Bitcoin, the online “cryptocurrency,” is not just for anti-government doomsday fanatics and drug dealers. Seen everywhere from SEC filings, to state legislature hearings, to an episode of The Good Wife, it is both an influential new Internet technology and a new financial medium that will have a growing impact on corporate enterprises across the economy.

Corporate counsel who support technology transactions are likely to face a variety of legal issues of first impression as corporate planners, strategists, investors and consumers find new applications and run into old problems with this technology. This article will catalog eight of the most salient aspects of Bitcoin that corporate counsel should understand.