Billcoin - a digital deception

It’s brought us facilities that twenty years ago could only have been dreamed of. Despite all their flaws, Google, Facebook and Twitter really have made our lives better.

It’s also exposed us to a greater level of risk. You’ll probably have heard of the mysterious thing called Bitcoin and chances are, like most of us, you don’t have the faintest idea what it is. In fact, it’s quite simple. Bitcoin is a digital currency. Wikipedia describes it as “a digital asset and a payment system” but I think it means the same thing. In principle it’s quite easy to understand. It’s just another currency, like the pula, rand, euro and dollar, you just can’t put any of it in your wallet or purse and you can’t buy it from your bank. The currency only exists online, out there in the internet somewhere.