The digital currency Bitcoin is having a bit of a moment, which is drawing the attention of cybercriminals.They don’t want to steal your money (though there is some of that too).Instead they want to hijack the processing power of your computer to create more bitcoins out of thin air.There is no company, central bank, or government behind Bitcoin—there is only math.The currency, created by a pseudonymous researcher and governed by computer code, is slowly adding more coins to circulation.New bitcoins are distributed to users with access to hugely powerful computers, which compete to process fiendishly complicated math problems.The system gives new coins to the winner as a reward; the process is known as “mining.” The newest Bitcoin scam was discovered last week by security firm Kaspersky Lab, which found a type of computer malware that hijacks computers and uses them to mine new bitcoins.The computers are infected through links within Skype—users click on an link that installs software on their machine, and they become unwitting slaves in the bitcoin mines.

Kaspersky’s Dmitry Bestuzhev found infected computers in Italy, Russia, Poland, Costa Rica, Spain, Germany and Ukraine that have been brought to a crawl as nearly all of their processing power is stolen.This isn’t the first Bitcoin botnet, as massive networks of hacked computers that are controlled by cybercriminals are known.A botnet called ZeroAccess was estimated to be earning $2.7 million a year by using infected computers to mine new coins, even offering bounties for new infected computers.And as the media hype and Bitcoin’s valuation rises, there will undoubtedly be further exploits.As Felix Salmon explained in his deep-dive last week, botnets are the logical outcome of the Bitcoin system: The way that the money supply grows, in the bitcoin system, is by people harnessing the power of hundreds or thousands of computers to solve very complicated mathematical tasks, earning bitcoins for doing so along the way.And the easiest and cheapest way of doing that is to do so illegally, by stealth: set up a “botnet” of hacked computers to do your bidding for you.

The incentives, here, are very bad indeed.An FBI report last year detailed several incidents in which cybercriminals bought and sold botnets, with bitcoin as the medium of exchange.bitcoin easy apsSo Bitcoin may have inadvertently given birth to an insidious new business model: Pay bounties to build a botnet, use the botnet to mint bitcoins, sell botnet for more bitcoins, and repeat.bitcoin widget macNewsweek (the magazine famous for outing the real Satoshi Nakamoto) has a story about how a variant of the Mirai botnet is mining bitcoin.bitcoin cotizacion bolsaThey fail to run the numbers.bitcoin code c++As this website reports, such a processor running at 1.2 GHz can mine at a rate of 0.187-megahashes/second.ethereum documentary

That's a bit fast for an IoT device, most are slower, some are faster, we'll just use this as the average.bitcoin old man rapperAccording to this website, the current hash-rate of all minters is around 4-million terahashes/second.bitcoin forks listtotal Mirai hash-rate = 2.5 million bots times 0.185 megahash/sec = 0.468 terahashes/second daily Bitcoin earnings = $1191 times 1800 = $2.1 million/day daily Mirai earnings = (0.468 divided by 4-million) times $2.1 million = $0.25 Conclusion Bonus: A single 5 kilogram device you hold in your hand can mind at 12.5 terahashes/second, or 25 times the hypothetical botnet, for $1200.current litecoin price ukBitcoin Like most crypto currencies Bitcoin uses a single Hash function or SHA-2.bitcoin mining sydney

Quark Quark is super secure and uses a different hashing algorithm with 9 rounds of hashing from 6 unique hashing functions (blake, groestl, blue midnight wish, jh, SHA-3, skein).3 rounds deliver a random hashing function.Even though most believe the SHA2 is sufficient at present, technology is always changing and improving.Just one of Quark's algos, SHA-3, was developed after SHA-2 in case it was somehow comprised in the future.The multiple hash gives a further layer of security against unknowns that will enter the market down the road.Bitcoin One block every 10 minutes (very slow transaction time).Current bounty is 25 BTC halved every 210,000.Total currency supply is capped at 21 million.What started out as being CPU mined, has quickly led to a race to secure ever faster mining hardware.CPUs went to GPUs then to FPGA, and finally to ASICs (Application-Specific Integrated Circuit) designed and built only for mining bitcoins.It is virtually impossible to mine Bitcoins anymore without serious capital and hardware.

