re: Finally Sold all my Bitcoins Today

In short, a currency that's accepted in a fair number of places.



Longer, simplified/basic version- guy decided to create a currency that could be used anonymously. For it to have value, it had to be slowly released to keep value. There is a machine that creates ridiculously difficult equations. You have your computer (or a group of them) solve it, and it awards you a bitcoin. The equations get harder and the rewards smaller, making them more difficult to come by. They're an intrinsically worthless string of numbers given value by supply and demand for their total anonymity and lack of regulation.