It's nearly Bank Holiday.

To celebrate we had some Easter-themed drinks on the trolley. Easter Bunny Chocolate Surprise.

Here they are being cheerfully handed out by Luke and Jim.

There’s been a lot of buzz around bitcoins
recently. What is a bitcoin, you say? In short: a currency made by the internet. No bank controls it. No government taxes it. You fabricate them by using your computer to solve maths problems (sort of). It’s been around for a while but has remained rather niche. Until now.

It’s become popular largely because people have started to talk about using bitcoins when they don’t trust existing currencies. Specifics? There’s
chatter of entrepreneurs setting up a bitcoin ATM in financially-battered Cyprus. Douglas
Rushkov says
that this kind of money might be a clever way out of too-big-to-fail banks, government control, and all sorts of other financial pickles that we have wandered into.

Why is it relevant? Well, it's yet another example of how the Internet's collective brainpower is great at making up mad/democratic solutions to problems. There’s always another perspective:

 Maybe
Bitcoin’s devotees are right, and it’s the currency of the future. Or perhaps
it’s a ridiculous joke—a speculative, hilarious enterprise taken to its most
insane conclusion. Given that the founder is nowhere to be found, it feels like
a hoax, a parody of the global economy. That the technology used to implement
it has, so far, shown itself to be impeccable and completely functional, and
that it’s actually being exchanged, just makes it a better joke. The truth is,
it doesn’t much matter if it’s a joke or not. It works.

You heard it here first: bitcoins are the new instagram/crowdfunding/google glass. Ironically enough, they don't come cheap: you can snag a single bitcoin for about 64 quid.

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(Thoughts courtesy of Planning Placement newbie James.)