Bitcoins. Have you heard of them? I just did today, when I read yesterday’s newspaper.
According to the news, the first-ever-in-the-world Bitcoin ATM is opening today in Vancouver, British Columbia. The way it works is, you scan your palm on the machine (quite literally “wave” – see what I did there?) and you can then put as much as $3,000 into your Bitcoin account, or “wallet.”
Sounds easy enough, but then I wanted to know how one spends all this money. The answer: on the internet! Apparently, WordPress accepts Bitcoins. (I haven’t looked it up, I’m just going by what the news says.) But how does WordPress know that the Bitcoins I’m spending are actually my Bitcoins? After all, a palm scanner isn’t a regular household appliance….yet. So I decided to google “How does a Bitcoin work.” I got this: Bitcoin: How it works, which didn’t help me much at all. On first glance it looks a little bit like PayPal. I lost it at the map. Check it out for yourself.
If this system of Bitcoins doesn’t fall flat on a wave of confusion, it just might end up what separates the middle-aged from the youth of today. My mother can’t use a debit card – can’t understand the concept. Maybe this is where the youngest tip of the baby-boomers like me get to wave bye-bye to Generation X.
lindaghill.com 
October 30, 2013 at 10:41 am
Ah! I came across Bitcoins a year ago when an article about purchasing an actual physical house using Bitcoins came up. Found it interesting and read the whole explanation about Bitcoins as well as the “How to use it” tutorial and at the end of it I still don’t understand ! But then, hey I belong to the same generation as you “;-)”
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October 30, 2013 at 2:59 pm
Oh good! I’m glad I’m not alone! 🙂
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October 30, 2013 at 8:09 am
I’ve heard of them. It’s its own currency, and the rates per dollar even trend up and down like any other currency, so buying Bitcoins is in itself an investment.
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October 30, 2013 at 8:46 am
Yeah, I was talking to my son about them yesterday. He says a couple of years ago he could have bought 2,000,000 of them for $20, but he figured it was a waste of money…
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October 30, 2013 at 10:07 am
*gasp*
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October 30, 2013 at 10:13 am
That’s pretty much what I said.
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October 29, 2013 at 4:23 pm
I’m a millenial and I don’t get this at all. I do like the idea of waving my hand in front of a machine and having it give me money. That sounds nice.
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October 29, 2013 at 5:05 pm
Very friendly, too! 🙂
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October 29, 2013 at 2:54 pm
These things come in waves…
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October 29, 2013 at 5:08 pm
Tide’s coming in at the moment.
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October 29, 2013 at 2:44 pm
Bitcoins are kind of hard to explain but I have been fascinated with them for the last two years. It is a digital currency built around anonymity to have bitcoins you need to have a bitcoin wallet that resides on your computer and that is about the extent of my knowledge. It has kind of taken off in the illegal world (google Silk Road bust) but more mainstream sites are accepting it. It could become a universal travel currency.
It is really neat. 🙂
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October 29, 2013 at 2:47 pm
Gah! Young’un!
Haha!
I guess they’re getting into the news now that they’re going mainstream. They’re planning to open Bitcoin ATM’s all over Canada. Just something new to get used to them.
I have to say, I’m awfully glad you had hard time explaining them too. I don’t feel that old now. hehe
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October 29, 2013 at 2:48 pm
I’ve only followed news stories about them, lol. I’ve never actually used them so I quite don’t know all the ins and outs.
I really thought they would have died about now but who knows maybe in the future we will have the opportunity to be paid in bitcoins. 🙂
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October 29, 2013 at 5:07 pm
The fact that money is being spent on this new system means that if it doesn’t stick around, someone’s gonna be pissed off. But then again there was Beta Videotape…
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