What is bitcoin mining???

[Lucasrivers]

I keep hearing about bitcoin mining....i looked it up and i have an idea what it is but i don't get the point...what do you use the bit coins for?

I get the point of F&H but not this can someone explain please.


P.S i know it might be off topic so please forgive me :p

[bigFOIG]

I'm not at expert at it myself. But bitcoins is sort of like an online currency. People buy and sell things with these bitcoins, in place of real money. You can either mine solo, but I hear that you would never get anywhere because it would take forever. So what people do is mine in "pools". You join a pool and you mine for these bitcoins together. I guess you can say that it's like F@H for your GPU, except it's not really for the "good cause" and you slowly make money.

[Lucasrivers]

Ya that seems pointless to me...at lease when i F@H it has a good cause :P

Thanks

[NyteOwl]

Basically it's a scheme where people figure they get something for nothing :) It geenrally costs more in equipment, wear and electricity than you'd ever be able to redeem the bitcoins for in material value. Nice scam for the originators though since the whole thing is biased in favour of early adopters and the security leaves a lot to be desired.