Who benefits??

[SexyMF]

Could somebody please offer a better explaination of the economics of using a Bitcoin to purchase physical goods? Or how something generated for free can acquire value and be traded to real money.

All the online videos and text (I have found) explaining Bitcoins offer nothing to the economics of it.

We all know you can't print your own paper money, so why should Bitcoin work when you are doing the electronic equivalent??

In a bartering system, it's still work for work. I can't see how mining benefits anybody other than the GPU manufacturers and power companies.

[JAWS]

Last night I was reading the AMD thread in the news and found out about Bitcoin. I then spent the next 2 hours reading all the threads in the Bitcoin section.
Honestly, I still have no idea about what to do. It looks like it would've been
better to start a couple months ago.

[acebmxer]

It looks like it would've been better to start a couple months ago.

If you did not have any hardware already and had to go out and buy it then yes it is a difficult choice to make. If you already have the hardware and there is no out of pocket expense to get started then you can still make money.

I think when people read up about it and hear all the hype about bitcoin and how people are making lots of money (yes a couple of months ago). So as long as your not looking for making 300-400$ a month then yes you can still make money like around 150-200$ possibly after paying the added cost of electricity.

Check this out if you have not seen it yet. http://98.200.247.249:81/btc_calc.php

[SexyMF]

So I guess everybody is focused on generating these bitcoins but actually has no idea how the system can work.

[god_43]

yeah i was wondering that as well? i mean what is the value? and where does the "real" money come from when i sell these things or when i trade them for a visa card?

[don_xvi]

What gives bitcoins value is that people have decided they're worth something. Just like Beanie babies, baseball cards or cocaine, someone was able to make something for next-to-nothing but someone else thinks it has value in their life, so they're willing to trade cash for it surprisingly in excess of the cost to produce. It's value comes from the belief of those in the community that (1) it's the currency of the future or (2) that it's an investment medium they can daytrade, etc to make a profit off of.