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Definition: e-cash


(1) See digital coins.

(2) (eCash) The rebranding of Bitcoin ABC, which was a hard fork of Bitcoin Cash. See Bitcoin ABC.

(3) (ECASH) A proposed law in March 2022 by the U.S. Congress that would create a token-based digital dollar. There would be no account balance. ECASH tokens would reside in a person's digital wallet, and they would function like cash.

(4) (eCash) A Web payment service developed in the 1990s by Amsterdam-based DigiCash. eCash used blind signature encryption and required an active account from a member bank. Digital coins were stored in the customer's computer and were deducted when a purchase was made at compliant sites. A serial number was added to each coin, and when the merchant received coins, they were sent to the customer's bank for verification. If a coin matched the serial number of a coin already spent, fraudulent activity was detected. Although very innovative, not enough banks participated. In 2002, InfoSpace acquired eCash and folded it into its payment solutions unit. Some have considered eCash to be the first cryptocurrency. See blind signature, Web payment service and cryptocurrency.