I've been looking into the whole crypto-currency thing to understand how it all works. I think I've got a pretty good handle on it now.
FWIW, my conclusion is that the whole thing could go up in smoke at any time and is ripe for manipulation but that a lot of people are going to make a lot of money right up until it does. It's basically a giant game of hot potato and whoever is holding the coins when the music stops loses.
As part of my research, I went and got myself a Bitcoin wallet and would love nothing more than to see it actually do something.
To that end, I sent out a tweet and a few messages basically begging anyone who would listen to send me some small fraction of a Bitcoin. Just a penny's worth. Enough to buy a gummy bear. Nothing more.
So far, nobody has. I've utterly failed in my fundraising goal and will probably never be able to afford the sweet sugariness of a gummy bear.
You can see the balance and transaction history of my wallet here. https://blockchain.info/address/1CSo3bVBkxBErBtGfi1KxPpahjApjn5r4Z
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. 🙂
I see that you and I have come to the same conclusion when it comes to crypto-currency.
I've come up with a few scenarios, one of which will almost certainly happen, that will destroy the whole thing.
It's just a matter of time.
But people are making a LOT of money in the meantime.
OMG HOLY CRAP I GOT SOME!!!
Huge thanks to whoever sent me a smidgen!!! 😀
Not only have I hit my target but I've BLOWN WAY PAST IT! At current exchange rates, and assuming gummy bears are still a penny (which they're probably not but I'll assume they are for the purposes of this experiment) I can now afford nearly fifty gummy bears!! FIFTY!!
THIS IS AMAZING!!!
Bloody hell!!
Somehow my BTC seems to have gone into limbo.
I found out who sent it and he mentioned that he'd applied a tiny fee to the transaction and that it might not complete.
That said, by all accounts it seems to have completed since I saw it in my wallet and never saw any indication that there might be an issue.
Well… today I looked in my wallet and it said I have $0.
I looked at the blockchain.info site (linked above) and it now shows the transaction as "Unconfirmed Transaction!"
What really bothers me about this is that I had no indication up front that the value might disappear on me. Wouldn't you expect it to say "Unconfirmed" right off the bat until the process was completed? What if I'd gone and blown the whole wad on candy!
I'm still learning how crypto currencies work and this whole gummy bear thing is part of that process. Sadly, the more I learn the less optimistic I become about the ongoing viability of this as a proper currency.
Always, always expect opportunists to mess up everything for everyone else.
Well… I seem to be right back where I started.
The entire transaction has now vanished. So at least I can't see my gummy bear money sitting there with no way to touch it.
I'm back to zilch.
Well, that sounds like much more of a pain in the ass than it was worth.
I'm not sure whether this is entirely accurate or whether I don't quite understand the fee structure.
It seems to me that if someone wants to send me anything at all… whether it's a penny or a Satoshi… the fee to get the transaction confirmed may now be as much as $20!
If that's true… how isn't this news when people are talking about Bitcoin?
I'm still seeing talk about it being used for things like fast food purchases and what not. You know… once it really takes off and starts to be widely accepted and adopted for use.
Reading that sort of thing and then hearing that doing a single transaction costs $20 makes it seem even more like a giant pump and dump scheme.
Can someone provide some clarity on this?
I was told today that the minimum fee is around $14 USD right now.
It seems to me that if some crypto currency is ever to go mainstream and be useful for everyday transactions, that it can't possibly be Bitcoin.
With the massive collapse of Bitcoin prices over the past few months, I'm wondering if things here will actually pan out.
With people losing interest in Bitcoin, the transaction volume must be dropping and therefore the transaction fees have to be getting lower.
How long before it's not stupidly expensive to send me a few Satoshi's and start the slow march to a penny? 🙂
OMG!!! I DID IT!!!
I've only just noticed now as whoever sent it never said anything but I DID IT!! Not just a penny.. but I've got over a DIME's worth of BTC now!!!
Thanks, kind stranger, whoever you are!!
I'm going to do a detailed write-up on this, but I want to put the heads-up here that there are now solutions being built to address the issues with small transfers.
Specifically, I've now used the Lightning Network to receive a single Satoshi from someone!!
I haven't yet been able to transfer this back to my Bitcoin wallet so you won't see it reflected there yet. It's not that I can't do it (though it's likely I can't), it's just that I haven't worked out how to try to yet.