Bitcoins look interesting but the current price shift caused by interest in them is disturbing. Mining on anything but a current generation AMD card isn't worth the electricity and the advent of ASIC cards is going to make mining on any consumer hardware pointless. So you can't mine and you can't buy without exposing yourself to a lot of risk right now. Given the current bubble is based on people joining the game , that is a risky proposition for bitcoins as a whole.