Cooking The Books

Each week the New Zealand Herald and Newstalk ZB's Cooking The Books podcast tackles a different money problem. Today, it's working out what the fuss is about bitcoin, and whether you should be getting involved. Hosted by Frances Cook.Bitcoin, blockchain, cryptocurrency - whatever you want to call it, new digital currencies are making waves, enough for the average person to sit up and wonder whether they should be jumping on the bandwagon.At the end of each episode of Cooking the Books, I always invite people to send me their questions on things they want to know more about.To my surprise, questions about bitcoin have been one of the biggest requests. People want to know more about whether it's safe, how they can try it, and what it even is.Yet for all of this public interest, the New Zealand government and banks are holding these cryptocurrencies at arm's length.We're a country that usually loves to combine technology and money, even at the relatively simple level of how fast and enthusiastically we all star