First Cryptocurrency?

[Betwrong]

e-gold was the first widely used Internet money, introduced in 1996, and grew to several million users before the US Government shut it down in 2008. Users of the e-gold mailing list used the term "digital currency" to describe peer to peer payments in various instruments.

Just wondering, was it a coincidence that e-gold was shut down by the US Government in 2008, and Bitcoin whitepaper was released in October the same year? I mean, after the first successful digital currency(e-gold) was shut down by the government, there was a need of creating one that can't be shut down by anyone.

[Questat]

Not Bitcoin?

Nope. Bitcoin is just the first one that actually became decently successful and actually gained recognition everywhere. Most people just haven't heard of the past attempts for a global currency just because they weren't successful.

Read this: https://www.investopedia.com/tech/were-there-cryptocurrencies-bitcoin/

I never bother to make a research, I know bitcoin was not the first but I don't which coin was.
I just read from comments, people are calling bitcoin the first coin in the market, so they were wrong and they should head over this thread.

[LeGaulois]

Guys, you still have a lot to read about the ideology behind Bitcoin. You should read about the history of cryptography, anarchy, open-source, cypherpunks... Even the NSA published a paper about cryptocurrency in 1996. These are the basics of Bitcoin' history.

It's funny to see some answers that say "yeah Bitcoin is not the first crypto/digital currency" but 20 or 30 posts earlier you were saying the opposite! 

Previous currencies weren't secure enough, for example, if Bitgold didn't success it's because it couldn't fix the double-spend attack. Later, Satoshi came with a POW system... Bitcoin

[kryptqnick]

Not Bitcoin?

Nope. Bitcoin is just the first one that actually became decently successful and actually gained recognition everywhere. Most people just haven't heard of the past attempts for a global currency just because they weren't successful.

Read this: https://www.investopedia.com/tech/were-there-cryptocurrencies-bitcoin/

I heard of this but never really took it seriously. I mean, of course, I know Paypal, and I am also familiar with DigiCash being invented way earlier than Bitcoin, but I never considered the latter a cryptocurrency as such. The op's question is not just about the first electronic money, right? It's about the first crypto. Digicash offered anonymity and used cryptography, but I cannot find the information about the mechanism of determining the value and supply of it. I suppose it was nothing like Bitcoin in this sense, and neither was it available for mining, right? So I guess the answer to the question about the first cryptocurrency depends on which characteristics we find essential for a crypto. Like some disagree that Libra is a crypto, because it will be centralized and regulated.

[todiboa]

If you are talking about DigiCash then it was an unrealized crypto. In addition, this payment system was centralized. By this, Bitcoin was the first

[CBANX3]

A well known digital asset of the crypto world i.e. Bitcoin is a first and widely accepted cryptocurrency in the world. Bitcoin has truly happening and struggling history that makes it's crown of the crypto king super deserving.

[proTECH77]

DigiCash

After that, numerous digital currencies were tried but,

Only bitcoin survived.

Was asked and I loudly said Bitcoin was the first digital coin that had ever seem before all others cryptocurrency around the world of digital coins. But your findings makes and clear my thought's about my first move and now have realize that first digital coin was digicoin and not Bitcoin. The successful establishment of Bitcoin made waves for it in the world of cryptocurrency and its been known as the most acceptable digital coins so far.

[princesspoppy]

I always thought that bitcoin is the first cryptocurrency, now I know thanks to the thread starter. Maybe the first one is so regulated and people before is not techie not like today that is why it did not survived.

Same here. I never heard of any other cryptocurrencies from the earlier years. Glad to know that there are some people who started this idea that "maybe" gave Satoshi the same idea in creating bitcoin. I'm just glad that bitcoin made it to the top. Although I was shocked that all this time I really thought bitcoin is the first cryptocurrency. Well now I know it's not. 

[BitcoinFX]

Bitcoin (BTC).

Who coined the word "cryptocurrency" ...
- https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5155348

Am pretty sure it was Satoshi himself. There's a passage in Digital Gold by Nathaniel Popper where it's proposed in an exchange with that Finnish fella who helped him out with bitcoin.org at the start. I'll dig around.

Edit - It was an unknown stranger.


'While satoshi never discussed anything person in these emails, he would banter with Martti about little things.

