When Leo Dominguez decided to sink his life savings — and a loan from his mother — into his bitcoin venture two years ago, his friends teased he was entering a Ponzi scheme. His father told him he was wasting his time and would lose all his money.

After the value of one bitcoin rose to $100 some five months ago, from $10 when he first invested, his long-time girlfriend Karen Williamson quit her insurance job to join him as a bitcoin entrepreneur.

“At that point, we knew were were on to something and it wasn’t just two years wasted,” Leo said.

Still, it was a tough decision to put all of their nest egg in a digital basket. Although Leo, 33, was beginning to turn a profit in internet currency, it was 30-year-old Karen’s job that earned the cash to pay the bills. “We had a bit of a panic attack the first couple weeks after I quit,” she recalled.

The value of bitcoin has since catapulted to about $900, and the couple shares nothing but optimism about the future of the virtual currency. Bitcoin is created and managed by a decentralized community rather than a central banking authority — and the couple believes there’s opportunity to build businesses in this uncharted space.

“With the latest price spike, [our investment] turned into a cash cow and we were able to finance our business and our personal lives from it,” Leo said from the couple’s home and office in Waterloo, Ont.

The workspace houses the supercomputers Leo requires to “mine” bitcoins. He uses them to compete against other programmers around the world to solve complicated algorithms that become more difficult each time a challenge is won and bitcoins are released into circulation.

About 25 bitcoins are paid out to a challenge winner about every 10 minutes — half as much as when Leo first started. He is winning fewer and fewer races each day as the field of competitors grows.

But because there will only ever be 21 million bitcoins in circulation (about half have already been mined), Leo is confident the value of their small bitcoin fortune will continue to appreciate.

Using those mining winnings to fund new ventures, he and Karen incorporated their company, BitSent Inc., in November and bought five bitcoin vending machines, which they intend to install at local businesses to allow users to transfer cash instantly into their digital bitcoin wallet app, or to withdraw cash with a quick scan of their account.

Now, their friends are begging to be involved and asking for jobs.

“Where were they two years ago when we needed start up funds?” Leo said with a chuckle.