No easy money to be made

SINGAPORE investor Zheng Yang Yan became acquainted with Bitcoins in April last year, when the digital currency's price had spiked to around S$260 - and then subsequently crashed to about S$50.

Its very volatility piqued Mr Zheng into doing research as to how to "mine" Bitcoins for money. Fast forward to today, and the 29-year-old investor and Bitcoin miner has realised just how tough it is to break even from the exercise - let alone profit from it.

Bitcoin mining is the act of validating Bitcoin transactions, that is verifying that the recipient in a transaction is authorised to receive the amount of digital currency stipulated by the owner of the Bitcoins. When an online community gets together to do this verifying work, it maintains and secures the Bitcoin network - crucial, given that the currency is not managed by any central bank.