To paraphrase our grandmothers, "Such a question you should ask!"
It's not too surprising if you haven't heard of Bitcoin. There are lots of great videos that discuss it but, if you want the 5-second summary (my, but you have a short attention span), a Bitcoin is a virtual currency. (For comparison, Dollars, Euros, and Pounds are all considered hard currencies.) Although relatively new, there are many activities occurring within and outside the Web using Bitcoins.
Additionally, lots of places accept Bitcoins for payment. Ergo, you needn't even convert them to hard currencies.
Why do we use Bitcoins? Two words: transaction costs. Using Bitcoins is a much lower cost option for you than hard currency. With Bitcoins, you won't pay a fee to purchase or redeem karma (1 karma = USD $0.01). Conversely, if you decide to purchase karma using a credit card or PayPal, we are charged 2.9% plus an additional USD $0.30 per transaction. Sadly, we pass those costs along to you (in the form of reduced karma).
Having said that, if you ever want to turn your earned Bitcoins into hard currencies, our Bitcoin processor Coinbase will be more than happy to do so. There are also many other currency exchanges to convert Bitcoins.
We’re not entirely sure it’s appropriate to call this the Frequently Asked Questions area as, candidly, we don’t keep track of how often these questions get asked. Consider this community as a place where we post answers to what we anticipate your questions will be. But, if our crystal ball is malfunctioning, feel free to post your question in /GettingStarted/Help. If we turn your question into an FAQ, we’ll credit you back the karma to post it. It’s the least we can do. We also welcome suggestions at /GettingStarted/SuggestionBox.