BitCoin

Bitcoin. Everybody’s talking about it. What’s true, and what’s hype? Perhaps the only thing that’s clear about Bitcoin is that it’s not going away anytime soon. Who am I to say? I’m not an economist; I’m a hacker, who has spent his career exploring and repairing large networks. And networks may very well be how the world works — financial, social, electronic, even physical.

I’m on neither “Team Bitcoin” nor “Team Global Financial System.” I’m on “Team Lets Fix This Thing.”

Bitcoin is a digital currency whose creation and transfer is based on an open source cryptographic protocol. There are many benefits to using it (no transaction fees, anonymous payments, etc.), but there are also risks involved.

The first Bitcoins were created in 2009, and their initial value was set by individuals. Since then, a lot of people, organizations and businesses have expressed interest in the currency and have begun "mining" and using it.

In February, we reported on a major deal between Mt. Gox, the Japanese firm that runs the world's largest Bitcoin exchange, and the American startup CoinLab. Under the terms of the agreement, CoinLab would take charge of Mt. Gox's operations in the United States and Canada. CoinLab promised that its connections to American banks and investors would allow it to provide a superior customer experience.

Bitcoin exchange Mt.Gox has been attacked and its servers briefly taken offline.

The service confirmed the attack at 2:00 AM Japan time on April 22nd, posting a tweet to warn users of the outage.

Ah digital currency. It's all in our collective hive-mind right? Coming and going in bits and bytes. Nothing to see here. So why is a hacking process called "Bitcoin mining" using $150,000 worth of electricity a day? This had better be good.

A trojan that can hijack a computer and force it into mining for Bitcoins - the virtual currency - has been spreading via Skype.

Antivirus firm Kaspersky Labs said attackers sent messages in various languages translating to "this my favourite picture of you".

The message included a malicious link which was, at its peak, being accessed more than 2,000 times every hour. The value of Bitcoin has grown massively in recent weeks. At the time of writing, Bitcoin exchange website Mt Gox has the currency listed as being worth $186 (£121).

Dumb-as-a-post Bitcoin-mining malware has appeared – bringing further proof that the virtual currency's hyperbolic trajectory is attracting the sort of late-to-the-party shady speculator that telegraphs a jarring fall.

The malware is currently spreading through a wide-ranging link poisoning campaign being run on Skype, a Kaspersky researcher wrote on Thursday. It is not the first Bitcoin-mining malware that has been detected, but its arrival coincides with a period of intense interest in the currency.

Two days after Bitcoin blasted through its all-time price—shooting past $100 per BTC—Instawallet, one of the digital currency's easiest-to-use wallet sites, has shut down indefinitely. Bitcoin’s price peaked at around $140 late Tuesday but has since fallen back down. It’s hovering around $128 at present.

Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox faced a distributed denial-of-service attack late Thursday, at a time the digital currency is seeing an upward swing.

The Japanese company, which is rated as the largest exchange for bitcoins, was hit by a DDoS attack that was "stronger than the average," the exchange's support team said. Such attacks aim to overwhelm systems by sending an overload of requests to websites.

Looks like Bitcoin has got too big to ignore. Virtual currencies are to be regulated by the US Treasury after the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) moved to clarify their status under anti-money-laundering laws.

The move comes as Bitcoins doubled in value in just a few weeks to hit a record high of more than $70 each, possibly fuelled by the banking crisis in Cyprus and the rest of Europe.