What the hell is Bitcoins and should I be bothered yet?

maybe not ... http://www.pcworld.com/article/20684...

seems to extremely volatile / risky business

seems like to hitech for us normal folk to get involved with ..

Bitcoins is a currency that is not backed by a government but rather is supported by a peer to peer network. People created currency by running a special program that is getting harder and harder to run. The theory is that the total number of bitcoins is restricted and, combined with it not being controlled by a government, it is a 'world' currency. The value of bitcoins can fluctuate a lot due to speculation.... the other issue is security - it is like cash ie close to untraceable so if someone hacks into your wallet on your computer, the money can go and never be recovered.

The time to get into bitcoin was a couple of years ago. Now, I'd stay away from it if all you wanted to do was use it as an investment.....

no, but just reading it now ...

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archi...

wow!

...for not doing what he did way back when, and use a computer to generate a stack of bitcoins when it was relatively easy to do.... ah well....

cheap time to buy - if that is the way it work :)
http://www.news.com.au/finance/marke...

newuseragain wrote:

cheap time to buy - if that is the way it work :)http://www.news.com.au/finance/markets/bitcoin-crash-after-china-bank-me...

The whole currency is built on speculation so these things will continue to happen. I think Bitcoin will eventually fail despite all the promise because if it doesn't, it will eventually kill taxation and that's not going to happen.

In order to protect consumers China's online giant Alibaba has banned Bitcoin. This ban is extended to other digital currencies including Litecoins.
Alibaba said in a post on its website that the regulation be effective from January 19

http://money.cnn.com/2014/01/09/news...

A new update of Bitcoin. Bitcoin exchange CEO has been arrested. He has been charged with laundering money for customers of online drugs. Details are available on the following link.
http://money.cnn.com/2014/01/27/tech...

gola wrote:

A new update of Bitcoin. Bitcoin exchange CEO has been arrested. He has been charged with laundering money for customers of online drugs. Details are available on the following link.http://money.cnn.com/2014/01/27/tech...

Not another great story for bitcoin, although it isn't just bit coins, money laundering is wide spread.

Wow. Definitely not good publicity, but it sounds like he was being very silly. Info like "when Faiella's frequent and large cash deposits raised eyebrows at a cash processing company, Shrem advised Faiella on how to avoid sounding alarms." is not good. As newuseragain says, sounds like less a bitcoin problem, more bad financial practices. Unfortunately, a purported 'untraceable' currency attracts people willing to do these sorts of things.