Virtual currency Financial Services. The Internet currency Flooz was created in 1999. The term "virtual currency" appears to have been coined around 2009, paralleling the development of digital currencies and social gaming. Although the correct classification is "digital currency", the U.S. government prefers and has uniformly adopted the term "virtual currency". The U.S. Treasury's FinCEN was first, followed by the FBI in 2012, the General Accounting Office in 2013, as well as the government agencies testifying at the November 2013 U.S. Senate hearing on bitcoin, including the Department of Homeland Security, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Office of the Attorney General.
Currency War of 2009–11 dollar float freely. While the US has taken no direct action to devalue its currency, there is close to universal consensus among analysts that its quantitative easing programmes exert downwards pressure on the dollar. According to many analysts the currency war had largely fizzled out by mid-2011, though others including Mantega disagreed. As of March 2012, outbreaks of rhetoric were still occurring, with additional measures being adopted by countries like Brazil to control the appreciation of their currency. Yet by June, there were signs that currency misalignment had been levelling out in China and across the world, with even Mantega