To be fair, bitcoin is still a pretty young concept, so don't let anyone be to hard on you. In 5-10 years you'll likely *need* to use bitcoins to buy things online, but at the moment, most online retailers are still using more expensive archaic methods of negotiating transactions. Because Anonymous Publications is *hardly* profit motivated (we're primarily lulz motivated) we're taking the launch of our new title as an opportunity to introduce new consumers to the payment technology as a humanitarian effort and also to support the PayPal14 and WikiLeaks who have been abused by politically overzelous payment providers in the past. Once modern payment methods are adopted, we will nolonger be at the mercy of those in complete control of the global financial system. And there will be cake.
By far, the easiest way to get started with bitcoins is to go to a 3rd party bank such as https://coinbase.com to setup an account. By linking your bank account with them you will be able to convienienty trade US Dollars (USD) for bitcoins (BTC).
Once you have bitcoins in your bitcoin wallet with them, you can purchase anything you want by transfering bitcoins from your wallet to a checkout wallet such as the one we display to you on our website after you request a purchase. A checkout wallet is a special bitcoin wallet created just for your purchase of everything you put into your electronic shopping cart (such as a copy of The Parade with the Drums). Once that checkout wallet is paid, the payment is automatically forwarded to our primary bitcion wallet, we are notified of the payment, and then we ship the book to you.
No, not at all, you can buy bitcoins from any human who owns them with cash. For instance, https://BitcionsLocal.com allows you to find people in your area willing to buy or sell bitcoins for cash, completely without a bank.
Sadly, the federal government outlaws the purchase or sale of bitcions anonymously if you are "in the business" of doing so. The loophole for localbitcoins is that the people who buy and sell often do not do so making their livelyhood on it, rather they are simply doing it as a hobby, altruistic, or occasional source of secondary income.
ikr! There's one on https://Bitcoin.org
So here's the gist of the matter. Bitcoin for the most part works the same way USD work in the physical world. One system, the Federal Reserve company (in the case of US Dollars) decides that more money should be added to the money supply. This new money enters the economy...
It's difficult to discuss the complexities of currency in an accessible way to non-economists, but the take away is "somehow it all just works out"
Ok, now if you grasp the economic concept of how currency works in general (which honestly isn't something one can explain very thoroughly in a single document) then you're ready to move on to understanding how bitcoin works. It's easiest to explain the differences between how USD works vs BTC. So what are the differences between how bitcoin and the USD works?
If you've heard anything about bitcoins from the media, you've probably heard mostly bad things, or things which mock the crypto currency. You might be wondering why the media would tend to cover bitcoins negatively even though there is so much online support. Here's another quick bulletted list for your review:
No no, not at all. Unlike the Russian government which has indeed outlawed use of the technology, the US government is explicitly prohibitted from passing laws like that. Presently Washington is fighting bitcoin by applying anti-terrorism based regulations on financial insitutions to inhibit free trade of bitcoins, these laws have nothing to do with consumers using bitcoin.