$10,496.00 for ONE BITCOIN!

I have explained this so many times, and this explanation is usually what sticks.

There is no such thing as a bitcoin.  There is no coin.  THERE IS A LEDGER.

Imagine you started with a simple ledger.  On the right side is the giver, and on the left is the receiver.  At first, vanzack owns all of the bitcoins because I say I do.  So the ledger looks like this:

Vanzack 100        Everyone else  0

Then I give Scooby Doos a bitcoin in something called a transaction.  So the ledger is updated to look like this:

Vanzack 99    Scooby Doos 1

Then I give Nutflopper 2 bitcoin because he is much better at capping than I am.

Vanzack 97            Nutflopper 2
Scooby Doos 1

And it just goes on and on and on like this.

There are no bitcoins - you never own a bitcoin - YOU OWN THE AUTHORITY TO TRANSACT A BITCOIN SOMETIME IN THE FUTURE and that is recorded on the ledger.

So if you currently own bitcoin, there is a ledger entry somewhere that gives you that authority - and this ledger is called the blockchain.  The miners are the people that verify that the transactions (someone giving someone else bitcoin) are legit - and then they go on the blockchain and the blockchain grows and grows and grows forever.

Pretty simple actually.

There are three camps in the bitcoin world:  One thinks bitcoins is a store of value (like gold), one thinks bitcoin is a transactional currency, and one thinks it is both.

Right now, it is clear that it much more of the first option than the second.  Like gold, it is hard to walk in to a coffee shop and pay with Bitcoin right now.

BUT - there is major value in it right now because it is a hedge against inflationary currencies and destabilized governments.  Dont forget that out of the close to 8 billion people on the earth, at least half live in countries that have inflationary currencies and governements that are not stable.  They love bitcoin.  They also dont have access to banks like we do - so they love bitcoin.

One day, the transactional side of it will be worked out.  It is a very complicated debate, but one day it will sort itself out.  But the reason you see bitcoin trading at 17k is because people in 2017 see it as a transportable store of value IMO.

Typically, electricity is geographically dependent and restricted.  If you live in St Louis, you cannot purchase power from Montana or the Congo.

But the electricity needed to run mining computers does not have a geographic restriction - these computers can be anywhere - and therefore they create a totally efficient marketplace driven by energy costs.  If Kenya is offering the cheapest electricity in the world, guess  where the mining computers will be?

Now...  When you learn how electicity grids and infrastructure is set up - you will see that countries take a "build it and they will come" approach when it comes to infrasture projects like electric grids.  

So lets take an example:  Kenya decides that in order to attract business and further their economy they need an electric grid.  They build that electric grid in anticipation of what they will need 20 years from now - not what they need today - and that leaves a lot of overproduced electricity capacity sitting idle - which means cheap electricity!

So what do miners do?  They go to these underutilized electric grids - AND ACTUALLY BUILD THE ECONOMIES OF DEVELOPING NATIONS.  

I have no basis to understand why one would go up and another go down - so the answer is no.

Bitcoin cash has a meaning behind it - it really is for that group of people who want a transactional currency - their blocks are 8 times bigger and therefore they are really set up to handle much more transactional base than the main BTC - but they will always have an uphill battle.

I posted in another thread....  If RC Cola tastes better than Coca Cola-  are they going to take over market share?  Maybe, but it aint easy.

I saw your post that you are in alts - I just wouldn't know what to pick and when - and also I am very concerned with manipulation with those as well.

But GL.

buck, XRP has a monsterous float and the fact that ripple holds so much in treasury (meaning they own X ammt) how can the price go up a large ammt? The market cap of XRP is large because of the huge supply, also XRP isnt mined at all that I can see, rather released by the large stake owner ripple. So unless this thing goes bonkers they wont come close to having a supply concern...and who knows if they did that ripple wont make more to satisfy the supply issue? It looks cheap based on price per XRP but the supply is crazy. I like the transaction cost and speed of execution but for guys like us the benefit outside of speculation does not exist. Books arent accepting this so I cant fund 5 Dimes with it, but I wish I could as it is fast and cheap!

There is nothing physical.

When you want to "pay" someone, you do a transfer on the ledger.  You are paying by transferring your right to control "bitcoin" on the ledger to someone else.

Lets take an example:

You control 10 bitcoin on the ledger.  You want to buy a motorcycle.  This motorcycle dealer wants 19k for it, but he says he will take 1 bitcoin instead of dollars.  You go online, make a transaction request to transfer the right to control 1 bitcoin from you to him.  Once it is confirmed by the miners, you now have 9 bitcoins on the ledger, and the motorcycle dealer has 1.  Nothing physical has exchanged from you to him, but he now has the capability to transfer that 1 bitcoin to someone else.

SO - lets say the motorcycle dealer wants dollars for his bitcoin.  He now controls 1 bitcoin on the ledger, and so he transfers it to an exchange or to an individual willing to give him dollars in exchange for him relinquishing control of his bitcoin on the ledger and transfer it to them.  They give the motorcycle dealer 19k in USD, and now they control that 1 BTC on the ledger.

And on and on and on forever.

BTW - this is all that banking is really.  When you send a wire to someone through your bank, there is an electronic transfer of nothing physical that says you are giving up your authority to control that money, and giving that authority to someone else.  The difference is with BTC you do not need a bank (a third party) to do the transfer.

Make sense?

The distinguishing characteristic about bitcoin is that it is decentralized.  That means - NOBODY CONTROLS THE BANK.

As we have established, there is a ledger (blockchain).  Bitcoin uses miners that compete to solve a mathematical equation to confirm transactions.

At a bank, they serve as what the miners do.  They are the "trusted third party".  But in bitcoin - we no longer need a trusted third party because anybody who wants to become a miner is the trusted third party.  In other words, bitcoin removes the middleman (banks, credit cards etc) which is the beauty behind it.

What gives bitcoin value?  Why is it 18k?  THE SAME THING THAT GIVES CASH AND DOLLARS VALUE.  Simply - the belief that it has value.  That is the only thing the USD has - a belief that there is value.  Right now, people believe BTC has a value of 18k.