Category Archives: Bitcoin

News

Apr 27, 2016 at 03:10 | Charles Bovaird

Global bitcoin prices were more than double their total last year, reaching $470 on the CoinDesk BPI today.

News

Apr 26, 2016 at 19:01 | Michael del Castillo

A European Parliament committee voted to adopt a report on virtual currencies today, moving Europe one step closer to an AML policy for the industry.

News

Apr 26, 2016 at 14:36 | Pete Rizzo

Gem has launched an initiative aimed at promoting exploration of blockchain in the healthcare sector.

Feature

Apr 25, 2016 at 23:00 | Pete Rizzo

Market observers weigh in on the news bitcoin exchange Bitstamp has secured what could be a key licensing in Luxembourg.

Opinion

Apr 25, 2016 at 22:17 | William Mougayar

Investor William Mougayar discusses how enterprise businesses are seeking to establish and implement blockchain strategies

News

Apr 25, 2016 at 20:45 | Stan Higgins

The UK Treasury has said in a new report that it wont impose AML rules on digital currency wallet providers in a bid to avoid regulatory burdens.

News

Apr 25, 2016 at 19:26 | Charles Bovaird

Bitcoin prices passed $460 on 25th April, reaching their highest total in four months as the digital currency built on past gains.

News

Apr 25, 2016 at 18:46 | Pete Rizzo

Tokyo-based bitcoin exchange bitFlyer has raised $27 million in new funding, one of the largest rounds for a Japanese digital currency firm to date.

News

Apr 25, 2016 at 17:50 | Stan Higgins

A major US defense agency devoted to advanced R&D is seeking to create a secure-blockchain-based messaging system.

News

Apr 25, 2016 at 17:09 | Pete Rizzo

Ita Unibanco has become the first Latin America-based bank to join blockchain and distributed ledger consortium R3CEV.

Read the original here:
Bitcoin News, Prices, Charts, Guides & Analysis - CoinDesk

4.5 Stars (115) 168 Downloads (This Week) Last Update: 2015-06-05 Browse Code SVN Repository Screenshots Description

Bitcoin is a decentralized P2P electronic cash system without a central server or trusted parties. Users hold the crypto keys to their own money and transact directly with each other, with the help of the network to check for double-spending.

Bitcoin Web Site

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features 1 of 5 2 of 5 3 of 5 4 of 5 5 of 5 4 / 5

design 1 of 5 2 of 5 3 of 5 4 of 5 5 of 5 4 / 5

support 1 of 5 2 of 5 3 of 5 4 of 5 5 of 5 4 / 5

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NOTE: Bitcoin development has moved to GitHub: github.com/bitcoin Documentation and downloads can be found at: bitcoin.org

Posted 03/20/2016

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WARNING, this is not the official Bitcoin project! You're likely to download malware here.

Posted 06/04/2015

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thks for btc! keylogger thingy in the review... hmm... anyone tried and dl-ed it? any problem? @applebypd ur graphic-card must be good... else u will see weird lines when u surf other webbies.

Posted 03/17/2015

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never accomplished to get a full sync with the blockchain so far. DB regularry gets currupted and the max. blockchain that was downloaded was two months old and then didn't proceed with the download

Posted 10/25/2014

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good

Posted 09/24/2014

First Energy-Efficient Cryptocurrency

First Cryptocurrency with Scientific Computing Proof-of-Work (Prime)

Bitcoin miner for nVidia GPUs

Read the original post:
Bitcoin download | SourceForge.net

Price of currency / BTC went trend to 0

Message displayed at , your notification has been disabled.

Bars in the background represent volume (that is, how many coins were traded during that time) enumerated in [BTC]. The Value for this is shown on the left axis.

change: high: low:

About these bars going up and down (if there are any at the moment). They show market depth changes over the last 10 minutes. The value axis for them is on the right [BTC]. Bars on the left of the current price are bid offer changes, and on the right ask offer changes. So if somebody is adding a bid offer, you will see a green bar up on the left. About colors: if bids are added they are in green, and when removed they are in red. For asks it's the opposite. That's because when somebody is adding an ask, it makes it harder for the price to go up (red). If somebody is removing an ask it's easier for the price to go up (green). Still confused? Try this

The big number here is the price at which last trade was made.

And here we have the last trades table. On the left: amount of bitcoins traded. On the right: price at which it happened.

If you still have some questions, you can find a link to my contact information on the bottom of this page. I also hang out on freenode under nick comboy.

Visit link:
Bitcoin Markets - Bitcoinity.org

Update - March, 31 2016 - 10:40 AM EST

We sincerely appreciate your loyalty and patience while we go through this process. It's a shame that Bitcoin services are targeted so heavily by cyber-criminals, but we will not return until we have the utmost confidence that our platform is secured once again. We realize that we have a truly unique service, not only because of how our platform works, but more importantly because of the way we treat our customers.

We are still on schedule for the platform to return as well. No files or information in the database were destroyed. We have nearly concluded our investigation on the issue, and have determined that our receipt upload function was likely the source of the exploit. We have also discovered that our database was likely leaked. No sensitive financial information was stored in the database, but phone numbers, first and last name and email addresses were released. Please look out for any phishing emails that may occur because of this. As previously stated, all modification PIN's and ID's remain secured.

We are now working on re securing our code base, and performing an additional security audit. We are still targeting 2-4 weeks from now to be back up, but there may be additional delays. We will keep you all updated! We are optimistic that the platform will be back better than before. In the mean time, please email us any questions you may have!

