Meet The World's First Bitcoin Baby

Stacy Cowley | CNN | June 10, 2013

Dr. C. Terence Lee, a fertility specialist based in Brea, Calif., flashes a photo of a beaming infant across a projection screen and announces: "This baby was bought with bitcoins."

No, this isn't a black-market deal brokered in the Internet's shadowy corners. The child was born thanks to a frozen embryo transfer cycle paid for with bitcoins. Lee says it's the first time he's aware of that anyone has paid for fertility treatments that way.

The baby is the biggest -- and definitely the cutest -- victory yet for Lee in his campaign to persuade his patients to pay him for his services with bitcoins, the experimental digital currency that caught Wall Street's attention recently when its trading price shot up.

There are 11 million bitcoins in circulation right now with a collective "market value" of around $1.4 billion. You can spend bitcoins online at shops like BitcoinStore.com, but they're not exactly a mainstream currency for everyday transactions.