The growing digital challenge to government money monopoly

THE GROWING DIGITAL CHALLENGE TO GOVERNMENTS' MONEY MONOPOLY. After thousands of years of government monopoly over issuing money, bringing new competition to how we save, spend and make payments. Due to concerns about inflation and money printing, the last 20 years has seen an incredible number of new developments in the world of money. Read our infographic to learn how gold got digital, how digital currencies exploded into life and who the key players are in this global story. the digital age is 1990 1993 David Chaum founds DigiCash. James Turk, later founder and chairman of GoldMoney files patents for digital gold payment system. 1996 1996 World Wide Money e-gold www.e-gold.com Financial journalist, Max Keiser, starts investigating digital currencies and filing patents. Douglas Jackson and Barry Downey found eGold two years before PayPal as a precious metals micropayment system with an API for merchants. 2000 e Bullion 2001 eBullion is founded by Jim Fayed, facilitating the instant transfer of amounts of gold and silver between users. World Wide Money e-gold GoldMoney Precious metals since 2001 www.e-gold.com Dozens of companies and individuals now working with the eGold system. The first phishing attacks against eGold members occur as criminals seek to exploit eGold. James Turk founds GoldMoney as competitior to eGold. 2002 2003 eGold and other metals platforms increasingly targeted by cyber criminals. eGold hits 1 million Users. 2006-2008 2008 US Patriot Act's definition of 'money transmitter' stretched to include any system that operates digital gold or silver money systems. eGold now processing $2bn of transactions a year, with the underlying gold and silver being exchanged 100 times a year. InnnNNNNt 2008 2008 Bitcoin July: After long legal battle eGold reluctantly accepts a bargain with US prosecutors, where most charges are dropped excepting Satoshi Nakamoto' posts a paper called Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash A Peer-to-Peer two enforced under Patriot Act. eGold ordered to pay fines of $3.7 million. Electronic System. Cash System 2008 2008 e-Bullion hits one million users. However, Jim Fayed, founder of eBullion indicted for the murder of his wife and fined by US authorities. e-Bullion website was taken down for breaching Patriot Act. Company and dient assets seized. Clients never compensated for their losses. Digital currency expert, Jon Matonis, rising to prominence. 2009 Satoshi Nakamoto starts Bitcoin (Bitcoin Genesis Block) as a peer-to-peer, electronic cash system, based on an open-source cryptographic protocol independent bitcoin of central banks and governments. World Wide Money e-gold MT.GOX www.e-gold.com eGold now has 5m users and will also shortly be suspended due to legal issues. Financial journalist and digital currency evangelist Max Keiser banging the drum as Bitcoin evangelist. Mt Gox, an exchange for trading cards, launches. Based in Japan, this will become the largest digital currency exchange. UNEXT 2010 November: After the Gavin Andresen rising to fame as Satoshi names him Bitcoin Lead Developer. e-gold and e-Bullion cases, California and several other states amend regulations to define all digital value transfer systems as money transmitters. 6th August: Hackers exploit a major vulnerability in the Bitcoin protocol. 15th August: Hackers further exploit this major vulnerability, with over 184 billion Bitcoins generated in one transaction. First Bitcoin transactions start occurring, including famous 10k Bitcoin transaction for pizza. 2011 Coblee founds Litecoin as a new competitor to Bitcoin. This new Vince launches Namecoin as another crypto-currency is also a peer to peer, open source software project. competitor in the digital currency market, with new features to make internet censorship much more difficult. 1¢ THE REAL ASSET CO WikiLeaks Wikileaks publicly endorses Bitcoin fast-follower, Namecoin. 19th June: Hackers take down Mt.Gox and send its BTC price crashing to 1 US cent. The Real Asset Company, a new digital bullion ownership platform is launched. January: GoldMoney turns off the ability to make payments from one account to another citing "insignificant" demand and high costs of regulatory compliance. Sunny King starts PPCoin as new entrants arrive in the market for crypto-currencies. 2012 bitpay Bitcoin Foundation 27th September: Bitcoin Foundation launches 'to drive Bitcoin's advancement BitPay reports >1,000 merchants accepting Bitcoin under its payment processing service. 2013 TEEAL March - The US' Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) establishes regulatory guidelines for February "decentralized virtual currencies" such as Bitcoin, classifying American "Bitcoin miners" who sell their generated Bitcoin as Money Service Businesses that may be subject to registration and other legal obligations. - The Bitcoin payment processor Coinbase reports selling $1 million in Bitcoin in one month at an exchange rate of $22/BTC. - US clients using Mt.Gox affected as authorities seize Dwolla's accounts. Bitcoin bugs for Mt.Gox to cease trading - the price of Bitcoin drops 23% to $37 before recovering to $48. April MT.GOX Mt. Gox suspends trading to enable a "market cool-down". Bitcoin drops from $266 to $76 before returning to $160 within six hours. Peter Bushnell announces the launch of Feathercoin on the Mt.Gox announces that trading for Litecoin had been delayed due to DDOS attacks. Bitcointalk.org forum. May US-based Coinbase US authorities seize announces a $5 million Series A Mt. Gox's accounts after discovering it is not a money transmitter with FinCEN in the US. investment, the largest funding round for a Bitcoin company, with money from big named venture investors. Coinlab announced that it was suing Mt. Gox for $75m for breach of contract. BTCE exchange lists Feathercoin trading. Feathercoin survives its first major nehwork attack (block #33,000). June MT.GOX Mt. Gox suspends withdrawals in US dollars. July ($) bitpay BitPay now handling Bitcoin transactions for more than 4,500 companies around the world. Mt. Gox announces it has "fully resumed" withdrawals, but as of September 5, 2013, few US dollar withdrawals have been completed. The Oxford Blue becomes the first pub to accept Feathercoin. The London Bitcoin Conference happens and attracts huge numbers of crypto-currency fans, including prominent members of Feathercoin and Litecoin. Thailand bans trading and exchange of Bitcoin. August - Feathercoin launches Advanced Checkpointing to protect its network from attacks. MT.GOX - Mt. Gox announces "significant losses" due to crediting deposits which had not fully cleared. - Chris Ellis becomes Community Leader on the Feathercoin Forum taking over from John Manglaviti. - Mt. Gox now processing close to 60% of global Bitcoin transactions, down from >80%. Germany's Finance Ministry refers to Bitcoin with the term "unit of account", the first time a person of such political office and power refers to Bitcoin in such monetary terms. Texas Federal judge Amos Mazzant rules that Bitcoin is "a currency or a form of money" (specifically securities as defined by Federal Securities Laws). The case, brought by the US Securities and Exchange Commission, continues as Bitcoin continues to attract Federal attention. Love our infographics? Follow us on Twitter to get them hot off the press and learn more about gold, silver, crypto-currencies and money itself. @therealassetco THE REAL ASSET CO © 2013 munnii EnKoa ERI Man DEqumhyin. %24 P 인으 오어 foofiniis múmipiu Eminino Hиіпійт