I'm a Bitcoin holder (since 2013) so maybe I can help explain a few things.
The entire point of Bitcoin is that transactions are public. Everything is held in a publicly available "ledger" which can be checked by anyone. The benefit is that addresses are anonymous. Of course, addresses can be linked to a person if you put enough effort in (i.e. if I buy a product on overstock.com, then my physical address has been linked to the Bitcoin address I used).
As far as security goes, it's based on cryptography and mathematics which have stood the test of time. It's more secure than regular banking, that's for sure.
In order to mine a new Bitcoin, miners must find a certain value that is based off the previously mined block. The find this value by adding data to a block and checking whether the value generated matches the expected pattern. If it doesn't, they have to modify the block, try again. The data they add is transactions (i.e. people sending bitcoin to each other). So without miners, nobody would be able to send Bitcoin.
(November 29, 2017 at 3:02 pm)vorlon13 Wrote: I remain skeptical it's secure and/or can't be snooped thru via the CIA or Mossad or KGB . . .
The entire point of Bitcoin is that transactions are public. Everything is held in a publicly available "ledger" which can be checked by anyone. The benefit is that addresses are anonymous. Of course, addresses can be linked to a person if you put enough effort in (i.e. if I buy a product on overstock.com, then my physical address has been linked to the Bitcoin address I used).
As far as security goes, it's based on cryptography and mathematics which have stood the test of time. It's more secure than regular banking, that's for sure.
(November 29, 2017 at 5:14 pm)paulpablo Wrote: I started a thread like this a while back asking about the same topic and I'm still not much clearer about it.
I mean some of it is straight forward but I still don't get the bitcoin mining process, what value is the mining providing in order to gain bitcoin?
In order to mine a new Bitcoin, miners must find a certain value that is based off the previously mined block. The find this value by adding data to a block and checking whether the value generated matches the expected pattern. If it doesn't, they have to modify the block, try again. The data they add is transactions (i.e. people sending bitcoin to each other). So without miners, nobody would be able to send Bitcoin.
