On Sat, 18 Mar 2017 07:53:18 +0000 Paul Groves wrote:

On 17/03/17 05:24, George from the tribe wrote:

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Can anyone point me to a bitcoin forum, where people discuss the technical issues of how to handle bitcoin (similar to how we do this on this mailing list or the opensuse forums)?

Also, if you are an active user of bitcoin, I would be interested to know your experience, lessons learned, difficulties of setting things up on the technical side, etc.

I would also like to know about this. I have been meaning to set up a mining server on a KVM machine and would like some advice on how to go about this and also what hardware mining devices are good. I have seen USB ones which are low power but are they any good?

You both might want to start at https://bitcoin.org/en/ and also use search engines to discover more about the whole bitcoin world, including the bad and mad. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 2017-03-18 12:42, Patrick Shanahan wrote:

* Dave Howorth [03-18-17 06:58]:

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On Sat, 18 Mar 2017 07:53:18 +0000 Paul Groves <> wrote:

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You both might want to start at https://bitcoin.org/en/ and also use search engines to discover more about the whole bitcoin world, including the bad and mad.

AND, move the conversation to opensuse-offtopic

Maybe it is possible to use bitcoins or generate or whatever the name is in openSUSE. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 42.2 x86_64 "Malachite" (Minas Tirith))

On 2017-03-18 18:05, Doug wrote:

I wonder if you folks are aware that ONE bitcoin is worth over $1000 right now? That's too rich for my blood!

No, I'm not. Or wasn't. :-) Can one mint bitcoins on openSUSE? How long does it take? Does it have to be a full CPU for days, or what? -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 42.2 x86_64 "Malachite" (Minas Tirith))

On 2017-03-18 23:35, Greg Freemyer wrote:

On Sat, Mar 18, 2017 at 5:41 PM, Carlos E. R. <> wrote:

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On 2017-03-18 18:05, Doug wrote:

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I wonder if you folks are aware that ONE bitcoin is worth over $1000 right now? That's too rich for my blood!

No, I'm not. Or wasn't. :-)

Can one mint bitcoins on openSUSE? How long does it take? Does it have to be a full CPU for days, or what?

Carlos,

It's called "mining".

Ah, yes, I confused the word.

The $1,000 figure is based on supply and demand. If you could mine a coin in a few days, they would be worth a few dollars.

The fact they are worth $1,000 means it is taking a huge amount of CPU resources to mine a new coin.

I see, yes.

Based on my very limited knowledge you have 3 choices.

- Use a normal PC and let it run for some number of months.

Wow. And me thinking of a background process on spare time. Could take years.

- Use a GPU (or set of GPUs) with dedicated software and let them run. 5+ years ago, that approach allowed new coins to be mined relatively often and people could legitimately purchase dedicated equipment and earn back more than they spent..

I think I read about it.

- Setup a Seti like function with a large set of PCs using their spare time to mine.

Now, put your malevolent hat on. How would you mine bitcoins?

You'd write some malware that infects PCs and create a botnet of machines you don't have to purchase, maintain, or buy electricity for. Once you get "your" botnet up and running, put it to work mining.

Oh, my.

The botnet thing was pretty common a few years ago. I only assume it still is.

Yes, I assume that if there is money in it there will be bad guys stealing. So, no openSUSE rpm? :-)) -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 42.2 x86_64 "Malachite" (Minas Tirith))

On Sat, Mar 18, 2017 at 10:34 PM, George from the tribe wrote:

The basics of bitcoin are like this, and I am just getting started so this may not be 100% correct. You can store bitcoins either in an online exchange, like a bank, but the problem is many exchanges have been hacked. Furthermore, hackers and governments will be able to track you and know how many bitcoins you have. You can also store them securely in a "wallet" on your pc, and make the storage unhackable. You can even store them on a piece of paper in your desk drawer, and as long as nobody knows it is there, they can't steal your funds. The bitcoin network allows you to transfer bitcoins anywhere in the world without having to fill out paperwork and get approval from governments. That is why it is appealing to 2 groups of people - privacy advocates, and criminals.

You left out: - Every bitcoin transaction is publicly and permanently documented. The unique ID of both the source and destination wallet is recorded and publicly available. The unique ID of wallets therefore should be considered non-secure. - Privacy and non-tracability is achieved by using a "new wallet" for every transaction, so no nexus of activity can be established. - law enforcement (LE) leverages lazy (unknowledgeable) bitcoin users (LBUs). For LBUs, once LE figure out the unique ID of the LBUs wallet, LE can determine every transaction they've ever made with that same wallet. Greg -- Greg Freemyer -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 2017-03-19 03:34, George from the tribe wrote:

On 03/19/2017 06:43 AM, Carlos E. R. wrote:

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On 2017-03-18 23:35, Greg Freemyer wrote:

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On Sat, Mar 18, 2017 at 5:41 PM, Carlos E. R. <> wrote:

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On 2017-03-18 18:05, Doug wrote:

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So, no openSUSE rpm? :-))

According to my research, it is very difficult to become profitable by mining these days. Apparently the amount you will pay in electric bills will not cover what you may get in return in bitcoins.

