re: Bit coins... I want the general definition

The simplest analogy to bitcoin, although dumbed down and technically incorrect, is that it's an investment like a stock.

It's value fluctuates based on supply and demand and perceived value, like stocks. There are very few places where bitcoin can be exchanged for products and services, but quite a few ways to convert dollars to bitcoin and vice versa.

Bitcoins are produced out of thin air on a fixed schedule, by an open network of people who own specialized computers that validate transactions. Similar to a credit card, when a transaction of bitcoins happens, the transaction is authorized and verified, but unlike a credit card, this verification is not done by a bank's computers, but buy these privately owned computers in a very large network. These participants are rewarded by receiving bitcoins or fractions thereof for their participation. Without this reward, people would not invest thousands and millions into these computers and electricity to run them. These people and their machines are "bitcoin miners."

Besides this premise that makes bitcoin work, the appeal of bitcoin is that it's like a virtual gold. There is a fixed number of bitcoins that will be awarded to these miners, like the fixed amount of gold on this planet, some of which has not been mined yet, just like bitcoins. Bitcoins are not tied to a currency like the dollar.

Since the supply of bitcoins is predetermined, there is no agenda that can affect the inflation or deflation of bitcoins, unlike traditional currency created by government. The US govt. is printing money at a record pace, and more money is released than is being destroyed. The notion that our dollars will buy less and less because we print more and more money is pretty well understood.

It now requires immense computing power to "mine" bitcoins. As more people buy more advanced equipment to "mine" bitcoins, the costs to mine bitcoins are going up immensely, along with the increasing popularity of BTC (bitcoin) which is driving up the value of the coins exponentially.