*Foundational Ideas (Before Bitcoin) @
- **"Cypherpunk" Movement:**
Emerged in the 1980s/1990s, advocating for the use of encryption to protect privacy and counter the control of governments and corporations. Their email communities were incubators for digital currency ideas.
- **DigiCash Project (David Chaum, 1989):**
The first practical attempt to create encrypted electronic cash (centralized), but it failed due to technical issues and rejection by banks.
- **b-money Project (Wei Dai, 1998):**
Described a decentralized system for electronic currency similar to Bitcoin.