The Evolution of Virtual Currencies: Analyzing the Case of Bitcoin - Information and Communication Technologies in Public Administration - page 216

table 10.1 (Continued) Some of today's Virtual Currencies

Name Characteristics

AceBucks This currency is used in the Facebook social

networking community.

Other names Greekyogurtcoins, weezercoins, alphacoin,

fastcoin, namecoin, hobonickels, gircoin,
fireflycoin, zeuscoin, bbqcoin, anoncoin, zerocoin,
worldcoin.

Source: Vaishampayan, S. (2013, November 18). Five virtual currencies other than bit-
coin. MarketWatch . Retrieved from http://www.marketwatch.com/story/five
-virtual-currencies-other-than-bitcoin-2013-11-18; Bray, D. A., & Konsynski,
B. R. (2006, November 1). Virtual worlds, virtual economies, virtual institutions .
Retrieved from http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=962501;
Guo, J., & Chow, A. (2008). Virtual money systems: A phenomenal anal-
ysis . Retrieved from http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi
=10.1.1.155.1443.

10.3 the Case of Bitcoins: Legal tender in the Making
Over the period 2009 to 2014, from among the virtual currencies in existence,
bitcoins have captured the attention of academics and popular media alike based
on the number of articles that has been written about them. Evans-Pughe (2012)
tried to analyze bitcoins as a viable alternative to cash when bitcoin was 3 years old.
However, even prior to that, Wallace and Jacobs wrote articles that were skeptical
of the rise of bitcoin as tantamount to a pyramid scheme (Wallace, 2011) and the
challenges to regulatory authorities when it comes to enforcing anything on bitcoin
(Jacobs, 2011). There are others who are more optimistic. Grinberg (2011) discussed
bitcoins as an innovative alternative digital currency, and Bollen (2003) looked at
them as being the future of online currencies.
So what are bitcoins exactly and how do they work? Bitcoins are billed as the
first decentralized peer-to-peer payment network or digital, virtual, or “crypto”
currency of its kind. It is the first implementation of a concept called “crypto-
currency,” which was first described in 1998 by Wei Dai on the cypherpunks
mailing list. At that time, it was suggested that a new form of money can be made
that uses cryptography (the study or the science of the techniques of transform-
ing information to make it secure from unintended recipients or users) to control
its creation and transactions via the Internet and solely online ( Merriam-Webster
Dictionary , 2014).
In fact, bitcoins are so “crypto” that nobody knows who developed it. Various
sources have indicated that the first specification and proof of the bitcoin concept
were published in 2009 in a cryptography mailing list by an unknown person or
group that goes by the name Satoshi Nakamoto. A person named Dorian Satoshi