Before There Was Bitcoin, There Was DigiCash
As bitcoin reaches unbelievable new peaks, now’s a good time to ponder DigiCash, the cryptocurrency that came first. Its idea has roots in the 1980s.
A version of this post originally appeared on Tedium, a twice-weekly newsletter that hunts for the end of the long tail.
Cryptocurrency is having a bit of a moment right now, thanks in no small part to bitcoin, the currency launched under unusual circumstances that has suddenly become really, really popular. (As I write this, it’s within shouting distance of the $12,000 valuation mark. A week ago today, it hadn’t yet hit $10,000. The Winklevi were still multi-millionaires.)
But of course, while cryptocurrency is growing in popularity, bitcoin and other blockchain-based currencies can’t come close to making the claim to being the first digital currency.
As I wrote in 2016, the early internet-era currency Flooz was a bit of a bust for Whoopi Goldberg, but there are forms of currency that well predate it.
In fact, the guy who was at the very front of this whole idea has been thinking about it for more than three decades. David Chaum, a computer scientist who had already proposed the basic ideas behind encrypted messaging…
