Cyprus Crisis Boosting Unique Currency, the Bitcoin

Currency markets are keeping close track of Cyprus' banking crisis and are braced for possible repercussions, but one currency has thrived in the chaos and zoomed in value -- Bitcoins.
A Bitcoin is a digital currency that is traded electronically and does not need government backing. Despite its name, there is no coin to put in your pocket. Two weeks ago, one Bitcoin was worth $40, then a record high.
Today, it's worth $72, largely because of "incremental interest" from euro and Russian ruble holders who are terrified by the situation in Cyprus, said Nicholas Colas, chief market strategist at ConvergEx Group, a financial technology company in Manhattan. "The best-performing currency year-to-date has no home country, no central banker and no physical scrip," Colas said.
The Bitcoin is "clearly having a breakthrough moment here, and a deeply surprising one given its novelty and nascent infrastructure," he said. The Bitcoin reportedly was invented by a man who called himself Satoshi Nakamoto, and who may -- or may not -- have been a 23-year-old graduate student in cryptography at Trinity College in Dublin. He wanted people to be able to exchange money electronically and securely without a third party's involvement.
Although there are no physical coins, Walmart sells Bitcoin gift cards, and as Salon noted, WordPress and Reddit take payments in Bitcoin. Charlie Shrem, the CEO of BitInstant, a payment processor for Bitcoin exchanges and other merchants, thinks the Bitcoin is the wave of the future.

Source: https://abcnews.go.com/Business/cyprus-crisis-boosting-unique-currency-bitcoin/story?id=18792763#.UWUKf8p8O-i