Digital Currency Group Digital Currency Group Digital Currency Group (DCG) is a venture capital company focusing on the digital currency market. It is located in New York City. Digital Currency Group was launched in 2015 by Barry Silbert, who previously founded SecondMarket, Inc.. He began investing in bitcoin companies in 2013, first as an angel investor, and provided funding for many of the earliest companies including Coinbase, BitPay, and Ripple. Digital Currency Group was formed when two businesses built under the SecondMarket parent company – Genesis Global Trading, a bitcoin OTC trading firm, and Grayscale Investments, a digital currency asset management firm that
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