"Bitcoin" may still be an unfamiliar term for most everyday people, but online, the cryptocurrency is one of the biggest, and most worrisome, phenomena to emerge from the dark corners of the internet in years.

This week, especially, as a huge Bitcoin loss in currency led to the online currency's largest exchanges to declare bankruptcy, policy makers are looking to find ways to regulate Bitcoin.

Perhaps the most outspoken policymaker against the concept of Bitcoin in general this week was Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, who called for a ban on the cryptocurrency this week, according to the Washington Post. While that's not a realistic proposition, others in government and academia are calling for regulation of Bitcoin -- something which supporters of the online currency say will be the death knell of the whole enterprise.

Of course, the humongous Bitcoin online marketplace, based in Japan and called Mt. Gox, losing several hundred million dollars worth of Bitcoins and calling for bankruptcy isn't doing the Bitcoin community any good, either. On Friday, Mt. Gox made a public apology on Japanese TV as it filed for bankruptcy protection, after a weakness in the company's marketplace programming caused a loss of 850,000 bitcoins -- worth about $425 million, according to WaPo's report.

Where those bitcoins went, causing the collapse of Mt. Gox, isn't yet known -- which only fuels skepticism for the unregulated cyber currency. Officials at Mt. Gox said they weren't sure if the money was stolen by cybercriminals hacking the system, or whether the operators of the exchange simply accidentally voided a huge amount of the currency. In all, about 750,000 bitcoins in the marketplace, and 100,000 bitcoins owned by Mt. Gox, went missing in a veritable blink of an eye.

This isn't the first time that Bitcoin, as a currency, has hit a rough patch, trying to find legitimacy as a real-world currency. "If you look at the short history of Bitcoin, there's been a series of bubbles and busts, there's been a series of disruptions, there have been hacks, there have been thefts," chief executive of the SecondMarket Bitcoin exchange Barry Silbert told the Washington Post. "And really, after every single event, Bitcoin has emerged stronger." 

Indeed, the market value of Bitcoin has grown significantly since its inception around 2009. As recent as 2012, the value of a bitcoin could be measured in just a few U.S. dollars per, but after a significantly successful, and turbulent, 2013, one bitcoin will fetch more than $500 in current pricing. Some retailers have even recently begun taking bitcoins as payment, including Overstock.com, and Bitcoin ATMs are beginning to appear in some cities.

For those who are completely in the dark as to what an online currency like Bitcoin is, here are the basics. It's a currency that can be used to buy goods and services, both online and real-world (now) anonymously. Bitcoins are generated or "mined" by putting computer-processing power to work, processing which goes towards managing Bitcoin transactions and normalizing the value of the cryptocurrency. Bitcoins are not tied to any international real-world currency, nor are they tied to banking systems, and there are no transaction fees associated with payments. That, plus the anonymity of bitcoin purchases, has made the currency popular -- especially for those interested in making illicit purchases online in the "Deep Web."