23 Feb 2014 / Pioneer Press – David Duccini makes money — literally.
The St. Paul tech entrepreneur has set up a state-of-the-art assembly line to make currency that he can spend on the Web or at Twin Cities businesses. His moolah factory, operating 24/7, exists separately from the U.S. banking system and the federal agencies that oversee it.
But Duccini isn’t running a counterfeiting operation.
Instead he has harnessed powerful computers to create Bitcoin, a currency unlike the U.S. dollar and other traditional kinds of money — but dinero all the same.
You can’t mint or print a Bitcoin the way a Benjamin or a Sacagawea dollar coin is made. You can’t pull a Bitcoin out of your pocket, the way you would a penny, and skip it on the surface of a becalmed pond, or toss it into a fountain for good luck.
Bitcoins exist primarily as ones and zeroes on a virtual ledger.
And Bitcoin is not tethered to any nation, region or central bank — the way the dollar is to the Federal Reserve. A Bitcoin’s “value,” say in dollars, is determined solely by demand for it on currency exchange markets, and that determines what you can buy with it….. Read more
