I'm entrigued by this idea, but after ready for an hour on all the various bit coin sites I still can't see how this helps me send or recieve money. How to I initially purchase bit coins? When I send them to someone in - say Africa - how do they convert them to local currency to spend them?
I'd like to accept bitcoin but unless I can understand this it doesn't have any value to me.
Thanks.
First thing you need to do is get a wallet, that could be by installing one of the bitcoin applications on your computer, or signing up with a webwallet service (like blockchain.info which seems to be the most popular) or by generating a keypair and address (I think there are websites somewhere that will do that for you, or maybe somebody has made a simple app to geneerate an address?) and saving it as a paper wallet. However you do it, you need to have an address for people to send you the bitcoins.
One thing you could do is find somebody who is trying to sell bitcoins (like by using localbitcoins, or put a message on this forum saying where you are and how much you want to trade) and meet them somewhere. You hand them cash, they send bitcoins to the address you generated.
Another option is to sign up for an account on one of the bitcoin exchanges (MtGox, bitstamp, etc), fund the account using one of the methods they offer, and then buy bitcoins through that exchange. You can then send those bitcoins to the address you generated in step one.
It helps you receive money: Somebody owes you money, you send them your bitcoin address, they send bitcoins to it.
It helps you send money: You owe money to somebody, they provide you with a bitcoin address, you send bitcoins to it.
You want to send money to some dude in Africa, he wants to buy food at the local market: He sends you a bitcoin address, you send bitcoins to it. He does the reverse of step two above (either trading the bitcoins for cash or sending them to an exchange and withdrawing his local currency). Then he can use the local currency for food.
In the above description, by "send a bitcoin address" I just mean an address is communicated. It can be sent by email, text message, spoken over the phone (although getting all the right capitalization may be difficult), sent by mail, listed on a website, handed on a scrap of paper, scanned with a QR code, whatever. By "send bitcoins" I mean initiate a transaction to be included in the blockchain, either by using the client or through whatever webwallet (or exchange) you are using.