March, 17 2016 - 10:24 AM EST

When BitQuick was first founded back in August, 2013 it was founded with the intention to make Bitcoin trading safer and simpler. Through the years, we have always put customer security as our top priority. In February, 2014 we were the first US trading platform to implement proof of reserves following the Mt. Gox incident. 2015 up through now has seen incredible growth; BitQuick reached $1.5M 30 day trailing volume just last week, 15x where we were in January, 2015. This would not have been possible without our loyal and supportive customer base.

On Monday, March 14, 2016, our server fell victim to an attack that gave the attacker unauthorized administrative access. The breach was immediately noticed, and the server was shutdown to prevent any further damage. We are still performing a formal investigation to determine the attack vector, and specifically what information was obtained from the server. Due to additional security mechanisms in place, no funds were taken, and all IDs (drivers licenses, passports, etc.) and emails remain secured. Sellers were emailed withdrawal instructions Tuesday evening. All outstanding orders and withdrawals have been processed. Only 3% of all funds remain unclaimed. Support is still available at [emailprotected]

We have always provided our customers with the highest level of security and convenience, and we will not restore service until we are 100% confident we can continue to provide the same level of service that our customers are accustomed to, and deserve. This will occur once the investigation has been completed, the attack vector has been patched, and the rest of the source code has been audited for security. We estimate that this process could take anywhere from 2 to 4 weeks. An update will be issued to all BitQuick customers once the investigation has completed, and once service is restored.

Until then, we will continue working as hard as we can to restore safe service access. We really appreciate the support from everyone, and we will be back soon.

The rest is here:
BitQuick - Buy Bitcoins and Sell Bitcoins Instantly for Cash

Find your wallet and start making payments with merchants and users.

This wallet gives you full control over your bitcoins. This means no third party can freeze or lose your funds. You are however still responsible for securing and backing up your wallet.

This wallet is a full node that validates and relays transactions on the Bitcoin network. This means no trust in a third party is required when verifying payments. Full nodes provide the highest level of security and are essential to protecting the network. However, they require more space (over 20GB), bandwidth, and a longer initial synchronization time.

This wallet is open-source and built deterministically. This means any developer in the world can audit the code and make sure the final software isn't hiding any secrets.

This wallet can be loaded on computers which are vulnerable to malware. Securing your computer, using a strong passphrase, moving most of your funds to cold storage, or enabling two-factor authentication can make it harder to steal your bitcoins.

Prevents spying on your payments

This wallet makes it harder to spy on your balance and payments by rotating addresses. You should still take care to use a new Bitcoin address each time you request payment.

Avoids disclosing information

This wallet does not disclose information to peers on the network when receiving or sending a payment.

Tor can be used

This wallet lets you setup and use Tor as a proxy to prevent attackers or Internet service providers from associating your payments with your IP address.

Bitcoin Core is a full Bitcoin client and builds the backbone of the network. It offers high levels of security, privacy, and stability. However, it has fewer features and it takes a lot of space and memory.

This wallet gives you full control over your bitcoins. This means no third party can freeze or lose your funds. You are however still responsible for securing and backing up your wallet.

This wallet uses SPV and the Bitcoin network. This means very little trust in third parties is required when verifying payments. However, it is not as secure as a full node like Bitcoin Core.

The developers of this wallet publish the source code for the client. This means any developer in the world can audit the code. However, you still need to trust developers of this wallet when installing or updating the final software because it was not built deterministically like Bitcoin Core.

This wallet can be loaded on computers which are vulnerable to malware. Securing your computer, using a strong passphrase, moving most of your funds to cold storage, or enabling two-factor authentication can make it harder to steal your bitcoins.

Prevents spying on your payments

This wallet makes it harder to spy on your balance and payments by rotating addresses. You should still take care to use a new Bitcoin address each time you request payment.

Discloses limited information to peers

Peers on the network can log your IP address and associate your payments together when receiving or sending payment.

Tor can be used

This wallet lets you setup and use Tor as a proxy to prevent attackers or Internet service providers from associating your payments with your IP address.

MultiBit HD is a lightweight client that is fast and easy to use. With integrated Trezor and Tor support, it synchronizes directly with the Bitcoin network. The extensive help makes it an excellent choice for non-technical users.

This wallet gives you full control over your bitcoins. This means no third party can freeze or lose your funds. You are however still responsible for securing and backing up your wallet.

This wallet uses SPV and random servers from a list. This means little trust in third parties is required when verifying payments. However, it is not as secure as a full node like Bitcoin Core.

The developers of this wallet publish the source code for the client. This means any developer in the world can audit the code. However, you still need to trust developers of this wallet when installing or updating the final software because it was not built deterministically like Bitcoin Core.

This wallet can be loaded on computers which are vulnerable to malware. Securing your computer, using a strong passphrase, moving most of your funds to cold storage, or enabling two-factor authentication can make it harder to steal your bitcoins.

Prevents spying on your payments

This wallet makes it harder to spy on your balance and payments by rotating addresses. You should still take care to use a new Bitcoin address each time you request payment.

Discloses information to a third party

This wallet uses central servers which are able to associate your payments together and log your IP address.

Tor can be used

This wallet lets you setup and use Tor as a proxy to prevent attackers or Internet service providers from associating your payments with your IP address.

Electrum's focus is speed and simplicity, with low resource usage. It uses remote servers that handle the most complicated parts of the Bitcoin system, and it allows you to recover your wallet from a secret phrase.

This wallet gives you full control over your bitcoins. This means no third party can freeze or lose your funds. You are however still responsible for securing and backing up your wallet.

