JOIN NOW BitForums - Bitcoin Forum BitForums: What is it? BitForums is a new forum that has been created to suit the needs of many Bitcoin users out there. It offers a wide variety of sections aimed at the discussion of BitCoins. The difference between this newly created forum and the Official is that they do not have sections available to all new registered members. Another difference is that BitForums offers alot more newly created sections for users to spend more time on the forum rather then spending hours on bitcoins when they simply want to do something else. We offer a freer, warmer community atmosphere where everyone is welcome to join. What Is BitCoin? Written by Sam Biddle Maybe you've heard of BitCoin—it wants to shake the entire global economy. And some people think it might! It's online money—an alternative to dollars and euros. Well what's that mean? It's complicated, but we break it down. BitCoin is a digital currency... It's an online "currency"—virtual tokens that can be exchanged for goods and services at places that accept it, the same way you'd give someone a dollar for a cookie. With mega aspirations... In their YouTube manifesto, BitCoin's creators say they're going to revolutionize global finance the way the web changed publishing. So! Kind of a lofty goal, aiming to be a global currency up there with (or replacing) the dollar. Right now, that's still the pipiest of pipe dreams. Exchanged via P2P... When you write your friend a check, money from your account is withdrawn from your bank, and then transferred to her bank, and then she withdraws it as cash (maybe). With BitCoin, there are no middlemen (other than the users that comprise the network itself). Money goes straight from you to whomever, through the BitCoin P2P system, with no intermediary agency passing along the chips. Generated by its users... This is where it starts to get a little weird! Unlike traditional currency, that's backed up by something, (be it gold, silver, or a central bank), BitCoins are generated out of thin air. Through a process called "mining," a little app sits on your computer and slowly—very slowly creates new BitCoins in exchange for providing the computational power to process transactions. When a new batch of coins is ready, they're distributed in probabilistic accordance to whomever had the highest computing power in the mining process. The system is rigged so that no more than 21 million BitCoins will ever exist—so the mining process will yield less and less as time goes on, and more people sign up. This makes the whole system a lot sweeter for early adopters. Converted into real money. Just like you can trade in yen for dollars, you can swap your BitCoins with other users for several "real world" currencies. And right now, the BitCoin is trading very high! As I write this, one BitCoin is worth $17.5. Not too shabby at all.