or as we nerds call it, mithril. stronger than steel. mined by the dwarfs moria until they dug too deeply and released her in vein. and released durin's bane. you know. bit-coin. bit-coin joins a rich tradition of made-up currencies like camel cash and the euro. but inlike currencies run by a cabal of central bankers, bit-coin is a purely online currency with no intrinsic value. its worth is based solely on the willingness of holders and merchants to accept it in trade. that's right. bit-coin has worth just because a bunch of people on the internet have agreed that it is worth something. like psy. where it is if there is nothing behind it, how did it get there? >> it is an unbelievably cool computer program. it has figured out all sorts of things about how to create trust among weird strangers on the internet who will never meet each other. >> stephen: that sounds like a pyramid scheme or something. could there be some guy at the middle of this who created it who is just raking in all the cash and everybody else is is a cash. >> the guy

or as we nerds call it, mithril. stronger than steel. mined by the dwarfs moria until they dug too deeply and released her in vein. and released durin's bane. you know. bit-coin. bit-coin joins a rich tradition of made-up currencies like camel cash and the euro. but inlike currencies run by a cabal of central bankers, bit-coin is a purely online currency with no intrinsic value. its worth is based solely on the willingness of holders and merchants to accept it in trade. that's right. bit-coin has worth just because a bunch of people on the internet have agreed that it is worth something. like psy. >> essentially the online world is the central bank here. just imagine if the federal reserve was taken over by gamestop. now you can get bit-coin by this process called mining it which is using your computer to crunch a bunch of numbers or something but you can also buy it. so as a threud investor, i waited until just the right moment. >> i remember when i was trying to encourage people to buy bit-coins, i first publicly recommended it around