virtual currency

plural virtual currencies

1. countableuncountableoriginallyA type of unregulated digital currency that is restricted to a specific community or purpose, such as in-game purchases.

   Gas is not ether–it's a separate virtual currency with its own exchange rate against ether.

   2018, Andreas M. Antonopoulos, Gavin Wood, Mastering Ethereum: Building Smart Contracts and DApps, O'Reilly Media, →ISBN

   2 more examples

   Virtual currency is the offering of virtual monies that can be spent to buy services (or virtual goods) inside of an application. This is a new trend that has been used primarily in game-like social network applications.

   2009, Lynne Grewe, OpenSocial Network Programming, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 320

   Unlike fiat currencies like the United States dollar and virtual currencies like Facebook credits and the one invented by Liberty Reserve, bitcoins are not created or controlled by a central authority.

   2013 July 31, Kate Murphy, “Virtual Currency Gains Ground in Actual World”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

2. broadlycountableuncountableAny digital currency.

   Those payments are typically made in cryptocurrencies, virtual currencies like Bitcoin, which the gangs then need to convert to standard currencies, like dollars, euros and rubles.

   2021 December 6, Andrew E. Kramer, “Companies Linked to Russian Ransomware Hide in Plain Sight”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

   2 more examples

   When he was a Yale Law School student, Reuben Grinberg wrote one of the first academic papers about Bitcoin, a novel virtual currency that uses sophisticated cryptography to validate and secure transactions that exist only online.

   2013 April 8, Noam Cohen, “Bubble or No, This Virtual Currency Is a Lot of Coin in Any Realm”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

   People say it’s a Ponzi scheme, it’s a bubble,” said Cameron Winklevoss. “People really don’t want to take it seriously. At some point that narrative will shift to ‘virtual currencies are here to stay.’ We’re in the early days.”

   2013 April 11, Nathaniel Popper, Peter Lattman, quoting Cameron Winklevoss, “Never Mind Facebook; Winklevoss Twins Rule in Digital Money”, in New York Times