Which Was the First Cryptocurrency: It Wasn't Bitcoin

Many of us would likely answer the question "What was the first cryptocurrency?" with "Bitcoin." However, Bitcoin, which entered our lives in 2009, was not actually the first cryptocurrency. The history of cryptocurrencies dates back much earlier, and the pioneering figure in this field is surprisingly someone else. So, what was the first cryptocurrency?

What Was the First Cryptocurrency?

To answer this quickly: The first cryptocurrency was Ecash Coin, developed by the Digicash company in 1990. Yes, it appeared 35 years ago. The founder and owner of this project was David Chaum, one of the pioneers of the crypto world. Yes, you guessed it right—the person mentioned earlier is indeed David Chaum.

In 1983, David Chaum published a paper titled "Blind Signatures for Untraceable Payments", which took the first steps in the digital payment systems field. This paper made a significant contribution to the digital payment concepts of that time and also laid the foundations for the cryptocurrency world. You can access this paper through the link below.

Blind Signatures for Untraceable Payments

The most important contribution Chaum made to the industry was developing a payment formula that made digital payments secure and untraceable. In 1983, by developing a "blinding formula" for encrypting information exchanged between individuals, he created a digital currency called "Blind Cash." This digital currency carried a unique signature and could be transferred untraceably and alterable. These features formed the fundamental building blocks of digital currencies and cryptocurrencies.

Was Bitcoin Not Original?

While Bitcoin may seem like the beginning of the cryptocurrency world for most people, it is actually a product of technology shaped by Chaum’s ideas. The ideas David Chaum presented in 1983 opened the doors for the digital currency world and eventually paved the way for the creation of Bitcoin in 2009. Therefore, the foundational structure of Bitcoin emerged as a result of the ideas Chaum had laid out in the early years.

This brings us to the following question: Is Bitcoin an original technology? The answer is quite simple; Bitcoin evolved as a combination of Chaum’s ideas and other digital assets that emerged during that time. In other words, Bitcoin is not something entirely new, but rather an amalgamation of existing technologies and an advanced version of them.

What is Ecash?

The digital currency that Chaum proposed in 1983 is known as eCash. This system enabled secure digital money transfers between individuals. eCash offered a payment method that carried a unique signature and could be transferred untraceably. Chaum’s ideas led him to establish Digicash and create eCash through this company.

In 1998, Digicash went bankrupt, but it was a precursor to the birth of Bitcoin and today’s cryptocurrencies. However, Chaum’s ideas could not be implemented at that time. Today, the basic structures of Bitcoin and blockchain technologies are reflections of the vision Chaum laid out in the 1980s.

Conclusion

The pioneering work of David Chaum laid the foundations of the cryptocurrency world. If we are talking about Bitcoin today, we owe this largely to Chaum and other pioneers who made significant strides in the 1980s. What seemed complex and hard to understand at that time has now merged with technology and evolved into one of the most important financial tools of today. In this context, the first cryptocurrency was not Bitcoin, but Ecash.