The community is fixing the problem by getting all miners to validate their coins, and some of the 'rogue' pools have sorted things out as of this post. Until everyone falls in line, though, your safest bets are to either use the latest versions of key clients (such as Bitcoin Core, which rejects invalid coins) or to run extra checks. The incident won't plunge the Bitcoin world into chaos for very long, but it does reveal the pitfalls of a virtual currency system where speed is the key to making cash -- it's tempting to skip useful safeguards in the name of profit.

[Image credit: AP Photo/Rick Bowmer]