http://www.infooomph.com/2013/03/bitcoins-rise-of-digital-currency-what.html

Hope your day is fantastic! I’ll give you some good news for the weekend. I want to bring to your attention a very cool technological innovation that’s been lurking in the shadows for some time. This time it’s not a gadget, or a wearable tech, but the first virtual currency named "bitcoin" that I have in mind. Some of you may have heard about it already, but those of you that haven’t should take a look at the Infographic below from Online Accounting Degrees . So let’s find out what’s in it for us? What’s it like and why should you, or anyone use bitcoins in the first place?





I think that an alternative to printed money has been around the corner for some time. Given the state of the world economy today, we must ask the question "what the hell is wrong with it"? Well, a lot, but not surprisingly, our current monetary system is one of its biggest problems. Just think of the huge amount of debt flooding the world, crippling countless nations and families. And you know what? We have much less money in circulation than the current amount of debt worldwide. So, how do you pay a debt for which the money does not exist? There is physically not enough money to pay off all the debt, it just not possible. Couple that with the fact that the privately owned bank of the US, the Fed (Federal Reserve System) can print money at a whim, and the fact that most modern countries are off the gold standard and you have the current situation. Our economy is facing unforeseen inflation, and monetary value has very little, if anything to do with the actual circulation of goods. I could go on and on about this, but let’s see how Bitcoin can benefit us in this situation.





Now Bitcoin throws in an alternative to the above mess and tries to patch up the system in several ways. First of all, the Bitcoin system is decentralized, meaning it’s run by a group of developers and is open-source. No financial institution or political lobby has any influence over it whatsoever. So far so good. Second, no banks are involved so the transaction fees are virtually non-existent and it's lightening fast. It’s getting me hooked. Bitcoins are mined by a special software that creates a set amount of digital currency in an hour. But, here’s the catch. It keeps creating less and less money as the years go by. The developers wanted to maintain scarcity of the currency so as to prevent inflation. To achieve that they went the extra mile and implemented a mining system that is to expire in 2140 by which time 21 million Bitcoins will be in circulation. No more, no less after that. User privacy and security is ensured by a unique public key that works like a digital signature, and you can have as many as you want, so it’s impossible to trace back which transaction belongs to which user.





ALSO SEE: A Second Look At The Bitcoin Currency





Bitcoin is currently the most popular secondary currency in the world. It is already in use by WordPress, c-Panel and Reddit, but Amazon and Google also uses it indirectly. I’m not entirely sold yet, but I’ll be on the lookout for news on the digital currency since it seems to offer a pretty good alternative to printed money and solves many of the problems we’re struggling with today. If there’s anyone among you with experience with Bitcoins, I’m sure all of our readers would be happy if you shared your experiences in the comments. Oh, and before I forget, don’t forget to exercise outdoors during the weekend! Nothing beats fresh air and vitamin D delivered by good old sunshine!