Interesting new money

[BillM]

I have installed bitcoin and read some about it.
I think it might work

For the record, you only get .05 bitcoin from the bitcoin faucet.
It's just enough so your account doesn't say empty.

The main advantages I see are these:

There is no real middleman; The money is transacted directly between you and the 2nd party. Transaction fee is very nearly zero.
It's as anonymous as you make it.
There is no central authority.

The main disadvantage I can see is this:

If it ever really takes off in popularity the government, all governments, will try to shut it down if they can because they won't be able to tax it.
Terrorists could use it to circumvent oversight of money transactions to finance terrorism.

Here is the current list of dealers, stores, providers, merchants that accept and deal in bitcoin currency.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade

I am feeling adventuresome lately so I think I'll give it a try.

Our government already requires you to tell them if you have bitcoin or any other form of electronic money. It was in your income tax filing this year. I don't have any, so didn't worry about it much. YMMV

 

[BillM]

Are there any national currencies backed by bullion left? They have currency exchanges for bitcoin->dollars so I imagine it's valued in terms of traditional currencies.

I would love to see currency backed by bouillon though. Goodbye Gold Standard, helllooooo Chicken Soup Standard.

Saw a news article the other day that said was buying gold bouillon to go back on a gold standard. Didn't read beyond the headline...

 

[perfor8]

$90K

 

[XYZ]

I don’t have any money.