IP spoofing, forget that, as being right here in this forum has already left a trace. It takes serious amount of computing and IT skill to get your IP from a Potcoin transaction. Much quicker and easier to subpoena your ISP for logging into AFN. In fact, that is not even needed, GOV or NSA can very easily traffic sniff anyone. TOR is compromised. It takes serious amount of effort to spoof blockchain transactions. not even multi-million scams are easily traced.

Just to put things in perspective, the 3860 POT coins = 8 USD (as of today) ...

It will be fun sharing out addresses, and have me show you how to read the blockchain, and learn how to be truly anonymous.

 

[Waximus]

My receive address is - PRXXQgZ4iN6Bc9HzfZwbCugG3Da8CdT2XC