What was this weird alternative currency called Bitcoin, and where can I buy some?!Photo by Bermix Studio on UnsplashIn May of 2011, I first heard about Bitcoin. A “cryptocurrency” (whatever that means) that used computer power to produce digital coins that could be used to buy stuff without ever having to use a government-based currency.I was instantly intrigued. This wasn’t the first time I had heard about alternative currencies. I was listening to a podcast/radio show called Free Talk Live a lot back then, with guys from New Hampshire talking about people moving there and starting a (more) free society. They talked about using “junk silver” (old minted coins that have actual silver in them) and other alternative currencies to exchange goods with people locally. Nonetheless, I’m sure it was on their radio show or some other similar podcast that I first heard about Bitcoin.Regardless of how I found it, I was instantly hooked! I started doing all of the standard research — what cryptocurrency means, why it’s beneficial, what you could buy with it and how it could be a global currency in the future, etc. Well, maybe in the future, by that point they were only really using it to buy drugs on The Silk Road.I couldn’t quite understand how exactly it was produced by computers or where it got its value from, but I was intrigued nonetheless.But regardless of how it really works, I wanted to know where can I buy some?!My first thought was to drop a few hundred bucks on it.Eh, what the hell, it’ll be some fun money. I never gamble, so this could be my little gamble, say $500?Yeah, that sounds like a good plan.At the time, there weren’t many places where it was available, but Mt Gox kept popping up over and…