IN APRIL 2014, the first Oxford cafe accepting payment in digital currency over the counter opened its doors.

One year on, Jimbob’s Baguettes on Magdalen Street has made exactly one Bitcoin.

However, given a Bitcoin is currently worth about £180, that isn’t quite as miniscule as it sounds.

The cafe’s owners, James Morris and Bob Sayers invited customers to pay using a digital Bitcoin wallet app on their mobile or with traditional card or cash.

In the first year, Mr Morris said they had taken about 75 Bitcoin payments, mostly from a few dedicated customers.

But the duo still have complete faith that digital currency is on the way to becoming a serious competitor to the notes and coins minted by national banks.

Mr Morris, 35, who moved from Manchester to Oxford to open the cafe, said: “We have always believed in it and still think it’s right at the start of where it needs to be going.

“We did it as a bit of a PR stunt, but we also wanted to get involved with digital currency.

In the last year, something like 500 times as much [Bitcoin currency] was created as the year before.

“The US government have backed it saying they will not make it illegal, and our Government included digital currency in their budget plans.”

In last month’s budget the Treasury said it would begin to regulate digital currencies by making them subject to anti-money laundering rules.

Mr Morris, who lives in Headington with wife Heather and their two children, said: “Countries are gearing up to understand it.

“They know they need to understand it and ideally to profit from it because it’s not going away.

“It really can do things the current financial system can’t and it’s nice to be right on the ground floor.”

There are many different types of digital currency like Bitcoin, of which there are 12,446,725 in existence.

All are created by computer algorithms which randomly produce them like a natural resource.

One of them, Feathercoin, was created by Oxford programmer Peter Bushnell in 2013 and there is now around $3.8 million worth of it in existence.

Because they are not controlled by banks or credit card companies and there is no charge when transferring them from one account to another.

Mr Morris said: “We still believe Bitcoin will become a serious currency.”

What is a bitcoin?

BITCOIN, like all digital ‘cryptocurrencies’, is created by computer algorithms and online.

Users can buy expensive and powerful software to “mine” more digital currency for themselves.

The software runs through millions of algorithm permutations to “guess” a complex code which releases the money.

Users can then share the currency peer-to-peer online, like music files.

The currency can be stored on mobile phone apps, called wallets.

So to buy a sandwich the user just scans a QR code with their phone and enters the amount they want to pay.