This wallet requires you to install full node software that validates and relays transactions on the Bitcoin network. This means no trust in a third party is required when verifying payments. Full nodes provide the highest level of security and are essential to protecting the network. However, they require more space (over 20GB), bandwidth, and a longer initial synchronization time.

The developers of this wallet publish the source code for the client. This means any developer in the world can audit the code. However, you still need to trust developers of this wallet when installing or updating the final software because it was not built deterministically like Bitcoin Core.

This wallet can be loaded on computers which are vulnerable to malware. Securing your computer, using a strong passphrase, moving most of your funds to cold storage, or enabling two-factor authentication can make it harder to steal your bitcoins.

Prevents spying on your payments

This wallet makes it harder to spy on your balance and payments by rotating addresses. You should still take care to use a new Bitcoin address each time you request payment.

Avoids disclosing information

This wallet does not disclose information to peers on the network when receiving or sending a payment.

Tor can be used

This wallet lets you setup and use Tor as a proxy to prevent attackers or Internet service providers from associating your payments with your IP address.

mSIGNA is an advanced yet easy-to-use wallet featuring speed and simplicity, enterprise-level scalability, and strong security. It supports BIP32, multisignature transactions, offline storage, multidevice synchronization, and encrypted electronic and paper backups.

This wallet gives you full control over your bitcoins. This means no third party can freeze or lose your funds. You are however still responsible for securing and backing up your wallet.

This wallet uses SPV and the Bitcoin network. This means very little trust in third parties is required when verifying payments. However, it is not as secure as a full node like Bitcoin Core.

The developers of this wallet publish the source code for the client. This means any developer in the world can audit the code. However, you still need to trust developers of this wallet when installing or updating the final software because it was not built deterministically like Bitcoin Core.

This wallet is loaded on mobiles where apps are usually isolated. This provides a good protection against malware, although mobiles are usually easier to steal or lose. Encrypting your mobile and backing up your wallet can reduce that risk.

Prevents spying on your payments

This wallet makes it harder to spy on your balance and payments by rotating addresses. You should still take care to use a new Bitcoin address each time you request payment.

Discloses limited information to peers

Peers on the network can log your IP address and associate your payments together when receiving or sending payment.

Tor not supported

This wallet does not let you use Tor to prevent attackers or Internet service providers from associating your payments with your IP address.

Bitcoin Wallet is easy to use and reliable, while also being secure and fast. Its vision is de-centralization and zero trust; no central service is needed for Bitcoin-related operations. The app is a good choice for non-technical people.

This wallet gives you full control over your bitcoins. This means no third party can freeze or lose your funds. You are however still responsible for securing and backing up your wallet.

This wallet relies on a centralized service by default. This means a third party must be trusted to not hide or simulate payments.

The developers of this wallet publish the source code for the client. This means any developer in the world can audit the code. However, you still need to trust developers of this wallet when installing or updating the final software because it was not built deterministically like Bitcoin Core.

This wallet is loaded on mobiles where apps are usually isolated. This provides a good protection against malware, although mobiles are usually easier to steal or lose. Encrypting your mobile and backing up your wallet can reduce that risk.

Prevents spying on your payments

This wallet makes it harder to spy on your balance and payments by rotating addresses. You should still take care to use a new Bitcoin address each time you request payment.

Discloses information to a third party

This wallet uses central servers which are able to associate your payments together and log your IP address.

Tor not supported

This wallet does not let you use Tor to prevent attackers or Internet service providers from associating your payments with your IP address.

Copay is the HD-multisignature wallet originally built to secure BitPay's funds. Copay supports multiple personal and shared wallets, testnet, and the full Payment Protocol. A private BWS node can be used for enhanced security and privacy.

This wallet gives you control over your bitcoins. However, this service is retaining an encrypted copy of your wallet. This means your bitcoins can be stolen if you don't use a strong password and the service is compromised.

This wallet relies on a centralized service by default. This means a third party must be trusted to not hide or simulate payments.

The developers of this wallet publish the source code for the client. This means any developer in the world can audit the code. However, you still need to trust developers of this wallet when installing or updating the final software because it was not built deterministically like Bitcoin Core.

This wallet is loaded on mobiles where apps are usually isolated. This provides a good protection against malware, although mobiles are usually easier to steal or lose. Encrypting your mobile and backing up your wallet can reduce that risk.

Prevents spying on your payments

This wallet makes it harder to spy on your balance and payments by rotating addresses. You should still take care to use a new Bitcoin address each time you request payment.

Discloses information to a third party

This service can associate your payments together, log your IP address and know your real identity if you provide personal information like your email, name or banking account.

Tor not supported

This wallet does not let you use Tor to prevent attackers or Internet service providers from associating your payments with your IP address.

Airbitz is a mobile Bitcoin Wallet making high levels of privacy, security, and decentralization very familiar and usable to the masses. Airbitz wallets are always automatically encrypted, backed up, and even function when Airbitz servers go down.

This wallet gives you full control over your bitcoins. This means no third party can freeze or lose your funds. You are however still responsible for securing and backing up your wallet.

This wallet uses SPV and the Bitcoin network. This means very little trust in third parties is required when verifying payments. However, it is not as secure as a full node like Bitcoin Core.

The developers of this wallet publish the source code for the client. This means any developer in the world can audit the code. However, you still need to trust developers of this wallet when installing or updating the final software because it was not built deterministically like Bitcoin Core.

