I’ve been hearing about it for several years, but I still don’t understand how it is “mined” via computer networks linking more and more computing power to “mine” the coins via a shifting algorithm. (That is, the coins become more and more difficult to “mine” as more processing power is applied to extracting them from their randomized locations in the code they come from. This means, according to the nominal developer, that they will be produced more or less regularly, rather than glut the market and for that reason destroy whatever value they may be perceived to have.)
I love the idea, as much as I understand it. (I don’t quite understand the method by which the Fed produces money, either.) I do like the idea of “private currency”, because it seems inevitable to me that the dollar will collapse sooner or later, and it might soften the collapse somewhat to have other stores of value, including platinum, gold, silver and other precious metals, plus Bitcoin and whatever other competing currencies may be developed between now and then.