What is Bitcoin?

I’ve been researching about this not-so-new financial investment scheme that is going viral on the internet. It is called Bitcoin. I still don’t know much about it except it’s a cryptocurrency and, for now, only a few establishments accept it as a mode of payment.

My curiosity has been peaked because I see a couple of friends of mine in Facebook posting about it. They invested their hard-earned money in a Bitcoin club network and have been boasting about their investment growing every single day. They actually call it mining.

I also would love for my money to earn that much, to increase in value by leaps and bounds. But my concern is this: who regulates it? When you invest in stocks, there are actual, real, physical companies who own those. When you invest in bank notes, short/long-term money market instruments, there are banks who regulate it. But with Bitcoin, being that it is a digital currency, who regulates it? Who can you run to when you find yourself without your money all of a sudden? Who will you run after when the Bitcoin clubs crash and you lose all the Bitcoin money you have?

Of course, it could be that we are all just ignorant of it now and, in time, it will become widely-accepted that we would regret not investing on/buying it right away.

Do you know Bitcoin? What do you think about it?