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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:5.0pt;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:.5in'><span style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif"'><br><br></span><o:p></o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>></span><span style='color:#1F497D'>></span>...unless we want to get into 'virtual' bitcoins. ;)<span style='color:#1F497D'> </span>Regards,<span style='color:#1F497D'> </span>Omar Rahman<span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>>…</span><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Can you buy shares in a bitcoin? </span><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>…</span><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'> I might plunk down a few bucks for a centi-bitcoin.</span><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'> </span><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Spike</span><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>There was something vaguely analogous to a proto-bitcoin, if you don’t push the analogy too hard. Prime95 was an early internet organized search in nature for something: Mersenne primes, started in 1995. Each time one is discovered, it becomes the largest known prime number, so the discoverer is for a time a world record holder. For some people, being on that short list means exactly nothing to them; they might not even know anything about prime numbers at all. They might not even realize the computer used to find that number is worth tens of thousands as a museum piece.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>A newly discovered Mersenne prime is worth at least tens of thousands to the right buyer, but unlike bitcoin, they cannot be sold multiple times: once it goes into the record books, it is there forever. So I would argue that running Prime95 is analogous in many ways to bitcoin mining, except far more difficult to find one and with much higher potential rewards.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>spike<o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div></body></html>