Hah, when I first heard of bitcoins I thought it was just something to brush off, I didn't understand it or cared to much really.
Then my brother started looking into it more... and I know this about James (being his brother), if he thinks something has promise (technology wise) he's right. At least he has been so far. So I gave it another look.
Bitcoins are a cryptocurrency, from what I understand, a very complex formula for computers to solve is created, one in which there are chunks of answers that when found are worth X number of bitcoins, once found other computers can no longer find them because its taken. There are only 21,000,000 possible bitcions in existence, no more. It's like the total sum of gold in the earth that can be found is 21 Million.
So people are using their Hashing Power to solve these complex equations, and collect bitcoins. The more Hashing power trying to claim bitcoins the more difficult it is to receive them, so that a certain number of bitcoins (or close approximation) is obtained over a certain period of time.
Every 4 years the bitcoins received after finding a block is halved. This halving happened in 2013 (I think it was 2013) so instead of 50 like it originally started with, is now 25, but the value of the bitcoin jumped to about 10 times, reaching beyond $100 per bitcoin.
Now bitcoins can be mined with devices called ASIC miners. Which are computers specifically designed for mining bitcoins.
Some sellers of ASIC devices are:
cointerra.com
kncminer.com
butterflylabs.com
The most economical version is the Cointerra 2TH device.
Here're some help guides to calculate its potential:
http://www.bitcoinx.com/profit/ (you can set the parameters here)
Blog:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitcoinMy project (where you can get lifetime hosting at 1GH/$10 a very good deal from what I've seen (I'll give you 25GH/$250):
http://www.ebay.com/itm/181210411210?ssPageName=STRK:MESOX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1559.l2649
