Can anyone in a nutshell exactly explain what Bitcoin is exactly all about?

Alternatively, you could make the argument that alternate cryptocurrencies are not "equivalent" to BTC.

It is kind of like saying that RC cola or your local supermarkets generic cola is equal to Coca Cola.  Yes, they are both colas, but are they really equivalent?  Should the stock price of your local supermarkets cola be as high as the stock price of Coca Cola because they are both colas?

Bitcoin has been established as the peggable cryptocurrency.  Ever notice how all of the alt cryptos trade in BTC?  It is because in order to get in and out of anything outside of the top 20 in size, you have to trade BTC for them.

Bitcoin is also just plain and simple Bitcoin.  Does your mom know about Litecoin or Iota?  Do you see news articles on Monero?  There is value to being the first and biggest on the block.

Now - if you want to make the argument that BTC is overvalued - please state your case - because you do a horrendous job if that was your intent.  Cryptokiddies aren't the ones driving the price up, because Cryptokiddies aren't buying and selling volume to drive the price.  These are real investors.

Also, consider the fact that in America - we have a stable government with stable currency.  But step outside for a moment - and ask people in Brazil, Kenya, Haiti, or Venezuela if they would rather have their own currencies or bitcoin that we call volatile but they call stable - and I think you will start to understand the real reasons why bitcoin is valued the way it is.

It is a scarce resource, that has a vast market share to capture.  It could go to zero, and it could go to a million - but you do nothing to advance the position that bitcoin is overvalued.

This hipster has an explanation for you.  Please read and consider the following....

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.  So this hipster actually believes that if you look a little farther than the clickbait headlines - you might actually learn something that is not so obvious.

Put very simply...  Bitcoin is simply a ledger.  There are no real bitcoins.  There is only a ledger (blockchain), and this ledger says that you have the authority to transact X amount of bitcoin in the future.  If you are on the ledger, then you "own bitcoin".

So bitcoin is simply 3 things - this ledger (blockchain), transactions, and confirmations of those transactions.

When I want to send you bitcoin, I let the bitcoin community know by broadcasting a transaction request.  This request sits on a list (mempool) waiting to be confirmed that it is accurate and that I have the authority on the ledger to actually send this bitcoin to you.

Miners are the people (computers) that confirm these transactions.  They get a small fee from me for sending the transaction, and they also get a little bit of new bitcoin that has never existing on the ledger before as a reward because these transactions take a lot of computing power to confirm.  Then my transaction goes on to the ledger, and the ledger grows and grows.

And now you have "bitcoin".  But in reality, you dont have anything except an entry on the ledger that has been confirmed as accurate by the miners - and the capability to send that transaction (or part of it) in the future to someone else.

Understand.  It is all very interesting, and some of it is counter-intuitive.

I understand, and accept your position.  It is all speculation afterall.  Some like the Giants -3, and some like the Cowboys +3.  Telling the future is a tough gig.

But I try not to use absolutes when I take a position on this because as you say, it is all speculation at this point.

I find the whole thing facsinating - and TBH - I have been somewhat consumed with it for the past several years which is one reason I have pulled back from sports gambling a little bit.

GL.

Van-  Remeber you posted about this awhile ago so am curious to what you think will happen with the value once all the "coins" run out.

When bitcoin was created it was the arichitecture was to support a set amount of "coins". What's going to happen when so called coins are not able to be "mined".  Does the system go dark and everyone loses while the original investors cash out?

Cash is not as volitale as bitcoin so how does it continue to skyrocket in value when there's an X amount of "coins"?

BTW had a chance to invest at $6.  shoulda, woulda, coulda.

Well, I think "running out" of minable BTC will be a non-event.

Right now, about 80% of all possible BTC is in circulation.  The remaining 20% continues to be mined until about the year 2140.  So I would fully expect that in the next 23 years, something drastic will be changed, added or whatever to make this a non-event.  Think about the internet 23 years ago in the year 1995, and think of it now.

Miners get 2 rewards when they successfully "mine" a block (figure out the math equation so that a group of transactions get confirmed).  They get the fees from the transaction, and they get new BTC.  When the new BTC runs out, I think it is safe to assume that fees will probably go up to cover it.

So overall - this is a little like crystal ball stuff - and something that on a list of 100 things I am concerned about with bitcoin would come in 101.

https://www.bitcoinblockhalf.com/

I am not 100% certain but when I did my research over a handful of years ago, I thought coins were set to run out before 2040. i think it was around 2025 actually. I believe bitcoin hasn't been around for over 15 years so if 80% of coins are released today, I find it hard to believe the next 20% will take over 100 years to mine.

I also thought miners only recived coins and not a fee when successfuly completing or mining an equation. But then again, it's been a handful of years since I've done research on this so I could be wrong.

So Van.....outside of the top few cryptocurrencies already at a few hundred each, are there any really worth looking at? I assume there will be a lot of startups, but only a handful will be relevant long term. Are there any other ways to invest in this as a parallel (storage etc)? I can obviously google stuff, but I know you already have more info than I can dig up in a couple days of surfing the net.....

It is not a linear release of BTC.  It uses a halving formula.  Google "bitcoin halving" for a better explanation.

I honestly do not know much about the characteristics of alt coins outside of the top 5 or so.

I can tell you that if you were to make a flow chart with classes of currency - fiat currency would be A (dollars, euro etc), BTC would be B, and all other alt crypto would be C.

You cant get from A to C (in most cases outside of the top 10) without going through B.

This gives BTC a huge advantage, because it is the peggable crypto currency.

So even though you can make an argument that monero or iota have better features than BTC, bitcoin is still the elephant in the room (at least for now).

So because I have no idea what causes the #153rd cryptocurrency to go up one day and down the next - besides pump and dump speculation - I have no input.  Others I am sure do.

Gotcha. Are there any companies/stocks that are gonna prosper from cryptocurrency? Not the coins themselves.....storage companies, software etc? Im not tech savvy, but theres gotta be some peripheral things that cash in on the new wave of doing businss with cryto

Thanks for the response brother