"What follows is my response to a question that was posted on the Rugatu website asking, "What is the legal status of Bitcoin?" After composing this over the course of 10 minutes or so, I realized I liked the response, and decided I want to "polish it up" into a better op-ed style article. Any feedback, positive or negative (though keep it constructive, please) is appreciated.

Where does the money go when buying bitcoins?
No one in bit-landia seems to know, or are willing to tell. LOL
"Follow the money" is the oldest and wisest saying since currency was invented. Soo, who ends up with all the money used to buy bitcoins???
The miners? The exchanges?
The FED's owners get all the value of the Dollar.
Who ends up with all the value of the bitcoin? Bottom line.

APRIL 2013 - The dramatic recent events in Cyprus have highlighted the fundamental weakness in the European banking system and the extreme fragility of fractional reserve banking. Cypriot banks invested heavily in Greek sovereign debt, and last summer's Greek debt restructuring resulted in losses equivalent to more than 25 percent of Cyprus' GDP. These banks then took their bad investments to the government, demanding a bailout from an already beleaguered Cypriot treasury. The government of Cyprus then turned to the European Union (EU) for a bailout.

It seems that FinCEN has finally decided to opine on Bitcoin, without naming it specifically. This US pronouncement spells death to all “compliant” US Bitcoin companies that choose to remain based in the USA.

Washington is reportedly considering opening all US financial records to national intelligence agencies in order to prevent future crimes.

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.

Is ripple a potential new way to get bitcoins? maybe it is that and more (or less) ...