In one email Satoshi pointed to a recent exchange on the Bitcoin email list in which a user referred to Bitcoin as a "cryptocurrency" referring to the cryptographic functions that made it run.

"Maybe it's a word we should use when describing Bitcoin. Do you like it?" Satoshi asked.

"It sounds good," Martti replied. "A peer to peer cryptocurrency could be the slogan."  '

BitcoinFX - Date Registered: February 01, 2010, 04:59:51 PM

Jan 2010 ... 1st Snapshot Reference for bitcoin.org ...

"Bitcoin P2P Cryptocurrency" <<<<< does pre-date my OP post !!!

- https://web.archive.org/web/20100106082749/http://www.bitcoin.org/

...snip...

...

This is the thing Bitcoin wasn't called "cryptocurrency" until it was.

Recently I noticed that a wiki page for cryptocurrency did not actually exist. I made a post on bitcointalk that identified this fact and that prior references were only for ecash, b-money, Digicash, eCache, bit gold, digital cash, e-currency, cryptographic electronic money, digital gold money etc., See:

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptocurrency

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_currency

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_gold_currency

The earliest citations on the Cryptocurrency wiki do not seem to make any reference to "cryptocurrency" ... currently including ...

...snip...

[traderiphy]

I have always supported the motion that bitcoin is the first cryptocurrency.. ...Am glad to learn something new today. Indeed we learn everyday.

[Delos]

Bitcoin

What else?

Other cryptos are useless if we didn't can change it in real money or buy goods in realtime!

Bitcoin has the most acceptance worldwide.

[CBANX2]

The whole world knows its Bitcoin, the only surviving king in all odds. Bitcoin is the first cryptocurrency that has survived for so long with such a huge acceptance power.

[wxxyrqa]

I am sure that Bitcoin developers have come a very thorny path before they created a real pioneer in the cryptocurrency market.  It is possible that there were such cryptocurrencies that we don’t know about, because ini was the first development that today has no value.  But in general, the information is really interesting and useful for each user of cryptocurrency.  Thank you very much for this.

[Innerpumper]

What is the First Cryptocurrency(First digital money)?

only bitcoin can survive, many currency just stable coin, i sure many investor will move to bitcoin for investment because only bitcoin can make price 5X in one year, Not only about price, bitcoin have perfect technology use for transactions P2P, Is Blockchain. Blokchain Used by many Project in this world, this reason why bitcoin have strong fundamental.

[Darker45]

I thought its BTC but after reading this thread My Idea has changed,  there are many old web based money but not decentralised.

Yes, that is correct. The very heart of the matter is that Bitcoin does not have a heart, it cannot be killed! Had it not been decentralized, I would think that it has long been dead. Cryptography is an old art of codes and it has been used, at least in several attempts, to create digital currencies, which were all vulnerable sad to say. The good thing is that Satoshi was a lot more genius than the previous geniuses.

[Janation]

DigiCash

After that, numerous digital currencies were tried but,

Only bitcoin survived.

There is a cryptocurrency before bitcoin??
I didnt know before i read this post thanks for this info

I know this but I don't consider them.

Bitcoin is different since this is made by companies. Despite the anonymity, I don't like these kinds of companies running digital currencies around the internet, is it even decentralized?

[omone1]

There is a difference  digital currency and Crypto currency

Let's be guided

Bitcoin is the first Cryptocurrency sir.

Can you give some analytical proof of bitcoin been the first cryptocurrency? I understand there is a differences between digital currency and Cryptocurrency. You should analyze in terms of cryptography and decentralized public ledger. 

[CROG]

BTC Is The Holy Grail, But Like a Few Others in here said, It Cant be used for everything, therefore you have alts, but a lot of the Alts try to Compete with Bitcoin which i think is not leading to something

[Iceblast]

it is not the first bitcoin as a digital currency. we know beforehand there are facilities. but bitcoin can gain investor confidence, so it is booming in 2017. there are many pros and cons for the presence of bitcoin, but over time problems one by one can be resolved, such as bubble news which turns out to be incorrect

Bitcoin is only as a coin on the first slide that experienced success. maybe first a lot of coins were released along with bitcoin, but only bitcoin is more famous and popular to date.

[Abolaji11]

Although bitcoin is not the first ever cryptocurrency as I read that a lot of crypto had come in the past but all of them failed majorly because they are not decentralized enough.