This wallet is loaded on mobiles where apps are usually isolated. This provides a good protection against malware, although mobiles are usually easier to steal or lose. Encrypting your mobile and backing up your wallet can reduce that risk.

Prevents spying on your payments

This wallet makes it harder to spy on your balance and payments by rotating addresses. You should still take care to use a new Bitcoin address each time you request payment.

Discloses limited information to peers

Peers on the network can log your IP address and associate your payments together when receiving or sending payment.

Tor not supported

This wallet does not let you use Tor to prevent attackers or Internet service providers from associating your payments with your IP address.

Simplicity is breadwallet's core design principle. As a real standalone Bitcoin client, there is no server to get hacked or go down, and by building on iOS's strong security base, breadwallet is designed to protect you from malware, browser security holes, even physical theft.

This wallet gives you full control over your bitcoins. This means no third party can freeze or lose your funds. You are however still responsible for securing and backing up your wallet.

Payment validation features are provided by the software wallet you use with this device. Please see the Validation score for the software wallet you plan to use.

This wallet has not been tested and publicly reviewed by a significant number of people. This means this app might be more at risk of hiding dangerous code or doing something you wouldn't agree to.

This wallet is loaded from a secure specialized environment provided by the device. This provides very strong protection against computer vulnerabilities and malware since no software can be installed on this environment.

Privacy features are provided by the software wallet you use with this device. Please see the Privacy score for the software wallet you plan to use.

Trezor is a hardware wallet providing a high level of security without sacrificing convenience. Unlike cold storage, Trezor is able to sign transactions while connected to an online device. That means spending bitcoins is secure even when using a compromised computer.

This wallet gives you full control over your bitcoins. This means no third party can freeze or lose your funds. You are however still responsible for securing and backing up your wallet.

Payment validation features are provided by the software wallet you use with this device. Please see the Validation score for the software wallet you plan to use.

This wallet has not been tested and publicly reviewed by a significant number of people. This means this app might be more at risk of hiding dangerous code or doing something you wouldn't agree to.

This wallet is loaded from a secure specialized environment provided by the device. This provides very strong protection against computer vulnerabilities and malware since no software can be installed on this environment.

Privacy features are provided by the software wallet you use with this device. Please see the Privacy score for the software wallet you plan to use.

Read more:
Choose your wallet - Bitcoin

Keep an eye on the Bitcoin price, even while browsing in other tabs. Simply keep this site open and see the live Bitcoin price in the browser tab. (Note: Some mobile browsers dont yet support this feature.)

See how many bitcoins you can buy. Enter an amount on the right-hand input field, to see the equivalent amount in Bitcoin on the left.

See the value of your Bitcoin holdings. Enter the number of bitcoins you have, and watch their value fluctuate over time.

Compare Bitcoin to gold and other precious metals by checking out the converters for Bitcoin to gold, Bitcoin to silver, Bitcoin to platinum, and Bitcoin to palladium.

Try it on your phone or tabletthis site is designed with mobile devices in mind.

Convert in terms of smaller units e.g. microbitcoins (), millibitcoins (m). Toggle using keyboard shortcuts: 'u', 'm', and 'k'.

Bookmark your preferred currency e.g. Bitcoin to Euro, or Bitcoin to British Pound. This site currently supports 64 currencies.

Excerpt from:
Bitcoin Exchange Rate Bitcoin Live Converter Preev

Afghanistan land Islands Albania Algeria American Samoa Andorra Angola Anguilla Antarctica Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Armenia Aruba Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bermuda Bhutan Bolivia, Plurinational State of Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Bouvet Island Brazil British Indian Ocean Territory Brunei Darussalam Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Canada Cape Verde Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad Chile China Christmas Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Colombia Comoros Congo Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Cook Islands Costa Rica Cte d'Ivoire Croatia Cuba Curaao Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Falkland Islands (Malvinas) Faroe Islands Fiji Finland France French Guiana French Polynesia French Southern Territories Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany Ghana Gibraltar Greece Greenland Grenada Guadeloupe Guam Guatemala Guernsey Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana Haiti Heard Island and McDonald Islands Holy See (Vatican City State) Honduras Hong Kong Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran, Islamic Republic of Iraq Ireland Isle of Man Israel Italy Jamaica Japan Jersey Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Korea, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Republic of Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Lao People's Democratic Republic Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Macao Macedonia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Marshall Islands Martinique Mauritania Mauritius Mayotte Mexico Micronesia, Federated States of Moldova, Republic of Monaco Mongolia Montenegro Montserrat Morocco Mozambique Myanmar Namibia Nauru Nepal Netherlands New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria Niue Norfolk Island Northern Mariana Islands Norway Oman Pakistan Palau Palestinian Territory, Occupied Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Pitcairn Poland Portugal Puerto Rico Qatar Runion Romania Russian Federation Rwanda Saint Barthlemy Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Martin (French part) Saint Pierre and Miquelon Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Samoa San Marino Sao Tome and Principe Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Sint Maarten (Dutch part) Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia South Africa South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands South Sudan Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Suriname Svalbard and Jan Mayen Swaziland Sweden Switzerland Syrian Arab Republic Taiwan Tajikistan Tanzania, United Republic of Thailand Timor-Leste Togo Tokelau Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom United States United States Minor Outlying Islands Uruguay Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam Virgin Islands, British Virgin Islands, U.S. Wallis and Futuna Western Sahara Yemen Zambia Zimbabwe

Read more here:
Standard Exchanges | Bitcoin.com

Price ... Global Vol. ... Diff. ... You will learn (1) how bitcoin mining works, (2) how to start mining bitcoins, (3) what the best bitcoin mining software is, (4) what the best bitcoin mining hardware is, (5) where to find the best bitcoin mining pools and (6) how to optimize your bitcoin earnings.

