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February Q&A: Roger Ver, Bitcoin Jesus, Answers your questions

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I.M.O.G.

Glorious Leader
Joined
Nov 12, 2002
Location
Rootstown, OH
Time for us to have a "come to Jesus" here in the Crypto-currency forum. Bitcoin Jesus that is.

  • Roger Ver will directly answer our questions
  • So ask some questions
  • Or identify topics you want questions asked about
  • Thanks

Please reply below with any questions you have for Roger Ver about Bitcoin, cryptocurrency, how it will change the world, exchanges, investing, mining, or anything else virtual currency related. Basically ask about anything you find interesting, curious, concerning or especially edgy about Bitcoin.

I will take the most interesting questions and get answers from Roger, who has agreed to an interview with me. I'll be tipping a minimum of .01BTC ($6 bucks or so) for questions that are included in the interview, out of my personal Bitcoin wallet.

Why should we care about what he has to say? If you don't know Roger Ver, take a moment to do a bit of research and you'll find various articles and interviews. He's a rather known personality in Bitcoin circles as he's been an outspoken proponent and early investor in Bitcoin. He's also not opposed to taking risks, he started and still runs memorydealers.com, and his political beliefs line up with voluntaryism (along the lines of libertarian, but basically says no one should be forced to be involved or associated with anything they don't choose).

Why should we care about him? Well, he went to federal prison for either calling ATF agents “a bunch of jack booted thugs and murderers” at a university senatorial debate in response to recent Waco controversy at the time, or he went to federal prison for storing, selling, and transporting less than 50 pounds of quarter sticks of dynamite through Ebay out of his apartment. Depends who you ask I guess but in my experience, there's varying degrees of truth on both sides of every line. Either way, this makes it clear he's legit in my book. I've been having a hard time finding a supply for my quarterstick needs since, and its such a hassle making my own. Brb, uniformed officers at my front door...

tl:dr Ask Bitcoin questions, and Roger Ver will answer them for us.
 
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Uh, sure I guess I've got some general ones.

What do you think of all the non bitcoin cryptos?
Specifically, do you think any of them have a place in the long term sustainability of cryptocurrencies? Are transaction times important enough to make any of them more realistic for day to day use than BTC?

How do you see miners interacting with the market over the course of the long term?
And how do you see new cryptos that are made to limit the effectiveness of ASIC/FPGAs and/or GPUs? Do you think they are important for sustaining BTC/cryptocurrencies in the long run? Do you think bitcoin is still worth mining to anyone with the price of equipment necessary to mine any significant amount being as high as it is?

What do you think it'll take before I can walk into a store and buy some gum with cryptocurrency?
And how far away do you think the widespread use of cryptocurrency is? Specifically for in-person use.
 
so, what happens when everyone stops mining because it is so unprofitable, how will the transactions continue to process?

i know not a very descriptive question but its something that has been picking my brain for a while.
 
What effect will governmental regulation/oversight have on cryptocurrency this year?

Will governmental involvement add to the legitimacy of crypto thus granting it access to a wider population, or will that involvement drive away innovators and hamper growth?

Which hardware mining product holds the most potential in the immediate future?
 
so, what happens when everyone stops mining because it is so unprofitable, how will the transactions continue to process?

i know not a very descriptive question but its something that has been picking my brain for a while.

If no one mines, it will be incredibly profitable for the one person who does. So a second person will. Then another. The system self balances using difficulty in order to keep the block generation time consistent... So as mining becomes less profitable, fewer people will continue mining, and then it will become more profitable again.

An example of this can be seen with Dogecoin. It went from 120-140GH/s on the network to 80-90GH/s on the network overnight, due to its first halving, which will make Doge mining almost 50% less profitable than it was before the halving. For now, so much mining power left the network that difficulty dropped considerably, and that is helping those remaining miners to keep it worthwhile.

I don't think I'll pose this one to him just because its based on an unrealistic premise - everyone won't stop mining because the more people stop the more profitable it is for those who keep going.

What effect will governmental regulation/oversight have on cryptocurrency this year?

Will governmental involvement add to the legitimacy of crypto thus granting it access to a wider population, or will that involvement drive away innovators and hamper growth?

Which hardware mining product holds the most potential in the immediate future?

Great questions.

PM with deposit address (withdrawal fees) or Cryptsy trade key (no fees).
 
Will the coins that do scientific/mathmatical work (primecoin riecoin, etc..) succeed long term, or are they merely a gimmick?
 
i mean, when theres like .001 coins left to mine in 140 years, won't be profitable for anyone to mine. could effect the value of the currency if we were to say leave it with our children when we pass or grand children for that matter. what happens then.
 
There is always coins left to mine. The transaction fees also go to the miners. There's that much fees per transaction, and many transactions per block.
 
i mean, when theres like .001 coins left to mine in 140 years, won't be profitable for anyone to mine. could effect the value of the currency if we were to say leave it with our children when we pass or grand children for that matter. what happens then.

Thanks for clarifying dude. When there's .001 coins left to mine, miners will be getting transaction fees. The coins were created to actually be used, so this is a fundamental element to their long term success... So in the end, there will either be popular widespread adoption such that the transaction fees are enough to keep miners mining, or there won't be enough adoption so exchange doesn't take place and mining is pointless.

