bitcoin is somewhat interesting, I've been experimenting with it recently. One thing to note is that transfers aren't instant until your client catches up with

bitcoin is somewhat interesting, I've been experimenting with it recently. One thing to note is that transfers aren't instant until your client catches up with the network -- when you first connect you currently have about 127k blocks to download before you are current. At first I had some trouble understanding why you couldn't just had a client and create easier coins. The thing is, you can, but the network won't recognize them. The key to the system's security is that as long as 50% of the bitcoin nodes agree on that the current difficulty level is you can't inject 'fake' money into the system. Right now moving money into and out of the system is a bit difficult. Mining is not worth the electricity it costs you, unless you have a GPU and join a mining pool. The 'value' of a bitcoin is very volatile, as tracked on the http://bitcoincharts.com http://bitcoincharts.com site.