So, I've heard of these for some time now. I see that they were started in 2009 as a modern version of Edison's idea for a decentralized, commodity based currency. A currency that eliminates the middleman - the central banks and their funny money. The idea really wasn't practical until just recently as computers and mobile devices have matured and improved. It's all based on super cryptography - math. This makes them ultra secure and there have been no reported fraud or theft, hacking, etc. since they've come out. Just not practical to do the way they're set-up.

I also see that they ran along at a low value for some time and then spiked over $900 value per bitcoin and then dropped again and are now on a slow build trading for $636 right now. Those who bought them early made out like bandits - many millionaires have been created via bitcoin investing. Speaking of investing, there are now new companies that are being created based on the bitcoin and represent outstanding investment opportunities.

Apparently, they are catching on. You can now trade bitcoins for any currency on the exchanges. Millions of merchants world-wide accept them as payment. You can buy gold and silver with them... They can be divided down to .00000009 ish unit of a bitcoin and therefore, they will have plenty of divisibility for the foreseeable future to be used for commerce.

They are being created or "mined" on the network of owner's computers and the maximum number of them will have been created by 2020 or something like that. The current computing power of this network exceeds the capacity of all the world's supercomputers by a factor of eight! They can not be manipulated by the central banks in any way and those holding them are anonymous - as are transactions. The IRS can not find out who has them (unless you use them in such a way that they can trace back to you) and therefore they can't deduct taxes from them. Of course, it's illegal not to pay your taxes... but we all know that there are millions of "grey market" transactions being done every day that are outside of the tax structure not counting bitcoins.

There are quite a few billionaires and techno wizard investor types that are investing in them - the inventor of facebook for example along with banks and other tech companies.

Firefox and one other web browser are already set up to facilitate the use of bitcoins and Microsoft is looking at it for explorer... further, mobile devices are soon going to be loaded with the same kind of capability. There are already apps for this.

The prediction is that their value will continue to rise against the fiat currencies as time moves forward.

Given all of this and understanding that the federal gov and all central banks including the fed hate them and what they represent (freedom from fiat currency slavery), and knowing that they will try like hell to kill the bitcoin and other cyber currencies that have cropped up, I still think that it's worth the risk.

The long-term prediction is that a single bitcoin will eventually exceed $1,000,0000 in value and exceed 10% of all transactions. That's based on the math of it and the fact that fiat currencies are being severely abused and in many people's opinion are on the way to a complete devaluation.

So I've taken the plunge and bought a bitcoil - one. Not exactly a huge risk but I'm going to watch what happens - figure the upside is just too great not to give it a try.

Anybody else "in"?