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 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