The other day my brother shared an article with me about the how federal agents were able to track down an underground marketplace used for purchasing illegal items such as forged documents and illegal drugs.  It is called the Silk Road.  This operation used Bitcoin which is a virtual currency which according to a Forbes article I found is accepted as payment by certain merchants.  Now the Silk Road article was an okay read and opened my eyes to something I was unaware of.  Also at the end of the article there was diagram/caption to show how the Silk Road worked.  The article left me wanting to know more about Bitcoin and how and why it works for conducting transactions.  Here are some links about Bitcoin: