discussion "Flooz": An early attempt at digital currency before Bitcoins

[kyoukage01 3181]

So I was surfing the net just like any other day, and I happened to hit upon this Wikipedia entry:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flooz.com (Read this article first before posting. Yes, the usual advice 🙂 .)

 

A brief description of it is as follows:

Quote

Flooz.com was a dot-com venture, now defunct, based in New York City that went online in February 1999... Started by iVillage co-founder Robert Levitan, the company attempted to establish a currency unique to Internet merchants, somewhat similar in concept to airline frequent flier programs or grocery store stamp books.

 

This webpage got me intrigued. As I read along, I found out that despite its primary use as being a way of redeeming merchandise, it was conceptualized first as a digital currency, which may have been a good idea, but it has never really gotten off the ground global-wise due to it not being widely recognized.

 

Why?

 

Lack of publicity? Was Whoopi Goldberg not enough? Not enough funds to drag more Hollywood actors/actresses to promote it?

 

Or are there some 'more technical' issues? Everyone should remember that the internet world back then is more primitive compared to now (Case in point: slower internet speeds) and the idea of sharing data across multiple computers at the time Flooz was created has not yet materialized, like what the blockchain now has done.

 

Anyway, the company that created Flooz has shut down and the domain "flooz.com" no longer exists. It could have become more popular to the point that Bitcoin wouldn't have existed the way it is now, but it didn't. But let's take it another way: if Bitcoins haven't got much support from the early pioneers back when it first started, it would have had faced a similar fate. Aren't you personally glad that this wasn't the case?

 

There is nothing like reading a few pages of history to appreciate what we are now enjoying.

 

Edited March 28, 2020 by kyoukage01

[rekter 8129]

Main reason why earlier versions of digital cash failed, was that they weren't decentralized permissionless ledgers, so they weren't really anything similar to bitcoin (it was the first one that solved all the earlier problems). Early versions were very vulnerable because they could just shut them down by a powerful enough government.

Edited March 28, 2020 by rekter

[kyoukage01 3181]

14 hours ago, rekter said:

Early versions were very vulnerable because they could just shut them down by a powerful enough government.

Earlier attempts at digital currencies had the company's face and designer behind it so it can be easy for the persecutors to make someone take the blame if anomalies were found. Nakamoto-san must have had the insight to learn about the past mistakes of these earlier digital currencies, so not only did he designed the blockchain which made decentralized information possible, he/she/they also hid his/her/their own identities just in case someone had the bright idea of having the FBI chasing after their tails.

 

[kyoukage01 3181]

19 hours ago, UT2001 said:

Interesting article, did not know that there was any attempts to launch something like bitcoin before it was actually bitcoin but now there certainly is many alt coins out there trying to replicate the success of bitcoin.

The Bitcoin that we are now familiar with wasn't the first digital currency, and neither was Flooz.

 

That title belongs to DigiCash.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_currency

 

But Bitcoin can be pointed out as the first truly successful and longest-living digital currency, owing to what I've mentioned earlier: decentralized information (blockchain), and the creator/s' unknown identity.

 

[kyoukage01 3181]

16 hours ago, BitTim said:

You should not at all under estimate the power of bitcoin this coin has really made alot over the years and you should understand that digital currency according to me it cannot at all bypass bitcoin at all 

A slight correction: Bitcoin IS digital currency. Were you talking about altcoins?

 

But anyway, Bitcoin sure succeeded where others have failed before. Now (almost?) all altcoins that emerged after are replicating and/or improving upon the success of Bitcoin. We have yet to see a future coin that will fully address some of Bitcoin's problems and take cryptocurrencies to the next level.

 

[jacker 1095]

Thanks for the post, it is clear that I see the truth that things from the beginning are either a success or a failure. But the effort is worth it anyway. It is possible to have better projects based on old projects.

[tienda 8776]

Thank you for sharing this discussion it seems very good and useful to know anything about cryptocurrency, I think Bitcoin is like a survive soldier, from the day of hi creation today still there are a lot of competitor vs it.

[kyoukage01 3181]

16 hours ago, tienda said:

Thank you for sharing this discussion it seems very good and useful to know anything about cryptocurrency, I think Bitcoin is like a survive soldier, from the day of hi creation today still there are a lot of competitor vs it.

Indeed, the creator/s of Bitcoin must have taken cues about those digital currencies that have failed before them and took those lessons to heart. If Bitcoin failed like the others, we wouldn't even exist in this forum in the first place; but Bitcoin survived, that is why we are here 😉 .

 

[magd 5231]

Digital currencies are very different from cryptocurrencies, and there is a major reason for the large demand for cryptocurrencies, which is that they are decentralized. As for digital currencies, they are associated with companies related to central banks, but for security, I expect that digital currencies are safer.

[bitcoinb 1359]

This is a very interesting topic. I agree with the author, internet data package prices were very expensive in 1999 so I think it was a problem for the project.

Anecdote: In my country, Flooz = Money

[kyoukage01 3181]

16 hours ago, magd said:

Digital currencies are very different from cryptocurrencies

Again, a slight correction if you may: cryptocurrencies ARE digital currencies. Crypto are technically just a subtype of digital currencies.

https://cryptotalk.org/topic/21155-the-difference-between-digital-currency-and-cryptocurrency/

16 hours ago, magd said:

and there is a major reason for the large demand for cryptocurrencies, which is that they are decentralized. As for digital currencies, they are associated with companies related to central banks, but for security, I expect that digital currencies are safer.

I agree with some of the points here. I don't think the government banks-issued digital currencies aren't any safer, but at least you can try to attempt to demand compensation from them if something ever happens to your digital account.

 

7 hours ago, bitcoinb said:

This is a very interesting topic. I agree with the author, internet data package prices were very expensive in 1999 so I think it was a problem for the project.

In the case of our country, internet speeds during those times were freakishly slow (around less than 56 kbps if my memory serves). Slow digital transactions? No way. 😝 Forget digital currencies trying to profit here back in the 1990's, a business offering reliable and breakneck internet speed of that time would have fared and profited better.

 

Edited May 3, 2020 by kyoukage01

[BTC Future 3946]

There were many efforts before Bitcoin. There was Digicash, Bmoney, Bitgold and more efforts. According to Satoshi they all failed because of their centralized nature. Bitcoin was unique being decentralized. open source, and transparent. The transactions are all there validated by PoW on the blockchain.

 

 

 

 

 

[Upright 2688]

I don't know but in saying as yo the first attempt of making an internet merchants coin would have been possible back then, as basically Bitcoin was kind of the C++ series, we know that the bitcoin doesn't all rely on its code, as. The fact if the existence of blockchain changes the whole scope of the function of Bitcoin release

[Rezort 846]

This early attempt failed probably because it just wasn't get the right time to launch it, and there should have passed some extra years before somebody would actually support it.

[kyoukage01 3181]

On 5/16/2020 at 3:26 PM, BTC Future said:

There were many efforts before Bitcoin. There was Digicash, Bmoney, Bitgold and more efforts. According to Satoshi they all failed because of their centralized nature. Bitcoin was unique being decentralized. open source, and transparent. The transactions are all there validated by PoW on the blockchain.

... And there is also the situation where if digital currencies were used for crime, i.e. money laundering etc. (just like what happened to Flooz according to Wiki), governments and institutions can take the blame on the creators of those digital currencies and pressure them to shut down their operation. Bitcoin, with its anonymous creator, is virtually immune to this persecution.