What’s with all the bitcoin?

Last Friday, Chris Larsen’s new bitcoin-related venture scored another round of funding, and that caught our attention. Larsen is something of a FinTech startup legend, having founded both  P2P lending site Prosper and eloan.

His latest gig is OpenCoin, the currency exchange website, which most recently secured funds from Google Ventures and IDG Capital Partners. OpenCoin’s previous round came from Andreessen Horowitz, FF Angel IV, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Vast Ventures, and the Bitcoin Opportunity Fund. Yes, there is a Bitcoin Opportunity Fund.

OpenCoin runs the Ripple system, an open-source payments platform and currency exchange system. The system converts currency into dollars, euros, yen, bitcoin, or the platform’s own currency, ripples.

So what is the deal with all this bitcoin activity? This video will help demystify the virtual currency.