bitcoin is somewhat interesting, I've been experimenting with it recently. One thing to note is that transfers aren't instant until your client catches up with the network -- when you first connect you currently have about 127k blocks to download before you are current.
At first I had some trouble understanding why you couldn't just had a client and create easier coins. The thing is, you can, but the network won't recognize them. The key to the system's security is that as long as 50% of the bitcoin nodes agree on that the current difficulty level is you can't inject 'fake' money into the system.
Right now moving money into and out of the system is a bit difficult. Mining is not worth the electricity it costs you, unless you have a GPU and join a mining pool. The 'value' of a bitcoin is very volatile, as tracked on the http://bitcoincharts.com site.
> The key to the system's security is that as long as 50% of the bitcoin nodes agree on that the current difficulty level is you can't inject 'fake' money into the system.
Isn't it quite easy to spawn a few million malicious nodes?
At first I had some trouble understanding why you couldn't just had a client and create easier coins. The thing is, you can, but the network won't recognize them. The key to the system's security is that as long as 50% of the bitcoin nodes agree on that the current difficulty level is you can't inject 'fake' money into the system.
Right now moving money into and out of the system is a bit difficult. Mining is not worth the electricity it costs you, unless you have a GPU and join a mining pool. The 'value' of a bitcoin is very volatile, as tracked on the http://bitcoincharts.com site.