For me, Bitcoins are a fascinating phenomena. For one thing nobody really knows who created the Bitcoin system initially, it’s a big mystery. Regularly someone claiming to be the inventor of the system comes forward or is suggested by the media but so far nothing was ever proven. A major idea behind the Bitcoin system is to have a method of payment that is independent of state governments. The idea is great and more and more shops have started accepting Bitcoins as a method of payment. Unfortunately, Bitcoins are also used by criminals which receives quite some attention in the press as well. However, in this respect it is no different from any other currency.
While every now and then I’ve read about the theory of Bitcoins I never actually owned or used Bitcoins to pay for anything. With the time of the year coming up at which I make donations to a number of open source projects I decided to put theory into practice and donate to them using Bitcoins if it is offered as a payment method. So here’s the story of what I found out in the process, from practical payment experience to insight into how anonymous the system really is and and why and how crypto trojans can potentially misuse Bitcoins.
