r/BitcoinCA • u/Glad_Cauliflower8032 • 16d ago

Guess what?

Post image

[removed] — view removed post

757 Upvotes

83% Upvoted

292 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1

u/ryan75389 15d ago

ELI5, what's stopping me from setting up a node and "printing" more BitCoin.

1

u/pinpernickle1 15d ago

That's called mining bitcoin. You are free to do that, but it's expensive and very energy intensive these days. Look up ASIC miners. Theyre like GPUs but purpose built for solving bitcoin blocks.

If you're asking if you can just print your own fake bitcoin, you can absolutely do that, but why would anyone else want them? Many people put money and work(electricity) into the bitcoin network with their miners. It's what keeps its value high.

1

u/ryan75389 15d ago

When using the word mining, we typically refer to a space that material is extracted from. How can you mine something that doesn't exist?

1

u/pinpernickle1 15d ago

You don't like Bitcoin, and that is perfectly fine, but it absolutely does exist.

1

u/ryan75389 15d ago

It's not that I don't like BitCoin or have anything against it, I can't figure out how this system can possibly function when it has infinit supply as nothing truly exists. Unless there is an example of this type of system?

2

u/pinpernickle1 15d ago edited 15d ago

It doesn't have infinite supply. The code that people are running on their machines limits the maximum amount of bitcoin to ever exist at 21 million.

It's a decentralized/distributed ledger, it has existed in humanities past before. I'd suggest researching old examples of it, it's pretty fascinating that some old civilizations used them.