(Photo: Flickr.com/29311691@N05)

You can buy Domino's pizza and busted Mercedes convertibles and a night in a Howard Johnson's with Bitcoin, the digital cryptocurrency that's taken New York and beyond by storm. Now added to the roster of ridiculous things available for purchase with Internet money: a beautiful $1.9M condo in the fancy Trump SoHo building.

DNAInfo reports that the one-bedroom, 741-square-foot unit was listed today on BitPremier, a marketplace for luxurious goods purchasable with Bitcoin. If you're hoping to write a check for the swanky digs, you might want to make it out to Mt. Gox: the owner is only accepting Bitcoin. In total, the apartment will cost about 18,547.617 in Bitcoin. Chump change, ya know.

Maybe BitInstant founder Charlie Shrem has finally found a pad worth moving out of his parents' basement for?

(Photo: Flickr/Zach Copley)

As evidenced in the past week, dealing with Bitcoins can be a traumatic experience. With so many record highs followed by equally steep drops that seemingly happen several times an hour, we wouldn't be surprised if traders have broken out the Xanax by now.

Now, some fans of the hacker-created, crypto-currency are complaining that their problems are only being compounded by BitInstant, an online exchange service that transfers cash into Bitcoins.

Dozens of dissatisfied users are writing on the New York-based company’s Facebook page to voice their annoyance with its slow transfers and poor customer service, with some even jumping in with accusations that the whole endeavor is a scam. New York Magazine talked to CEO Charlie Shrem, who insisted his company is totally legit and that it's usually the user's fault for the slow payments.

"Our support is on an eight-to-twelve-hour delay. But a lot of these guys are entering incorrect account numbers. Then, when the payment doesn't go through, they e-mail us saying, 'Where's my money?'" he said.

Mr. Shrem, who confessed that he's working on three to fours of sleep, said the company is handling upwards of three thousands transactions each day--up from the several hundred it used to see. He also forecasts a "correction soon" in Bitcoins' constantly wavering value, but insisted caution if you're thinking about investing:

"I wouldn’t say not to buy, but it’s a really risky investment. Don’t put in money you can’t afford to lose."

Unless you’re willing to risk it all to become a so-called Bitcoin millionaire, it’s probably better to invest in something, uh, real.

(Photo: Flickr.com/Images_of_Money)

The FBI recently estimated that after three years, the Bitcoin economy is worth at least $35 million. Thanks to the uncertainty surrounding certain government currencies, it may soon be worth more. The Financial Post reports that fear over the value of the euro, strained by potential government insolvency in Greece and Spain, has led to a significant uptick in euro-for-Bitcoin trading.

Given the cyberattack last month in which thieves made off with $90,000 in Bitcoins--that's €71,738 euros, by the way--one would think another currency might be a better place to park your cash. However, some are scrambling to turn their euros into Bitcoins. Charlie Shrem, the Brooklyn-based founder of the Bitcoin transaction service BitInstant, claims potential customers are desperate to mail him euros. "European volume has been skyrocketing," he told the Post.

More euros changed hands on Bitcoin exchanges over the past week than in any week in Bitcoin’s history, according to the blog Bitcoin Money.

Data from the Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox shows a significant increase in the volume of euros traded over the last month, when the price of Bitcoin in euros increased by roughly 15 percent. The euro is the second-most traded currency in the Bitcoin markets, accounting for 9 percent of transactions, followed by the British pound sterling (8 percent) and the Second Life Linden dollar (5 percent). The U.S. dollar still dominates, accounting for 72 percent of trading.

Traders on foreign currency exchanges had more faith in the euro, which has suffered from volatility but had been on a three-week high against the U.S. dollar.

Wake me up when the markets move.

The Bitcoin markets have been sleepy over the past week or two, and Bitcoin traders are starting to whine. What happened to the drama of hacks, the excitement of skyrocketing prices? The biggest news out of the weekend's Bitcoin World Conference and Expo was that the organizers teased future conferences in Thailand and Amsterdam. "As fun as it was, seems there were no great world-shattering announcements that would affect the world of bitcoin in the near future," one Bitcoiner who was present told Betabeat. "Other than more conventions as announced by Bruce." On the Bitcoin Forum at bitcointalk.org, user tacotime wrote: "Well, someone buy or sell a bajillion BTC and do something, it's boring as hell right now out there."

But the Bitcoin markets may soon pick up again as a Bitcoin start-up launching later today, in partnership with one of the better-known exchanges, is likely to encourage a new crop of casual traders and the Bitcoin-curious. 

It can take days, even weeks to get real money with which to buy e-currency into an account on one of the Bitcoin exchanges. In general, trading on the Bitcoin exchanges is relatively slow due to the inconvenience of transferring money and the scarcity of the coin. The fastest way to get money from the largest exchange, Mt. Gox, into TradeHill, for example, another well-known exchange, is to transfer money via the payments processor Paxum, which takes around 48 hours and charges a transaction fee.

Charlie Shrem, a Brooklyn-based entrepreneur, and fellow Bitcoin trader Gareth Nelson, based in the U.K., set out to solve this problem with The BitInstant Project, a start-up they're announcing today in an exclusive partnership with the Bitcoin exchange TradeHill.

Basically, BitInstant verifies a deposit and then fronts the credit to both parties so users can deposit money into their accounts immediately--hopefully in seconds, BitInstant says, but at most, within 30 minutes. "Our system works in many ways like a 0 percent interest short-term loan," Mr. Shrem, whose background is in e-commerce, said in an email. "Except you pay us and receive the money all in one shot, meaning it's not actually anything like a loan at all and that analogy is sorta invalid. You pay us an amount equal to whatever you wish to be deposited into your exchange account plus a small commission and at the same time we make a direct transfer at the exchange side from our account to yours."

BitInstant supports Liberty Reserve, Mt.Gox Coupon Codes and Dwolla, with more payment methods planned.

In the past, there could be a significant spread between the price at different exchanges--that will likely be eliminated thanks to BitInstant and future services in the same vein, which will have some depressing effect on trades by eliminating some of the market inefficiencies traders have been taking advantage of, but also encourage other more cautious traders who didn't want to bet on what prices would do in the days it took to complete a transaction.

Sorry Bitcoin thrillseekers--it does seem like Bitcoin engineer Gavin Andresen's wish may be coming true and the rollercoaster ride may be ending. That is, until the next SNAFU--hack, heist, technical difficulty, regulatory interference, etc.