You hear of the complaint that 98% of Quark has been mined already.You can say the same about bitcoin, considering only large server farms can compete in mining the coin.You will find that the barrier to entry in bitcoin mining is huge!Quark Generates a new block every 30 seconds.(very fast) 2048 QRK per block (halving every 60480 blocks ~ 3 weeks).247 million mined the first 6 months, then 1 million QRK every year.The .5% inflation was created to keep mining activity going and to keep the block chain resistant against 51% attacks to which Bitcoin is vulnerable.Being only CPU mined, this coin offers the average individual the rewards of mining.Also, because of its 6 hashing functions, Quark is ASIC proof, making it too costly and near impossible to develop an ASIC to mine Quark.It was setup to be mined/minted by your average computer.Bitcoin We've all heard time is money, and if you have moved bitcoins around, you will know that it is lacking in fast transaction and confirmation times.

One of litecoins main features to rival Bitcoin was that is changed its confirmation times.Take a look at this source and scroll down to confirmation times.Although it is constantly in a state of flux, at the time of this writing Bitcoin's average confirmation time is 7.41 minutes.Quark Speed is one feature where Quark really shines.From the same source above, Quark's average confirmation time is a blazing .64 minutes or less than 40 seconds!Go ahead download the wallet and move some Quarks around, you'll be impressed by how fast they transfer.When it comes to business, speed is essential and synonymous with money!Here is a little infographic we did to compare Quark's speed with a few other cryptos.Bitcoin In the beginning Bitcoin was mined for several years by only around 30-40 people.Currently, it is virtually impossible for a single individual to mine Bitcoin.KnCminer just released a new Miner and sold out in 24 hours selling all 1200 units at over $10,000 each.That company also claims that their hardware users are responsible for over 70% of all mined bitcoins everyday ... good luck competing with that!

So the only option currently is to buy BitCoin at ~$1000USD.As the mining continues to intensify, more and more BTC blocks will fall into the hands of the few with lots of capital and hardware.Bottom line is from a mining point of view, BTC is becoming more and more centralized.Not only that it is said that the top 100 BitCoin holders control 21% of the market (Link) This is just the minimum as each entity can have multiple addresses.Bitcoin distribution is very uneven or centralized, as it has been rumored that only 50 people hold 60-70% of Bitcoin!Quark Distribution is Quarkcoin's strong point, although some will argue the opposite.Since Quark Coins were mined by CPU only, it was done by individuals at home numbering in the 1,000's (link) as opposed to Bitcoins being mined by very few.Setting the time to mine most coins within the first 6 months discourages the ASIC miners from ever entering the market.With a majority of the coins mined, the price should hopefully stabilize more quickly than the other coins with longer time frames, making this crypto currency more desirable for everyday transactions.

But what about argument that 'the vast majority of the 245 million Quarks already mined are in the hands of the few?, you will see that most miners dumped their coins early on.It traded so low, that early miners didn't want to hold onto their Quark, thus the distribution began.When the coin was first listed on the Cryptsy exchange, massive amounts of Quark traded hands with huge volume ... the miners dumping the coin.No, if you do some research you will find that it was not.Quark's mining schedule was developed to be quick to get it out of the hands of the miners and into investors as soon as possible.This has been accomplished.People buying Quark now are looking to invest for the long-term, not mine it and dump as the mentality for most coins these days.Read some of the comments on Reddit where a user asks this same question (Link).Bitcoin One weakness of bitcoin is the limited coin supply.A total cap of only 21 million bitcoins will ever be released, up until the year 2040.This sets it up for deflationary pressures which causes demand to always trump supply.

There is more incentive to buy and hold than to spend, so from this point of view it can never truly be a viable currency in day-to-day transactions.Once the cap is in at 21 million, there will be a decreasing amount of coins in circulation.Every year coins will be 'lost' through forgotten passwords, hard drive failures, hackers, software failures, improper backups, etc ... This will cause the supply to decrease overtime.Quark Although there is no ideal, Quarkcoin will continue to release coins in perpetuity after the initial 247 million are mined at an inflation rate of .5% per year.This encourages continued mining as well as more use as a day-to-day transactional currency.This small inflation is meant to replace those 'lost' coins due to human error and hardware failure etc.... Also, even though any crypto currency can be divided infinitesimally, people prefer to buy and transact in whole numbers.Ask someone if they want to buy bitcoin at $1000, and they believe it may be too expensive although you can buy just .1 BTC if you choose.