I've never even tried it, but am now interested.

Is it safe? Are there hidden "fees" in there somewhere? Like if I wanted to buy something that cost $100 with bitcoins, would I have to buy $100 worth of bitcoins at a cost of something above $100?

Just looking for any info that anyone here might share.

Thank you for sharing.

I thought bitcoins were dead and were basically a scam.

Oh, I didn't know that.

Well, THANK YOU then, LOL, that definitely qualifies as info that is important.

BC rose and fell pretty quick.

Regarding the "safety" of Bitcoins, I think the Wikipedia article about Mt.Gox (one of the most popular bitcoin exchanges) puts it quite nicely ...:

Mt. Gox was a Bitcoin exchange based in Tokyo, Japan. It was launched in July 2010, and by 2013 was handling 70% of all Bitcoin transactions. In February 2014, the Mt. Gox company suspended trading, closed its website and exchange service, and filed for a form of bankruptcy protection from creditors called minji saisei, or civil rehabilitation, to allow courts to seek a buyer. In April 2014, the company began liquidation proceedings. It announced that around 850,000 bitcoins belonging to customers and the company were missing and likely stolen, an amount valued at more than $450 million at the time. Although 200,000 bitcoins have since been "found", the reason(s) for the disappearance—theft, fraud, mismanagement, or a combination of these—are unclear as of March 2014.

Bitcoin had a certain charm because it was not controlled by any governments - but that was also its downfall. Bitcoins were much too tempting for hackers, scammers, and organized crime, to not take control of them.

Wow, I've obviously been out of the loop on that. Funny, it seems like it was only within the past few months that a political blog I frequent did a "week living only on bitcoin" series. Maybe it was longer ago than I think, LOL. Getting old is anything but "golden".

ADDED: And in this case my memory wasn't so bad....

It was February 2014 that they did a week long series as one of their writers lived in New York City for a week, entirely on bitcoin.

So.... maybe it's not dead???

I see it as an option to pay with at websites sometimes to this day.

I have absolutely no idea how cryptocurrencies work and reading the wikipedia article didn't help one bit.

This.

^THIS. I tried once, failed.

Bitcoin acceptance as a payment system is increasing around the world.

Mt. Gox can be compared to a stock exchange and bank in one, and there are many of its kind. With, apparently, not strong enough security systems attached. The fact that one exchange falls does not likely mean the fall of the currency.