But if the coins still relevant by the time it's mined out, there will be enough exchange to pay the miners reward fees to keep enough doing it. This is part of the reason if you pay higher fees transactions go faster - if you aren't happy because there aren't enough miners to make your transaction go fast, pay more and it will go quicker, which has the benefit of rewarding miners more and encouraging more people to do it.
 
Along the lines of eaglescouter's question:

How do you think the taxing process will be setup for those buying/selling with cryptocurrency? Do you believe it will be treated as a currency or a commodity and how can/will that be enforced by the IRS/<insert other country versions here>?
 
I would ask about the security of bitcoin itself. Besides the current over hype over the malleability issue, is there anything else that concerns him in the bitcoin code?
I also wonder if he is concerned about government / NSA or other ill-intentioned groups messing with or interfering with functionality or performance of the network. Perhaps any thoughts on what needs to done, if anything for prevention or improvement.
 
When do you see more stability coming within the Crypto markets? In other words, when will 'any news' about Cryptocurrency not cause such dramatic swings in its value?

Will there ever be a consolidation of some sort to all of the alt-coins that are popping up?
 
Thanks for clarifying dude. When there's .001 coins left to mine, miners will be getting transaction fees. The coins were created to actually be used, so this is a fundamental element to their long term success... So in the end, there will either be popular widespread adoption such that the transaction fees are enough to keep miners mining, or there won't be enough adoption so exchange doesn't take place and mining is pointless.

But if the coins still relevant by the time it's mined out, there will be enough exchange to pay the miners reward fees to keep enough doing it. This is part of the reason if you pay higher fees transactions go faster - if you aren't happy because there aren't enough miners to make your transaction go fast, pay more and it will go quicker, which has the benefit of rewarding miners more and encouraging more people to do it.

ah okay that makes sense :) thanks for the clarification guess i didnt understand how the system works lol
 
I also wonder if he is concerned about government / NSA or other ill-intentioned groups messing with or interfering with functionality or performance of the network. Perhaps any thoughts on what needs to done, if anything for prevention or improvement.

Part of me still thinks bitcoin is actually a distributed computing platform for brute forcing encryption... :chair:
 
I would ask about the security of bitcoin itself. Besides the current over hype over the malleability issue, is there anything else that concerns him in the bitcoin code?
I also wonder if he is concerned about government / NSA or other ill-intentioned groups messing with or interfering with functionality or performance of the network. Perhaps any thoughts on what needs to done, if anything for prevention or improvement.

I like this. I can probably also tie in the hardfork wish list to this question (a list that keeps track of stuff that would be nice to do, but would require another hardfork in order to make it happen).

Send address for deposit via PM.

Along the lines of eaglescouter's question:

How do you think the taxing process will be setup for those buying/selling with cryptocurrency? Do you believe it will be treated as a currency or a commodity and how can/will that be enforced by the IRS/<insert other country versions here>?

Good question. I'll probably ask this a couple ways, specifically like that and a little more generally first to see where he goes with it.

Send address for deposit via PM.
 
By the way, thanks to Coinbase for covering all of these BTC tips I'm giving out. I bought 1 BTC yesterday when their rates were low, and it has gained ~$100 within 24 hours, so after fees I'm ahead about $80 on that purchase without even bothering with a real exchange - doesn't get any simpler than that. :) But boy are Coinbase fees pretty high, I wouldn't want to do this very often.

When do you see more stability coming within the Crypto markets? In other words, when will 'any news' about Cryptocurrency not cause such dramatic swings in its value?

Will there ever be a consolidation of some sort to all of the alt-coins that are popping up?

It's all nearly random. Overstock and tigerdirect and other adoption almost held no meaning to the market. And things have gone crazy over nothing. As for consolidation of alts - it is technologically not feasible to consolidate, aside from market resistance to doing so. However, over time its probably safe to say clear winners will separate further from the pack. Already there tends to be a few the media has taken a liking to while the rest aren't taken seriously at all - doge dug under the fence on that one. I'll see if he has any comment on this one.
 
Currently, at least for the most part, "all roads lead to Bitcoin". Leaving alt-coins as a means to an end (mine alt-coins, convert alt-coins to BTC, convert BTC to USD). Obviously alt-coins can be converted to a select few other coins (LTC and XPM to name a few)
Which leads to my question: Will BTC always be the "king of the hill" with it's value controlling the market, or will any coins separate themselves as a standalone. Even LTC which exchanges for USD on BTC-e still has its value charted by BTC.
 
Currently, at least for the most part, "all roads lead to Bitcoin". Leaving alt-coins as a means to an end (mine alt-coins, convert alt-coins to BTC, convert BTC to USD). Obviously alt-coins can be converted to a select few other coins (LTC and XPM to name a few)
Which leads to my question: Will BTC always be the "king of the hill" with it's value controlling the market, or will any coins separate themselves as a standalone. Even LTC which exchanges for USD on BTC-e still has its value charted by BTC.

Thanks.

PM to confirm if you want BTC sent to your sig address.
 
What are you thoughts on coins like Doge and Coinye (1 being profitable, the other not so much); specifically coins made popular via meme's; do you think they hurt or help spreading awareness to btc/ltc? Do you think btc's viability and long term sustainability is reliant on alt-currencies?
 
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