Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer network based digital currency. Peer-to-peer (P2P) means that there is no central authority to issue new money or keep track of transactions. Instead, these tasks are managed collectively by the nodes of the network. Advantages:

• Transfer money easily through the Internet, without having to trust middlemen.
• Third parties can’t prevent or control your transactions.
• Bitcoin transactions are practically free, whereas credit cards and online payment systems typically cost 1-5% per transaction plus various other merchant fees up to hundreds of dollars.
• Be safe from the instability caused by fractional reserve banking and bad policies of central banks. The limited inflation of the Bitcoin system’s money supply is distributed evenly (by CPU power) throughout the network, not monopolized by the banks.

Bitcoin is an open source project created by Satoshi Nakamoto, and is currently in beta development stage. Bitcoin development is hosted at SourceForge.