Yes, I heard that. My dumb idea was to use a computer that has to be up anyway, and run it at low power as not to heat it up. So it could that many months or years to mine one, just for the kicks of doing it.

There is a limit to the number of bitcoins available at 21 million. IIRC, the latest number of the total number of mined bitcoins is around 16 million. After all 16 million are found, there will be no more. This limit is expected to be reached within the next 10 years or so. That is one of the reasons people are turning to bitcoin as an alternative currency - governments cannot devalue them away in order to pay off their debts.

I have a problem understanding this. First you say that the limit is 21 million, then than the max is 16 and we are near that number already. What is it, 21 or 16?

However, my main question, and why I posted here and not in the off-topic list, had to do with the technical considerations of installing a secure bitcoin wallet in an encrypted directory on an opensuse machine.

There is an rpm in the repositories, in the update repository and in the OSS repository. There is the bitcoin source package, as well as bitcoin-qt5, bitcoin-test, bitcoin-utils, and bitcoind. I am pretty sure that these packages consist of the bitcoin client, which allow trading of bitcoin to and from other people into your own wallet, but I am not yet familiar with the process. I haven't looked into any of these, and I am wondering if someone has. If you want to email me privately also, feel free. Or if someone can show me how to contact the maintainer of these packages, I can do that.

I am also interested in knowing what those things are.

A google search for bitcoin wallets shows electrum as being a popular opensource wallet, but it is not in the repositories for opensuse. I was also wondering if/how anyone has set up a bitcoin wallet on an opensuse platform, and what the technical considerations are for doing that.

My next step is to install the packages and see what happens.

I assume the wallet doesn't need to be connected to internet unless you want to do a transaction. On 2017-03-19 13:43, Greg Freemyer wrote:

You left out:

... Interesting points, thanks. So a wallet also has some kind of cryptographic identity. Are they created out of the blue, then perhaps registered, or bought from someone else? -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 42.2 x86_64 "Malachite" (Minas Tirith))

On 03/19/2017 10:12 PM, Carlos E. R. wrote:

On 2017-03-19 03:34, George from the tribe wrote:

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On 03/19/2017 06:43 AM, Carlos E. R. wrote:

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On 2017-03-18 23:35, Greg Freemyer wrote:

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On Sat, Mar 18, 2017 at 5:41 PM, Carlos E. R. <> wrote:

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On 2017-03-18 18:05, Doug wrote:

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So, no openSUSE rpm? :-))

According to my research, it is very difficult to become profitable by mining these days. Apparently the amount you will pay in electric bills will not cover what you may get in return in bitcoins.

Yes, I heard that.

My dumb idea was to use a computer that has to be up anyway, and run it at low power as not to heat it up. So it could that many months or years to mine one, just for the kicks of doing it.

That's probably a pretty good idea. It would be worth experimenting to see if such a thing is feasible.

...

There is a limit to the number of bitcoins available at 21 million. IIRC, the latest number of the total number of mined bitcoins is around 16 million. After all 16 million are found, there will be no more. This limit is expected to be reached within the next 10 years or so. That is one of the reasons people are turning to bitcoin as an alternative currency - governments cannot devalue them away in order to pay off their debts.

I have a problem understanding this. First you say that the limit is 21 million, then than the max is 16 and we are near that number already. What is it, 21 or 16?

Oops, I caught my mistake after I sent it. The limit/max is 21 million, but 16 million is the number we are near now. It is not near the limit yet.

...

However, my main question, and why I posted here and not in the off-topic list, had to do with the technical considerations of installing a secure bitcoin wallet in an encrypted directory on an opensuse machine.

There is an rpm in the repositories, in the update repository and in the OSS repository. There is the bitcoin source package, as well as bitcoin-qt5, bitcoin-test, bitcoin-utils, and bitcoind. I am pretty sure that these packages consist of the bitcoin client, which allow trading of bitcoin to and from other people into your own wallet, but I am not yet familiar with the process. I haven't looked into any of these, and I am wondering if someone has. If you want to email me privately also, feel free. Or if someone can show me how to contact the maintainer of these packages, I can do that.

I am also interested in knowing what those things are.

