I do understand it and personally I'm worried about it, for one thing more electricity is spent "mining" it than is used by Argentina! It is sort of analogous with gold, in that it is "mined" but it also has a max limit that can exist, 21m coins, no max for gold. 18.5m have already been mined so more resources are spent because each allocation per mined block is far less than it was at the start so more resources are needed to mine fewer and fewer coins. Worse than that is the storage in "wallets" of coins and the block chain method that is vulnerable to all manner of attack. At some point the limit will be removed and bitcoin will in effect be replaced by another crypto currency to add to the several they are. At some point it will all collapse, like the south sea bubble or the dotcom bubble. If you want a gamble, short it.