Bitcoins?

[Speed of flight]

So I've read over the wiki page for it, and it sounds to me like the typical politically-correct, sales-pitchy infomercial anecdotal hogwash doublespeak of a political campaign. I can't make heads or tails of what bit-coin stuff really is.

I remember "folding", which seemed to be some massive public internet based protein-evolution simulation, or something. You get a piece, your PC uses some of its power to work these HUGE equations in the background, you submit its work, and you've then contributed your piece to decoding the human genome, or something.

This bitcoin thing however, seems inherently different, in which it's somehow (and I mean loosely) it's money! I don't know how, or why, or whatever, but it is. I'm not even sure what kinds of questions to ask, really. Shenanigans.

In summary, what the hell is it?

[ftldave]

It's an "electronic currency" intended for ecommerce transactions on the Internet. Lately it's come under lots of scrutiny because it's not regulated, is easy to abuse due to its anonymous ownership, and is or has been used for money laundering by criminals and extreme political groups. I believe Germany has recently declared it to be a "financial instrument" that should not be excluded from official accounting, the first government to recognize something very wrong is going on with bitcoins. So, like so many things on the Internet, originally a clever idea that's been corrupted and made untrustworthy by scam artists, organized crime, not to mention greedy, unscrupulous business operators.

[Speed of flight]

So then, the goal was not to outright purchase things with bitcoins, but try to gain on the exchange?

The concept of an "electronic currency" isn't that vague, but a fake one, or one that is created by regular folks, and one that has no real "value" is hard to comprehend.

I'm trying to understand the benefits, considering that if each "coin" is only a few KB or even 1 or 2 MB, a decent system could crank out billions of 'em in a day, or so. Is there an exchange rate? can one trade bitcoins for dollars? Who takes Visa, MasterCard, Traveler's Cheques, and Bitcoins? After they're made, what does one do with them?

It seems like a neat idea, but if they don't turn into money with an actual value, what's the incentive?