Text size

The best performing currency this year? No it's not the Seychellois rupee (+8.07%), Paraguay's guarani (+5.24%) or Brazil's real(+4.45%). It's bitcoin, the online, open source currency, which has gained nearly 200% so far this year.

Who needs the euro when you have bitcoin? Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Let me first acknowledge that I know next to nothing about bitcoin. I was clued into it by the father of one of my daughter's friends, who does a bit of trading in the online currency. But it's real, even if it's virtual, and it can be used to buy real-world goods. And those goods don't have to be legal. Because it uses a peer-to-peer network, its users remain anonymous and safely out of reach of the law enforcement (at least most of the time), which has made it handy when purchasing illegal drugs and the like.