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,
Virtual currency and (2) that persons may obtain by their own computing or manufacturing effort". Rather than relying on confidence in a central authority, it depends instead on a distributed system of trust. Digital currency is a particular form of currency that is electronically transferred and stored, i.e., distinct from physical currency, such as coins or banknotes. According to the European Central Bank, virtual currencies are "generally digital", although their enduring precursor, the coupon, for example, is physical. A cryptocurrency is a digital currency using cryptography to secure transactions and to control the creation of new currency units. Since not all virtual