I haven't installed it yet, but I did find out one thing that was interesting. There is a difference between the bitcoin-qt client and a wallet like Electrum. Apparently if you install the bitcoin-qt client, you are volunteering to become a full node on the decentralized bitcoin network. The way bitcoin's system of authentication of transactions works is that millions of computers worldwide are constantly updating the blockchain with every transaction. So a transaction is only accepted once all the nodes accept the transaction, a process that can take up between 5 and 30 minutes I think. In contrast, if you make a payment through your bank to your credit card, your bank clears your transaction, and you have to trust your bank (a form of centralized control). With bitcoin, the entire bitcoin network clears the transaction, making it virtually impossible for a centralized controller to defraud you on the transaction. It also makes it impossible to reverse the transaction, and makes it next to impossible to hack the transaction (it is theoretically possible, but nobody has ever done it because they say it would take the processing power of 250 pedaflops, something that far exceeds any current computer capacity). So, if you install bitcoin-qt, in order to begin transacting business, you have to wait until the full blockchain is downloaded to your hard drive. Right now I believe the full blockchain is greater than 55GB, so unless you have unlimited bandwidth, very high speed internet, and plenty of hard drive space, it might not be worth it to use bitcoin-qt. However, a wallet like Electrum only downloads part of the blockchain - that which is pertinent to your own transactions. For those of us in limited bandwidth connections, something like Electrum is definitely the way to go. Also, there is an effect on the whole system. If you have the ability and are willing to become a full bitcoin node, using bitcoin-qt, then you are actually part of the network that helps the strength of the overall system, because you are helping clear transactions aside with every other node. However, if you only use part of the blockchain by using a wallet like Electrum, you are only a user. It is not hurting the network, but it is not helping it either (except in the sense that as long as the user base grows it is a good thing). With regard to bitcoin-qt, I am not sure if qt here is referring to the qt graphical programming language that KDE uses, or something else, because there is apparently a bitcoin-qt available for windows.

...

A google search for bitcoin wallets shows electrum as being a popular opensource wallet, but it is not in the repositories for opensuse. I was also wondering if/how anyone has set up a bitcoin wallet on an opensuse platform, and what the technical considerations are for doing that.

My next step is to install the packages and see what happens.

I assume the wallet doesn't need to be connected to internet unless you want to do a transaction.

I believe that even if your wallet is not connected to the internet, you can receive money as long as the sender knows your public key. When you connect to the internet, anything you receive will be updated in your wallet. However, I don't think you can send money unless you are connected (I don't know that for sure, just guessing).

On 2017-03-19 13:43, Greg Freemyer wrote:

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You left out:

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Interesting points, thanks.

So a wallet also has some kind of cryptographic identity. Are they created out of the blue, then perhaps registered, or bought from someone else?

-- George Box: 42.2 | KDE Plasma 5.8 | AMD Phenom IIX4 | 64 | 32GB Laptop #1: 42.2 | KDE Plasma 5.8 | Core i7-4710HQ | 64 | 16GB Laptop #2: 42.2 | KDE Plasma 5.8 | Core i5 | 64 | 8GB -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 03/19/2017 01:05 AM, Doug wrote:

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I wonder if you folks are aware that ONE bitcoin is worth over $1000 right now? That's too rich for my blood! --doug

So, I used the following commands to install Electrum: zypper in python-pip python-qt4 pip2 install https://download.electrum.org/2.8.1/Electrum-2.8.1.tar.gz Then to set it up I followed the tutorial here: https://www.linux_b_a_b_e_.com/desktop-linux/how-to-install-use-electrum-bit... (the word with underscores in the URL there might be a flagged word, so I added those in to see if this email will go through. There is nothing inappropriate about that link that I could find on first glance.0 I also opened an account on an exchange platform (in order to freely convert between the local currency and BTC), made a deposit on that platform, converted a small amount to BTC on that platform, and then sent it to my wallet I created with electrum. Because BTC are divisible down to the millionth (called a satoshi), I was able to send around 18 mBTC (that is milli-bitcoins - one thousandth of a bitcoin) to my wallet. Currently it shows them there. The transaction was in "unconfirmed" status at first, but after about 30 minutes it was confirmed. It is good that you can divide up the bitcoins, and you don't have to go for a full bitcoin every time, or it would not be very useful. So, the system works, at least so far. The forum I am looking to join is bitcointalk.org. I am sure there are others. -- George Box: 42.2 | KDE Plasma 5.8 | AMD Phenom IIX4 | 64 | 32GB Laptop #1: 42.2 | KDE Plasma 5.8 | Core i7-4710HQ | 64 | 16GB Laptop #2: 42.2 | KDE Plasma 5.8 | Core i5 | 64 | 8GB -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 03/21/2017 09:50 AM, L A Walsh wrote:

george from the tribe wrote:

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So, I used the following commands to install Electrum: zypper in python-pip python-qt4 pip2 install https://download.electrum.org/2.8.1/Electrum-2.8.1.tar.gz

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It does mining in python?

Why not just optimize it and run it in visual basic on an emulated 4.7MHz PC?

;^/

the electrum wallet doesn't do any mining. It is only for holding bitcoins. -- George Box: 42.2 | KDE Plasma 5.8 | AMD Phenom IIX4 | 64 | 32GB Laptop #1: 42.2 | KDE Plasma 5.8 | Core i7-4710HQ | 64 | 16GB Laptop #2: 42.2 | KDE Plasma 5.8 | Core i5 | 64 | 8GB -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org