Digital currency founded DigiCash, an electronic cash company, in Amsterdam to commercialize the ideas in his research. It filed for bankruptcy in 1998. In 1999, Chaum left the company. In 1997, Coca-Cola offered buying from vending machines using mobile payments. After that PayPal emerged in 1998. Other systems followed suit, such as e-gold, but it faced issues because it was used by criminals and was closed by U.S Department of Justice in 2005. In 2008, bitcoin was introduced, which marked the start of digital currencies. Origins of digital currencies date back to the 1990s Dot-com bubble. One of the first was E-gold,
Virtual currency law in the United States The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) describes Virtual Currencies (VCs) as "a digital representation of value that functions as a medium of exchange, a unit of account, and/or a store of value [and] does not have legal tender status in any jurisdiction." Although, electronic payment systems have been part of American life since at least 1871 when Western Union "introduced money transfer" through the telegraph and in 1914 "introduced the first consumer charge-card", virtual currencies differ from these digital payment structures because unlike traditional digital transfers of value, virtual currencies do not represent a claim on value; rather the virtual currency