Bitcoin mining is difficult to do profitably but if you try then this Bitcoin miner is probably a good shot.

Before you start mining Bitcoin, it's useful to understand what Bitcoin mining really means. Bitcoin mining is legal and is accomplished by running SHA256 double round hash verification processes in order to validate Bitcoin transactions and provide the requisite security for the public ledger of the Bitcoin network. The speed at which you mine Bitcoins is measured in hashes per second.

The Bitcoin network compensates Bitcoin miners for their effort by releasing bitcoin to those who contribute the needed computational power. This comes in the form of both newly issued bitcoins and from the transaction fees included in the transactions validated when mining bitcoins. The more computing power you contribute then the greater your share of the reward.

Purchasing Bitcoins - Although it's not yet easy to buy bitcoins, it's getting simpler every day. You may want to check the bitcoin charts.

To begin mining bitcoins, you'll need to acquire bitcoin mining hardware. In the early days of bitcoin, it was possible to mine with your computer CPU or high speed video processor card. Today that's no longer possible. Custom Bitcoin ASIC chips offer performance up to 100x the capability of older systems have come to dominate the Bitcoin mining industry.

Bitcoin mining with anything less will consume more in electricity than you are likely to earn. It's essential to mine bitcoins with the best bitcoin mining hardware built specifically for that purpose. Several companies such as Avalon offer excellent systems built specifically for bitcoin mining.

Currently, based on (1) price per hash and (2) electrical efficiency the best Bitcoin miner options are:

Manufacturer

$1,589.00

$499.97

$33.87

Once you've received your bitcoin mining hardware, you'll need to download a special program used for Bitcoin mining. There are many programs out there that can be used for Bitcoin mining, but the two most popular are CGminer and BFGminer which are command line programs.

If you prefer the ease of use that comes with a GUI, you might want to try EasyMiner which is a click and go windows/Linux/Android program.

You may want to learn more detailed information on the best bitcoin mining software.

Once you're ready to mine bitcoins then we recommend joining a Bitcoin mining pool. Bitcoin mining pools are groups of Bitcoin miners working together to solve a block and share in it's rewards. Without a Bitcoin mining pool, you might mine bitcoins for over a year and never earn any bitcoins. It's far more convenient to share the work and split the reward with a much larger group of Bitcoin miners. Here are some options:

For a fully decentralized pool, we highly recommend p2pool.

The following pools are believed to be currently fully validating blocks with Bitcoin Core 0.9.5 or later (0.10.2 or later recommended due to DoS vulnerabilities):

The next step to mining bitcoins is to set up a Bitcoin wallet or use your existing Bitcoin wallet to receive the Bitcoins you mine. A Bitcoin wallet is like a traditional wallet and can be software, mobile or web-based. Bitcoin hardware wallets are also available.

Bitcoins are sent to your Bitcoin wallet by using a unique address that only belongs to you. The most important step in setting up your Bitcoin wallet is securing it from potential threats by enabling two-factor authentication or keeping it on an offline computer that doesn't have access to the Internet. Wallets can be obtained by downloading a software client to your computer.

For help in choosing a Bitcoin wallet then you can get started here.

You will also need to be able to buy and sell your Bitcoins. For this we recommend:

Read the rest here:
Getting started with Bitcoin mining What is Bitcoin Mining ...

the best part about bitcoins is that you get to watch libertarians slowly discover why financial regulations exist to begin with

Bitcoin (code: BTC, XBT[2]) is an Internet-based digital currency and payment network; it uses strong cryptography to prevent users from duplicating money. Bitcoin's independence from the control of governments, corporations, or other centralized entities tends to appeal to libertarians, anarcho-capitalists, and technophiles.[3] At the same time, it also does not enjoy the security and protection which those large bodies can ostensibly provide, making it a volatile and often insecure asset.

Bitcoin was first proposed by a person known only by the apparent pseudonym of "Satoshi Nakamoto" in late 2008, at the height of the banking crisis.[4] The identity of him/her/them has been a continuing source of intrigue.[5]

The currency is designed to employ lots of computers to process and record transactions. The solution to this is "mining," in which Bitcoin users run software to do all the necessary work.[6] Every time someone successfully proves they performed this work, they receive bitcoins in return. This provides an incentive to keep the currency running, but also attracts a lot of prospectors and speculators looking for easy money, and scammers who consider them suitably exploitable suckers.[7]

The currency's only practical use case is purchasing illicit goods (e.g., drugs) and services (e.g., murder-for-hire scams)[8][9] and extortion (e.g., "ransomware").[10] It is becoming the preferred currency for internal use by online criminals.[11][12] There has so far been no other use case for which it is superior to existing channels.

In 2014, the cryptocurrency began a sharp decline after a principal exchange, Mt. Gox, shut down following three months of blatant market manipulation.[13][14] It was later revealed that an undiscovered "leak" in the company's bitcoin wallet had rendered them insolvent in 2012, and virtually penniless by 2014.[15] Essentially, Bitcoin's astronomical rise was the direct result of meaningless trades with fake money.[16]

It's like a house on fire with freshly baked cookies inside.

