It seems that Bitcoin is experiencing the same fits and starts that any new currency undergoes early in its history. Though Bitcoin is 2 years old , the mainstream press discovered it much more recently, and since then, Bitcoin has experienced some schizophrenic volatility -- you can read Jon Evans' recent diagnosis here . Yet, absent from Evans' post is the very latest news out of the virtual currency market: Late this afternoon, the site suffered from another serious setback, as the site's most popular exchange, Mt. Gox , was hacked. The unknown hacker(s) made an enormous sale of bitcoins from a compromised account, causing the price of the currency to fall from $17.5 to just pennies in a matter of minutes.