Digital currency destabilizing effect on the Chinese Yuan currency due to speculation. Recent interest in cryptocurrencies has prompted renewed interest in digital currencies, with bitcoin, introduced in 2008, becoming the most widely used and accepted digital currency. According to the European Central Bank's 2015 "Virtual currency schemes – a further analysis" report, virtual currency is a digital representation of value, not issued by a central bank, credit institution or e-money institution, which, in some circumstances, can be used as an alternative to money. In the previous report of October 2012, the virtual currency was defined as a type of unregulated, digital money,
Currency War of 2009–11 the currency war had ended – governments of emerging economies were increasingly deciding to accept currency appreciation so as to mitigate rising food prices, one of the causes behind civil discontent driving the Arab Spring. In April, the "Financial Times" joined Bloomberg in reporting that the currency war was beginning to fizzle out, again suggesting a key reason was the trend for emerging economies to allow currency appreciation as a means to offset inflation. Although Brazil is one of the emerging countries that has recently abandoned intervening against appreciation, her finance minister Guido Mantega disagreed with suggestions that the 'currency