The notable bit about Bitcoin is that it is intended to be entirely decentralised. The blockchain, the cryptographically-authenticated public ledger of every Bitcoin transaction ever, is reconciled by agreement of over 50% of all miners an attempt at a practical solution to the Byzantine Generals' Problem[wp] in computer science.[18]

There is no central bank backing Bitcoin; previous virtual currencies, such as E-Gold, Flooz, Beenz, Lindens, or WoW gold have always had an organisation behind them. This lack of a monetary authority means that, were governments to try to do something about it, they would not have a central point of attack.[19] Bitcoin therefore presents a rare sandbox/universe-in-a-jar scenario for observing market interactions in a free banking[wp] system, as Austrian schoolers have always wanted this time in the context of post-industrial economies.

You can buy actual stuff with bitcoins! Mostly internet services, geek toys, phone sex,[20] illegal drugs[21] and, of course, pre-used Bitcoin mining hardware.[22] And actually useful things like beer and pizza.[23][24] To allow payment with a high-volatility currency like Bitcoin, it is common for merchants to price their goods in the local standard currency, but receive payment via Bitcoin converted at current market rates.[25]

Bitcoin has no intrinsic value (i.e., has no use-value), similar to the US dollar,[26] and could be a general currency if 300 million people similarly behaved as though it was one, i.e., would do work in exchange for it.[27] Its biggest problem as an exchange medium is that it is not widely accepted, and that trading is thus very thin indeed.

There is also the matter of built-in deflation: there is a strictly limited possible number of bitcoins, and the processing power to mine new ones goes up as more miners join.[28] Also, if your wallet file is deleted, your bitcoins are gone for good.

"Babbage" at The Economist took it seriously and found it quite interesting,[29] but has muted his praise over time.[30] Other economists have criticized the idea (to the point of calling it a scam), citing inherent design problems.[31][32][33][34][35]Paul Krugman initially refrained from poking fun at the concept, but considered it a reimplementation of the gold standard, with the economic problems that implies;[36] he's since judged it as effectively just another right-wing affinity fraud, in which big libertarians prey upon smaller ones.[37] Warren Buffett has called it a "mirage."[38] About 25% of the European Central Bank's report on "Virtual Currency Schemes" is about Bitcoin,[39] and both the European Banking Authority and US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau have warned about major consumer protection issues.[40][41]

The trouble with re-implementing the gold standard in the 21st century is that financial attacks, just like cryptographic attacks, don't get less effective with time if you apply attacks evolved in a hundred years of Red Queen's race against regulation, then remove the regulation, the subeconomy in question is utterly defenseless. As one quant on Hacker News outlined:[42]

And we can now see this in practice: the $1200/BTC peak in late 2013 was caused by the market manipulation known as "painting the tape";[43] Mt. Gox in particular appears to have suffered chronic tape-painting.[44] Note that the "free market" completely failed to deal with fraud in this environment: all other exchanges were tracking Mt. Gox's blatantly skewed prices.

Bitcoin relies on distributed consensus: the blockchain is what a majority of mining capacity says it is. Since mining is the "core of the Bitcoin protocol," there is the possibility of what is termed a "51% attack," where miners could consolidate into a cartel to exceed 50% of the mining power (yes, a de facto monopoly) and so could unilaterally ratify the entire blockchain to do things like double-spending confirmed transactions and preventing any new transactions or just ones they don't like from happening while they're in control (though they cannot take other people's coins).[45][46] But this was considered unlikely because Bitcoin enthusiasts were highly distributed individualists.

This worked quite well early on. However, proof-of-work algorithms benefit from economies of scale,[wp] which leads to centralization directly. So as mining became more difficult and demanded more specialized resources, single mining "pools" became a substantial fraction of Bitcoin's network hashrate. In June 2014, mining pool GHash reached 51%, leading to calls to use decentralized pooling options.[47] In 2015, nine mining pools control 75% of the hashpower.[48]

Economically, it would be foolish for, e.g., GHash to just kick over the board because they could cornering the market in an insubstantial good is only worth it while people trust the value of the insubstantial good but the actual problem is that the group with 51% of all mining capacity will be able to "undermine the rules of the currency itself."[49] GHash quickly backed down to under 50% and claims it wants to fix the deeper problem,[50] but the economic incentives of "selfish mining" remain.

Cornell researchers have identified many more subtle attacks one can make even with less than 50%,[51] and it is worth noting that GHash had previously conducted a "49% attack" (a "Finney attack"[52]) wherein a large miner double-spends coins, just not with certainty against a gambling site.[53] They blamed this on a rogue employee, but this in itself shows that individuals can be motivated to trash a whole system for temporary personal gain. Again, real financial systems have government regulation for this specific threat.

So who's doing the maths? The answer is the most powerful distributed computing project in the world.[54] While other distributed computing systems are investigating protein folding or sifting through radiotelescope data for signs of intelligent communication from the stars, bitcoins are being generated by people running hashing algorithms to process transactions on a poorly-traded virtual currency.

But it's long past the point where you can do any decent amount of processing on a standard desktop system (or, as some less-than-ethical Bitcoiners have, sneaking processing code into Javascript on web pages, or simply deploying a Trojan on someone's Windows box). Bitcoin miners quickly moved to the GPUs of video cards, then field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) specifically programmed for the algorithm, and now mining is done on ASICs based on said FPGAs. There are even companies selling Bitcoin mining rigs; their frequently-sketchy workmanship wouldn't endear them to IT pros or the FTC, but they're still better than some of the firetrap rigs that Bitcoiners have put together for themselves.[55] The many bizarre and frankly stupid cooling schemes are usually good for a laugh as well, including one Darwin Award applicant who poured a bucket of liquid nitrogen on the floor next to his rig to cool it.[56]

The irony of all this is that once hardware and power costs are factored in, it's hard to make a profit from Bitcoin mining. Many more-savvy Bitcoiners filch their power from someone else and don't factor in the equipment cost at all.

