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Over the years, Bitcoin has experienced ups and downs; the currency has been targeted by hackers and thieves and botnets and been victim to more than one embarrassing software glitch. But it has persevered, and this week, one can fairly say that Bitcoin came of age. On Monday, the U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network released its first “guidance” as to how “de-centralized virtual currencies” should fit into the larger regulatory regime under which currencies of all kinds are required to operate.

(U//FOUO) Bitcoin – A decentralized, peer-to-peer (P2P) network-based virtual currency – provides a venue for individuals to generate, transfer, launder, and steal illicit funds with some anonymity. Bitcoin offers many of the same challenges associated with other virtual currencies, such as WebMoney, and adds unique complexities for investigators because of its decentralized nature.

There's no denying the rise of Bitcoin has been as amusing as it has been interesting. A quasi-anonymous, internet-spawned currency that shoots up to a price of $32 is captivating. But the honeymoon is over and Bitcoin is falling. Fast.

The FBI sees the anonymous Bitcoin payment network as an alarming haven for money laundering and other criminal activity—including as a tool for hackers to rip off fellow Bitcoin users.

That’s according to a new FBI internal report that leaked to the Internet this week, which expresses concern about the difficulty of tracking the identity of anonymous Bitcoin users, while also unintentionally providing tips for Bitcoin users to remain more anonymous.

Mohammad Rafigh is an Iranian Musician living in Tehran and also a computer engineering student. After discovering Bitcoin he became fascinated by it, and made his most recent album "Beyond Matter" available for Bitcoin.Rafigh wrote “Bitcoin is so interesting for me, I wish the culture of using digital money spreads all over the world, because it does not have any dependency on anything like politics.” Rafigh has begun translating Bitcoin software into Farsi

Bitcoin is a ludicrously bad idea. It is a scam. A Scam. It is not a currency. The economic assumptions underpinning the Bitcoin ecosystem are laughable, and ignore hundreds of years of accumulated understanding of how currencies work with each other.

Fortunately, it's such an obviously flawed system that it will probably never grow to a point where it causes any ill-effects,or even impact, to world economies.

A talk show dedicated only to Bitcoin? And a "Bitcoin roadtrip"? Sounds interesting.

I've been thinking, it would be nice if there was a "Bitcoin" or "Crypto-currencies" category when submitting show prep here. I've been using a few different ones, depending on the particular focus of the article. Of course, I do tag them with bitcoin, which works I suppose, but there are probably enough Bitcoin-related articles to justify it. I know you've got something in the works for the website, but it shouldn't be hard at all to add a category.

Can Bitcoin Survive? Is It Legal?

Bitcoin – the online currency used to buy Alpaca wool socks and illegal drugs whose value dropped from $17.50 to “pennies” after a June 19 hack into its currency exchanger, Mt.Gox –has gotten plenty of media attention. But unless consumers and merchants can be persuaded that adopting it will make them better off, it’s likely to go the way of other online currencies.