E-gold's Government Takedown

Shaan Puri recounts the story of E-gold, an early attempt at digital currency that ultimately failed due to government intervention.

"E-gold started to get really popular. It had about $2 billion in volume. The guy who created it made it as a company. He was the founder and CEO of a company called E-gold, and he lived in Canada or somewhere like that.

As it hit $2 billion in transaction volume, the website said, 'This is a digital currency backed by actual gold. We'll be around today, tomorrow, and forever.' Instead, knock knock - the government knocks on his door, comes in, raids him, and puts him in jail.

Problem number one with digital currencies was you can't be the guy behind it. As soon as this thing gets big, you have too much power, and the nation-states who control the currency supply today, they're not going to like you. They're just going to do character attacks on you to discredit the currency."