History Of Digital Currencies Bitcoin – And How They Lead to Bitcoin

“Failure is a detour, not a dead-end street.”

Zig Ziglar

Digicash and eCash, YodelBank, 1mdc, e-bullion, ePassport, Liberty Reserve, Liberty Dollar, e-gold, and many others inhabit the museum of former digital currencies. For most of these currencies, they failed from lack of market acceptance. In other cases, such as with e-gold and Liberty Dollar, the banks and governments take them down for being too successful. A charge of money laundering is slapped on the fledgling currency and then the hammer falls.

Understanding the why, who, and what is behind the powerful drive for creating widely accepted digital currencies is the mission of this chapter. Knowing the reasons other currencies went under is critical. If, for example, we know why Digicash disappeared, we can spot the same problem with another currency, such as Bitcoin, long before it loses all value.

Great stock market traders and great investors of any assets have in depth knowledge of the history of their investments. This knowledge enables them to spot trends early both up and down. Using this knowledge they can jump on an up trend early, and off when they spot a downtrend. Sounds basic, right? However, most investors get changes in trends all wrong.

This chapter will help bring anyone up-to-date on the origin of this digital and distributed currency movement. Once the background is understood, one can navigate the future of Bitcoin with greater wisdom, and potentially profit with an accurate assessment of the currency.