eGold was the last false start of digital currencies. Predating bitcoin, the Douglas Jackson created e-currency made big headway into creating an internet-based currency years before Satoshi’s white paper was published.
The idea that the internet would need its own currency goes back decades even that. Before Bitcoin there was eGold and before eGold there was DigiCash and before DigiCash there were futurists and cypherpunks talking about how such a currency would work.
eGold was popular for the time and effective. Over $2 billion was sent through its system in 2006 and it was backed by actual gold. But it ran into some of the same issues Bitcoin ran into early on in its formation. Media reports from the time indicate that it was favored by cybercriminals. Credit Card thieves would use it to cash out their stolen cards before reconverting to fiat. While eGold was willing to work with the government to help track and stop those criminals, the authorities had another idea: shut down eGold.
And so they did it. And it was easy for them to do it because eGold wasn’t decentralized. All it took was one criminal case against Jackson’s company and the whole thing went bankrupt in a matter of months. But that isn’t the case with Bitcoin and most of the authorities know it.
But Tether isn’t decentralized. It is simply a digital currency and not a cryptocurrency, like eGold and unlike Bitcoin. Kain Warwick, Founder of decentralized stable coin Havven[1] thinks that’s a problem.
“The issue is not about whether it’s collateralized or not,. It’s actually more to do with the inherent risk of interference. You’ve got a private entity that has bank accounts that have all this money in them and if a regulator was to decide that they
