Not 
too long ago, bitcoin was almost exclusively the legal tender of hackers. Today, thanks in part to the Cyprus bailout saga, it’s on the radars of investors everywhere.
While the digital currency has been around since 2009, it has largely stayed in the background—occasionally jumping onto people’s radars, but usually fading away just as fast.
The dollar, euro and yen 
might be the primary language of currency traders today, but online, all the talk is about bitcoins.
The digital currency has been around for nearly two years now, but it burst onto the radar of the mainstream world in June, when Gawker published a story about an underground Website where you could trade the currency for illegal drugs. The chatter surrounding the story eventually faded, but a lot of people were left confused about bitcoins. What are they? How do they operate? And what, aside from illegal narcotics, can they be used for?
Chris Morris: Journalist 