Bitcoin sounds like something from science fiction: A purely digital currency, created by an anonymous hacker, that operates outside the world's traditional banking systems. The four-year-old currency is very real, though, and it's trading an all-time high, tripling in value in the last two months alone. One bitcoin is was worth about $40 U.S. dollars on Tuesday, and surged on Wednesday to nearly $49. That's up from around $13 in January, and 5 cents in 2010, according to Mt. Gox, the bitcoin market's main exchange.

bitcoinstore.com, an electronics retail outlet that only accepts Bitcoins as payment. Bitcoinstore.com stands out among potential competitors because the site's investors have only one goal – to urge major online retailers to start accepting Bitcoin.

"The idea behind the site entirely is to force Amazon and Newegg to accept Bitcoin by saying 'Hey, look at our prices, we beat you, now beat us,'" said bitcoinstore.com head of marketing Jon Holmquist.

To do that, bitcoinstore.com sells its products at 0 percent markup.

The world's leading Bitcoin exchange, Mt. Gox, has announced a partnership with the Silicon Valley startup Coinlab. Under the agreement, Coinlab will handle Mt. Gox's American operations, which account for a large majority of the exchange's business. The transition will occur on March 22. CoinLab raised half a million dollars of venture capital last year. At the time, the firm was touting a scheme to exchange bitcoins for currency in games such as World of Warcraft and Second Life. Taking over Mt.

An article in Linux Magazine briefly describes the history and basics of bitcoins.

The oft-maligned U.S. mail is actually quite well-run. Politicians steered it into the ditch
By John Tierney

I maintain that a government ban on bitcoin would be about as effective as alcohol prohibition was in the 1920s. Government prohibition doesn’t even do a good job of keeping drugs out of prisons. The demand for an item, in this case digital cash with user-defined levels of privacy, does not simply evaporate in the face of a jurisdictional ban. One could even make the case that it becomes stronger because an official recognition that Bitcoin is not only a “renegade” currency but a “so-effective-it-had-to-be-banned” currency would imbue the cryptographic money with larger than life qualities.

Dwolla Begins PayPal-Style Account Suspensions - "Dwolla has moved beyond closing the accounts of those it can prove are operating unlicensed [Bitcoin] exchanges and has begun closing the accounts of private individuals based on a mere affiliation."

The finance ministry for the European Union has announced that cash transactions over 500 euros would soon be banned. Large transactions will only be allowed via credit card, or by check, which essentially amounts to mandating that people have bank accounts. Believe it or not a lot of people don’t have, and don’t want bank accounts. The finance ministry hopes this will help combat tax evasion.

European Union to criminalize cash transactions over 500 EUROs. Banking is the primary tool they use to control us. Free people transacting outside of their control is their biggest fear. As the original Rothschild said in 1838: "Let me issue and control a Nation's money and I care not who makes its laws".

New privately funded bridge opens in Virginia (The South Norfolk Jordan Bridge)