Digital currency founded DigiCash, an electronic cash company, in Amsterdam to commercialize the ideas in his research. It filed for bankruptcy in 1998. In 1999, Chaum left the company. In 1997, Coca-Cola offered buying from vending machines using mobile payments. After that PayPal emerged in 1998. Other systems followed suit, such as e-gold, but it faced issues because it was used by criminals and was closed by U.S Department of Justice in 2005. In 2008, bitcoin was introduced, which marked the start of digital currencies. Origins of digital currencies date back to the 1990s Dot-com bubble. One of the first was E-gold,
Private currency Private currency A private currency is a currency issued by a private entity, be it an individual, a commercial business, a nonprofit or decentralized common enterprise. It is often contrasted with fiat currency issued by governments or central banks. In many countries, the issuance of private paper currencies the minting of metal coins intended to be used as currency may even be a criminal act such as in the United States (18 U.S. Code § 486). Digital cryptocurrency is sometimes treated differently; for example, this is legal in the United States but illegal in a few countries (mainly in West