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 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