Call it a currency without a country. Bitcoins … digital tokens that are traded over the Internet … can’t be stuffed in your wallet, or crammed in your pocket. But that hasn’t stopped the virtual coinage from sending ripples through the financial world. Early this year you could buy a bitcoin online for $15. But its value has surged — spiking upwards of $250 this week.

With more and more people looking to shelter themselves from a jittery global economy an increasing number of these virtual bucks are finding real-world homes. Just ask Alex Likhtenstein. He co-owns EVR Bar in Manhattan, and allows people to pay their tabs in bitcoin.

For more on this, we were joined by Jesse Hirsh. He is a technology correspondent for CBC. He’s also co-founder of Academy of the Impossible, a peer-to-peer learning facility in Toronto.