Bitcoin is also an environmental disaster, using on the order of 24 gigawatt-hours a day, literally wasted on calculating hashes. For comparison, the entire nation of Ireland runs about 72 GWh a day average.[57][58] The network cost per transaction (of any size) is around $20 of electricity.[59] (Thus, Bitcoin runs on libertarians externalising their costs to others.[60]) If only they'd based it on protein folding.[61]

The cryptography is robust, so many highly vocal internet libertarians think this is all that is needed, because they don't understand people, know very little about economics, and apparently nothing of how reliable financial computing infrastructures are built real banks tend to use mainframes in highly redundant configurations, not AWS virtual servers without backups and generally show terrifying navet and incompetence. This then bites them in the arse when they discover that running a Magic: The Gathering Online card exchange site is insufficient experience to securely run a currency exchange,[62] or discover they have no backups.[63] Many were sufficiently nave as to fall for, not just a Ponzi scheme, but a Ponzi scheme that had already been tried in EVE Online's in-game currency.[64] There are also people who understand this level of computer science, but still keep their wallet.dat file in plain text on a Windows box, ready for reaping by malware or a DDoS.[65][66][67] This is the sort of thing that gets bitcoins called "Dunning-Krugerrands."[68]

The decentralised nature attracts libertarian extremists (go read any Bitcoin forum for more wacko libertarianism than you ever thought possible). There are Bitcoin advocates who are not annoying Randroid fools, but the ones who are tend to drown out all the others. It is unsurprising, then, that some business writers have accused them of cultish behaviour;[49][69] some proponents are simply aghast that anyone might not consider it valuable for services rendered.[70]

One of the otherwise-saner advocates is Rick Falkvinge, founder of the Swedish Pirate Party, who has put all his savings into bitcoins.[71] Though, he also details its problems.[72] He is a big fan of Bitcoin not as a general currency, but as a pure medium of exchange, substituting for PayPal or credit cards and changing back into a more popular currency at each end as the Visa/Mastercard/PayPal oligopoly's willingness to block recipients they, the American government or fundamentalists don't like, starts to become a practical problem.

Andrew Napolitano from Fox Business Network supports Bitcoin as well. In a move that may make many of his fans cry, Ron Paul does not.[73]

There are multiple Bitcoin "banks," but most of this seems to revolve around doing things with bitcoins,[74] leading to accusations of cargo cult economics. And scams. There are lots of scammers in the Bitcoin community, who are punished by the harshest method imaginable: getting a "scammer" tag on the BitcoinTalk.org forum.

There is a Bitcoin exchange hack or collapse approximately every month. Leaving any money exposed on a Bitcoin exchange is, statistically, a terrible idea.

One Bitcoin exchange, Bitcoin-Central (now called Paymium), has achieved bank status in France.[75] Their aim is to supply an alternative to PayPal, and their central bank backing on balances only applies to accounts in euros rather than in bitcoins. On the other hand, other players in the Bitcoin field have had to suspend operations because US banks view companies involved with Bitcoin as too high risk to do business with,[76] or have had to suspend US dollar withdrawals for undisclosed reasons.[77]

Despite Western-oriented services being portrayed as synonymous with the Bitcoin "brand" Mt. Gox was still responsible for 90% of all Bitcoin transactions by the end of 2012,[78] so this isn't entirely unwarranted Chinese exchanges actually overtook it in output before its collapse.[79] This presents another serious problem for the cryptocurrency moving forward: attempts by the US government to impose regulations post-Gox pale in comparison to recent pressure by Beijing to crack down on the Chinese market.[80] One incentive is off-the-books currency exchange: buy hardware and electricity in yuan, make it into bitcoins and sell the bitcoins for dollars.

In order to prop up the initial system, Bitcoin mining was designed to bribe early users with exponentially better rewards than latecomers could get for the same effort. To join the network at all, new users must give ever-increasing amounts of wealth to previous bitcoiners who are sitting around doing nothing. This effectively makes Bitcoin a pump-and-dump scheme wherein these early adopters, who have more bitcoins than anyone else ever will, hype it up so they can offload their bitcoins onto fools who think they'll strike it rich as speculators. This means the system runs on opportunism, especially among people who like the idea of decentralized techno-money. This setup is defended as an acceptable trade-off and/or a fair reward for propping up the system.[82]

In the meantime, speculators and opportunists have remained Bitcoin's main users: according to one 2012 study, only 22% of existing bitcoins were in circulation at all, there were a total of 75 active users/businesses with any kind of volume, one (unidentified) user owned a quarter of all bitcoins in existence, and one large owner was trying to hide their wealth accumulation by moving it around in thousands of smaller transactions.[83] Meanwhile, businesses, from family stores to multimillion-dollar corporations, have jumped onto Bitcoin to seem forward-looking and get a cut of the Bitcoin action.[84] But go on, dive in and get rich.

The real and overriding issue with Bitcoin is that it does practically nothing that isn't already possible, while also introducing flaws of its own:

Whenever some of these objections are raised, the common Bitcoiner reply is to think about things from the merchant's point of view that they pay less in fees (which isn't necessarily true), or that they might get chargebacks (which can be defended against, and generally don't happen to merchants who don't actually scam people or rip them off). This ignores that most people don't care, and the few that do see enough benefit and convenience from being able to get fraudulently taken money returned to them that it doesn't actually bother them.

