So, I just really don't understand the economic value of these so-called 'BitCoins', and I don't want to.

What I want to know, is can I make money off of these before they epicly fail?

It seems simple to me, so naturally I assume I must be mistaken. Use http://imgur.com/QWwxwkf picture for reference.

So I make an account at 2, and then buy BitCoins for (close to) the price listed at 1?

And then I can wait for the price to go up at 1, and sell my BitCoins for a profit?

Thanks in advance!

Just make them using 4 video cards.
or buy silver

1. You'll need some serious processing power to "calculate" even one of them.

2. Their market is crazy as hell and may rise or fall 30% or more overnight.

3. You weren't the first one to think of this. Others already beat you to the "easy" Bitcoins, since the processing power required to compute them rises with each one. Their amount is also finite.

4. They may turn out to be the Internet currency of the future or fail. No one knows.

Bitcoins aren't meant to be an investment or any kind of money-making scheme. Like PayPal, it's supposed to be a more safe way of transferring money online. You have to buy Bitcoins before using them, so if you pay someone in Bitcoins, you have already paid for the Coins and the person receives the money directly. Alternatively, if you pay someone with a card, there's always the possibility for some kind of fraud.

They aren't widely utilized, and are often used for less-than-legal purposes. The regular user shouldn't really have any need for them.

It's just like a slightly weird sort of stock speculation.

Haha, good one.

1. So when I buy a BitCoin at Index 1, I'll have to store it on my computer as a file, and use my wimpy CPU to 'calculate' it?

2. That's why I want to buy and sell them! I could buy one at $120, and sell in for $150 in a few hours!

1. You can "create" a Bitcoin from nothing (it's called mining) by calculating it. Or you can buy it as a file and store it.

2. Speculating on Bitcoins? Why not. But that's even less secure then speculating with stocks or derivatives.

You should also look them up on Wikipedia, read some economist's opinions on them http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/14/iterations-how-five-real-economists-think-about-bitcoins-future/ and read the forums over https://bitcointalk.org/.

1. No, those have already been calculated as I understand it.
2. Which is really no different from buying any other currency and selling it later

You can buy physical items with bitcoins, but I don't think they are supposed to work that way. It's an interesting concept. The only problem I foresee, playing mr. ultimate captain "[censored]" obvious here, are the coins being viewed as a shady source of income for people to transfer illicit goods.

Can you make money on Bitcoins? Yes. Is it easy? No. It's nearly impossible to do by mining (at least legitimately) and you'd have better luck doing real currency exchanges than bitcoin exchanges just because there's more information to let you form an informed decision.

That said, the higher risk and higher volatility of Bitcoin does mean you can get higher returns. But it's not easy money.

1. You generally don't win by bitcoin mining.
2. The market actually isn't that crazy, but the result of it being a hard currency. It can't react so inflation and deflaction are more evident in it. The same is true for other hard currencies and gold/gold standard currencies (which is why they are so rare in the real world).

Alright, I'm pretty sure I have everything right.

I can buy a BitCoin at Mt. Gox for the price at Index 1 in the picture at OP. And then when the price goes up sell it?

Could someone tell me how to get started with BitCoins?

I want to buy from Mt. Gox, and then wait for the price to go up, and sell at Mt. Gox.

P.S. My computer svcks.

You don't understand! I want to BUY BitCoins at Mt. Gox, and sell them when the price gets higher.

I'm still not certain if I need to use my CPU or not though.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Getting_started

Notice in particular the fact that you most likely won't be able to use paypal or credit cards to buy bitcoins

Once you've set up a wallet, you'll set up an accoutnt with MTGox. You'll have to set up a wire transfer most likely to transfer money

These major traders also have a lower limit on bitcoin buying. You have to buy in bulk, basically

Then when you sell you'll incur a trade fee.

1. I know this and I've even mentioned it above.

2. It's not crazy, that true. It simply operates on different premises.

If you have no idea about Bitcoins or how they work, don't try it. Really, I do not want to spoil your "get rich quick scheme" here, but it doesn't work that way and it's not as easy as it may sound. Especially the "real money" to Bitcoins transition is very dodgy.

If you want to calculate new ones, then yes, you'd need a very good GPU and a lot of time to calculate them. If you are using pre-calculated ones, then not. Just using them in the P2P Bitcoin network doesn't need a powerful CPU or anything.

No, I got that. And it doesn't change anything I said. You'd have better luck doing that with real currencies than with bitcoins. You seem to not understand the concept of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_risk, specifically http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systematic_risk.

Basically you're taking on a huge amount of risk. The benefit is potentially huge returns, but also potentially huge losses.

Basically you're doing the same stupid thing my friend did by investing without diversifying. Investing without diversifying is incurring stupid amounts of risk.

Oh, and in case you're curious how it turned out for my friend: He lost $20k (conventional stock market, invested all his money in a single company. Rode the high, stock tanked, lost all his gains and then some)

Well, let's sum it up.

1. There's no easy money in there.

2. If you have absolutely no idea how this works, don't even touch it before reading up on all the stuff. Asking here on the forums won't help, better read the Bitcoin wiki and forums.

3. Investing and speculating on Bitcoins is way too risky to be a reliable investing strategy for any real amounts of money. Most of the people dealing in them are enthusiasts, hackers or all kinds of dodgy people.

4. If you want to invest money, try some other, more reliable and predictable means to do it, especially if you have (apparently) no idea about economics.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but since we're talking about real money there, I'm as frank as it gets.

I completely disagree with #3. Bitcoin is a fine investment. However, one has to do his research AND one has to diversify. Any investment without diversification is just asking for a world of hurt, however, once the unsystemic risk has been eliminated from your investment, the rest of the risk of a portfolio that includes some Bitcoin is perfectly fine. It's really not terribly different from including a gold investment in your portfolio.

But yeah, for #4 you're right. If you don't know what your doing, get a CD. If you want something a bit more flexible, get a mutual fund. Both of these are examples are pre-diversified investments: banks diversify and take the risk in a CD, but yeild is small and there can be penalties for liquidation. Mutual funds generally have little to no penalties for liquidation past a short initial period and a bit more aggressive returns, but while the broker will have done the diversification, you still hold on to your percentage of the risk.

You got me a bit wrong on that. It is indeed a fine investment if you know what you are doing, both from a technical perspective and from the financial one. Since the OP apparently lacks both, I simply suggested that if he really wants to get into Bitcoins, a small "hobby" investment should suffice. This way he can learn about it's workings without any significant risk. This strategy could be applied to any kind of investment, however. It's just that bitcoins are a bit more risky then stocks. It's not a bad investment overall, it's just a bad investment for the OP.