Bitcoin is an experimental, decentralized digital currency that enables instant payments to anyone, anywhere in the world.

Bitcoin uses peer-to-peer networking technology to operate with no central authority: managing transactions and issuing money are carried out collectively by the network. It is one of the first implementations of a concept called crypto-currency which was first described in 1998 by Wei Dai on the cypherpunks mailing list. Building upon the notion that money is any object, or any sort of record, accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts in a given country or socio-economic context, Bitcoin is designed around the idea of using cryptography to control the creation and transfer of money, rather than relying on central authorities.

Bitcoin uses public-key cryptography and proof-of-work to process and verify payments. Bitcoins are sent (or signed over) from one address to another with each user potentially having many, many addresses. Each payment transaction is broadcast to the network and included in the blockchain so that the included bitcoins cannot be spent twice. After an hour or two, each transaction is locked in time by the massive amount of processing power that continues to extend the block chain. Using these techniques, Bitcoin provides a fast and extremely reliable payment network that anyone can use.

The original Bitcoin software by Satoshi Nakamoto was released under the MIT license.


Anybody else excited about this?😮

Only a Federal Reserve Note is legal tender.

All I can say is that VISA and gang are going to be real pissed if this movement gets traction! 😇

I've looked into this. One overseas vendor has actually offered good deals for using it. Just another thing I don't have time to deal with.

Just be careful because it looks like a bubble. The dollar value has tripled this month alone.

You trust the greenback Mo?

For the most part. In an end of the world situation where it would be deemed worthless, I'm not sure most people will care much about gold either, so I invest in practical skills. Edit: btw I do have a mt.gox verified account and some bitcoins.

Always trust lead......never fails!

Gold has taken a beating of late.

I know of a (IT) guy at another forum that busted a guy in the organization for running a scam to collect these bitcoins during work. It's been a while, but from his limited discussions on the topic (seems it was still under investigation by the authorities, FBI, etc) it was quite the elaborate scheme. It kind of reminded me of the guys in the movie Office Space when they developed a program to take the fraction of cents that were rounded off and then had it deposited into a private account they setup.

Combi-Bars are all the rage in Europe. 50 gram sheets of gold the size of a credit card that breaks off into 1 gram squares. Pretty soon worldwide fiat money will be worth nothing.

Government issued fiat currencies eventually return to their intrinsic value.

Nothing.

I heard some people use cigars.... 😟

Theres this crazy website called The Silk Road that uses bitcoin....

The real money is in preowned Volvos.

Just sayin'

Peer-to-peer currency and 3D printing are showing people that we don't have to depend on giant corporations and their puppets in government to provide us with what we need.

I predict that both will be illegal soon.

😨

We'll soon be bartering goats and pigs for cigars and whores...