The increase in value went very fast: in April the price of a virtual coin named Bitcoin rose from 100 to 215 dollars within nine days. Even faster came the crash: Three days later, a Bitcoin on the Mtgox stock exchange was only worth 86 dollars. The Facebook share did not even make a downward ride in the first days of its existence.
Anonymous and not anonymous
Thailand has now completely banned Bitcoins. And the central banks of the USA and the EU are also thinking about how they can deal with the hitherto uncontrolled currency. Meanwhile, prominent investors such as Winkelvoss and Soros are entering the virtual money business.
Rich harvest
At the same time, the Japanese creator of Bitcoins, Satoshi Nakamoto, wanted to create an internet currency that resembled the cash: anonymous and final. Just like in your everyday life, when you go to a store, nobody knows you, and if you pay you're going to lose your coins, just like bitcoins.
Down into the pool
So you place bitcoins in a (virtual) wallet (for example Bitcoin-QT) and can pay anonymously with it in the Internet shop. As with paypal, each user has a unique identifier. To this one sends the other via the virtual Geldbörse Coins - without its true identity. Also pay in the real shop goes: For simplification there is instead of identification a QR code. Like real coins, you can lose bitcoins, such as computer crashes or hacker theft.
Speculation object Bitcoin
The anonymity has its limits, it applies unrestrictedly between the shop and the customer. But the purchase of Bitcoins on a relevant exchange such as Bitcoin.de usually requires a transfer in national currency. Furthermore, all transactions via signatures are theoretically traceable. In conjunction with the gate browser, the anonymity can be increased. And if you only want to buy small amounts, you will find in the network provider, the Paysafecard codes in Bitcoins.
The great anonymity also attracts organized money launderers. Therefore, the states are trying to regulate bitcoins more strongly. It is therefore usually only possible for the buyer to purchase small sums of bitcoins anonymously up to 1000 euros.
Thieves have also noticed that the digital coins can be steal like real ones. They hacked trading platforms like Mt. Gox, Bitfloor, Bitconia or Bitcoin Central with damage sums of up to 400,000 bitcoins. The thefts were not revealed. The damage was replaced by the platforms, but this becomes more difficult with the increasing value of the coins. In addition, many exchanges are very shady and do not provide any contact information or even imprint.
At present, Bitcon is still experiencing a steady upturn as a currency. If you bought bitcoins for 10 euros a year ago, you can now sell them for approx. 70. Is the trend going on like this? There are voices that say yes, others say no. The fact is that bitcoins are subject to a high risk of speculation because they are not very regulated (see box)
Many Bitcoin fans are hoping to become rich through the so-called Mining. Mining (= digging) is a process that creates new bitcoins (the so-called money creation). In this case, the user's computer must solve a difficult mathematical equation, at the end of which, in the most favorable case, 25 bitcoins (= one block). They belong to the user. The difficulty of the task is determined by the Bitcoin network, so that only one block is created every 10 minutes around the world. The more miners there are, the lower is the probability for the individual to land a hit. A common program for mines is e.g. CPU Miner.
Miners are now trying to increase their chances with more computing power. One possibility is to switch on the graphics card (GPU) processor, since this is particularly powerful for the required calculations. In the meantime, there are already mining hardware that integrates several GPUs.
Another strategy is to connect its mining tool to a pool. Here, all members with distributed resources expect a solution. If the pool has solved a block, each user gets a part of the bitcoins, depending on how much computing power he has brought along. The division works because a bitcoin can be decomposed into 1 / 100.000.000 units. Also the pool operator gets a commission.
The pool pages visited by us all seem quite shady: without company name and without imprint. Whether the participant gets all the coins parts he "earned" is opaque. However, pools like 50 BTC, Deepbit or BTCGuild have a considerable number of members, according to our information.
Antivirus products recognize the mining tools (but not the wallet) often as pests. This is because they are abused by hackers. The ability to transfer distributed invoices to the pool can be alienated by hackers for their own purposes, such as breaking passwords.
Once the bitcoins are generated, the virtual coins can be used at many points in the network or in the correct store. For example, The anonymization service JoDonym, Wikileaks or the Free Software Foundation. But also very real places in the real world accept bitcoins: such as the fabulous bar in Berlin or the Rojacherhütte at 2700 meters altitude in the Alps.
Many critics warn against the ill-considered investment in Bitcoins. Although their value is currently rising rapidly, it is often going downhill just as quickly.
A financial investment in Bitcoin is associated with high risks, but the uphill and downhill ride in April should be thoughtful. In particular two factors endanger the business. The market is not regulated politically, there is no stock exchange supervision, and the banking supervision is only being developed. Most providers only support the rules against money laundering. There are also no hedging funds that protect private users from loss. Individual large players can distort the market because it still has a relatively small volume.
Very cautious should the user with service providers around Bitcoins be. The fewest give in an imprint information about the underlying company or even their address (laudable exception: Bitcoin.de). Analysts are worried about deflation as the quantity of bitcoins that can be generated is limited to 21 million, while demand is growing steadily.
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