About a year ago I installed this free program: Bitcoin
Set it to "Generate Coins" and mostly forgot about it. Then recently came across this news: BitCoin virtual currency reaches parity with Dollar.
When I checked, discovered I had several hundred bitcoins. There are several sites where you can trade or exchange these into other currencies, like MtGox.com and bitcoinmarket.com.

Aside from generating currency (albeit slowly) you may be more interested in it's privacy/anonymity when trading which may explain its popularity among cypherpunks. And Bitcoins certainly do not involve any federal privilege or benefit (& I think you can grasp the power of trading outside the Fraudulent Reserve System).