In practice, the only thing Bitcoin does better than conventional currencies and existing payment systems is to let libertarians buy illicit goods without having to go to the bad part of town and talk to minorities.

A number of copycat cryptocurrencies ("altcoins") exist as a consequence of the Bitcoin experiment, only a few of which, such as Litecoin and Dogecoin, have achieved any notability. A few of these have significant distinctions from Bitcoin, such as Namecoin which is part of a decentralized ".bit" DNS project[94] and Freicoin which incorporates demurrage to discourage speculative hoarding, but most of them are simple forks of the Bitcoin code. Since the media attention on Bitcoin in early 2013[95] a glut of such "coins" has flooded the market, with increasingly silly names like BBQcoin, Memecoin, Junkcoin, Sexcoin, and Shitcoin.[96] And don't forget Coinye West.[97]

Dogecoin[98] gained some popularity on cuteness value and use for tipping on Reddit.[99] Unlike most altcoins, Dogecoin is slightly inflationary rather than deflationary.[100] Despite having similar get-rich hopes, Dogecoin fans are also notably less dickish than Bitcoin fans, though that's not hard to achieve.

Many Bitcoin advocates really don't like altcoins:[101] most of the value proposition of Bitcoin is the strictly limited quantity available, and they perceive altcoins as undermining their hodling, instead suggesting the way to resolve Bitcoin's scaling problems without altcoins is with hypothetical add-ons such as sidechains.[102] (Though sidechain developers themselves are not so optimistic.[103]) They dismiss altcoins as scams (though they don't regard the substantially-premined Bitcoin as one). However, there is no way for them to stop altcoins from being created.

To be fair, quite a lot of altcoins since the 2013 boom were blatant scams: make a coin, premine it, promise far-fetched features in BitcoinTalk's altcoin forum,[104] get it onto an exchange, sell it for Bitcoins. USBCoin, for example, netted 150 BTC this way.[105] DafuqCoin compromised exchanges because nobody checked the code before running it.[106][107] And then there's Ponzicoin, which, despite having Ponzi in the name, lasted a few months before being exposed, shockingly, as a Ponzi scheme. BitcoinTalk dealt with these coins firmly: it limited advertisement signature image dimensions.

In a gold rush, the money's in selling shovels. Cash up front, please.

(Unless you're Butterfly Labs, in which case the shovel-sellers are crooks too).

See the article here:
Bitcoin - RationalWiki

Currently, based on (1) price per hash and (2) electrical efficiency the best Bitcoin miner options are:

Manufacturer

$474.97

$499.97

$33.87

Bitcoin mining is the process of adding transaction records to Bitcoin's public ledger of past transactions or blockchain. This ledger of past transactions is called the block chain as it is a chain of blocks. The block chain serves to confirm transactions to the rest of the network as having taken place.

Bitcoin nodes use the block chain to distinguish legitimate Bitcoin transactions from attempts to re-spend coins that have already been spent elsewhere.

Bitcoin mining is intentionally designed to be resource-intensive and difficult so that the number of blocks found each day by miners remains steady. Individual blocks must contain a proof of work to be considered valid. This proof of work is verified by other Bitcoin nodes each time they receive a block. Bitcoin uses the hashcash proof-of-work function.

The primary purpose of mining is to allow Bitcoin nodes to reach a secure, tamper-resistant consensus. Mining is also the mechanism used to introduce Bitcoins into the system: Miners are paid any transaction fees as well as a "subsidy" of newly created coins.

This both serves the purpose of disseminating new coins in a decentralized manner as well as motivating people to provide security for the system.

Bitcoin mining is so called because it resembles the mining of other commodities: it requires exertion and it slowly makes new currency available at a rate that resembles the rate at which commodities like gold are mined from the ground.

A proof of work is a piece of data which was difficult (costly, time-consuming) to produce so as to satisfy certain requirements. It must be trivial to check whether data satisfies said requirements.

Producing a proof of work can be a random process with low probability, so that a lot of trial and error is required on average before a valid proof of work is generated. Bitcoin uses the Hashcash proof of work.

Bitcoin mining a block is difficult because the SHA-256 hash of a block's header must be lower than or equal to the target in order for the block to be accepted by the network.

This problem can be simplified for explanation purposes: The hash of a block must start with a certain number of zeros. The probability of calculating a hash that starts with many zeros is very low, therefore many attempts must be made. In order to generate a new hash each round, a nonce is incremented. See Proof of work for more information.

The Bitcoin mining network difficulty is the measure of how difficult it is to find a new block compared to the easiest it can ever be. It is recalculated every 2016 blocks to a value such that the previous 2016 blocks would have been generated in exactly two weeks had everyone been mining at this difficulty. This will yield, on average, one block every ten minutes.

As more miners join, the rate of block creation will go up. As the rate of block generation goes up, the difficulty rises to compensate which will push the rate of block creation back down. Any blocks released by malicious miners that do not meet the required difficulty target will simply be rejected by everyone on the network and thus will be worthless.

When a block is discovered, the discoverer may award themselves a certain number of bitcoins, which is agreed-upon by everyone in the network. Currently this bounty is 25 bitcoins; this value will halve every 210,000 blocks. See Controlled Currency Supply.

Additionally, the miner is awarded the fees paid by users sending transactions. The fee is an incentive for the miner to include the transaction in their block. In the future, as the number of new bitcoins miners are allowed to create in each block dwindles, the fees will make up a much more important percentage of mining income.

Continued here:
Everything you need to know about Bitcoin mining What is ...