So when a buyer receives their bitcoin, what exactly do they get? A string of alpa-numerics? Stored electronically or on paper?
The network recognizes your private keys from your wallet and that gives you access to your coins on the network. If you want a real technical explanation just search bitcointalk.org forums.
hmm.. I'll have to do some more research, but that's a redflag to me. The network has to authentic each bitcoin. Which makes transferring difficult. Also, the network has to assign an address to each bitcoin, otherwise, authentic keys could be replicated, and sold as originals. The network must have a way of knowing who the original owner is, ya?
The original owners are the miners. I think you are not understanding something - I would take a closer look to someones previously written explanation about the encryption process and your private keys. There is something called "taint analysis" to see btc movement, but again, I am not totally 100% on these things.
I was reading a bitcoin forum yesterday and they were debating the merits of other cryptocurrencies. It was pretty funny, because whatever the advantage of bitcoin, that also stands for litecoin, nevertheless some bitcoin fan were calling it ponzi and this or that. So competition is good as long as you are the only competing currency. Once newcomers emerge, they bitch the hell out of those... It was hard to read because of the strong smell of hypocrisy...
Well, the government can control the dollar but not crypto currencies, so that explains their behaviour. You do know the real reasons for the Iraq war? Old Saddam switched currencies, and that can not be allowed...
I did a bit of research. Lets put aside that bitcoin is now at 90 $. There were times when it went down. Though it has been on a tear,let assume it is a 50 50 bet. Here is the issue with bitcoin Bitcoin is bought as a hedge against currencies. It is full of problems and non liquid. Dollars are so much beter. But people buy it in hopes that currencies will fail. It is said to be above borders and government cant control or stop it . truth is that if one (as mentioned) invests 1-3 million in nodes they will have 51% of nodes and therefore be able to control or steal from the system. If a government wants to take it down it is cheap. It does not have to be profitable to get 51% of the nodes for the government. Remember. An investment in bitcoin is an investment against the government currency's (much like gold) shutting it down is too easy and cheap. We see what happened to monsanto. the job could be made simpler by a simple windows update that detects it as a virus or blocks it. Such a move would decrease nodes by 80% making the job cheaper. Just as easily, government people must protect their own money in a safe place and they may of chosen bitcoin to protect some wealth. Who knows. But the fact is bitcoin is not a hedge against the government. Its too bad that there is a loop hole. It really is not hard to believe that one entity can hold 50% of teh nodes. I bet there are two main brokers that do 30% each of the bitcoin transaction. so it is possible that 50% of nodes are under one umbrella
not sure what asic mining is . but just the fact the loop hole exists and can easily be used (profitably or not(government)) means that the whole idea of hedging against a collaps is gone out the window. If they really want to get rid of it they can it seems