CyberCash
| Company type | Public |
|---|---|
| Industry | Online payments, Financial technology |
| Founded | August 1994 |
| Founder | Daniel C. Lynch, William N. Melton, Steve Crocker, Bruce G. Wilson |
| Defunct | March 11, 2001 |
| Fate | Filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy; assets acquired by VeriSign (excluding ICVerify) |
| Headquarters | Reston, Virginia , United States |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | Daniel C. Lynch (Chairman), William N. Melton (President, CEO, later Chairman), Steve Crocker (CTO), Bruce G. Wilson |
| Products | Online wallet, credit card transaction software, CyberCoin micropayment solution |
| Parent | VeriSign (after acquisition) |
CyberCash, Inc. operated as an online payment platform dedicated to electronic commerce, with its headquarters located in Reston, Virginia. Established in August 1994 by founders Daniel C. Lynch (chairman), William N. Melton (initially president and CEO, later chairman), Steve Crocker (CTO), and Bruce G. Wilson, the firm initially provided consumers with an online wallet and offered merchants software solutions to process credit card transactions. Subsequently, it launched "CyberCoin," a micropayment solution derived from the NetBill project developed at Carnegie Mellon University, which CyberCash obtained licensing rights for.
At a time when U.S. regulations restricted cryptographic exports, CyberCash obtained an exemption from the Department of State, as creating their own encryption was considered simpler than removing it from their software products.
In 1995, CyberCash introduced RFC 1898, known as the CyberCash Credit Card Protocol Version 0.8. The company went public on February 19, 1996, trading under the symbol "CYCH," and saw its stock price increase by 79% on opening day. In 1998, CyberCash expanded by acquiring ICVerify, a software company specializing in credit card processing, followed by the acquisition of Tellan Software in 1999.
In January 2000, allegations emerged regarding a hacker compromising ICVerify; however, CyberCash refuted these claims, clarifying that ICVerify was not utilized by the affected entity. On January 1, 2000, numerous ICVerify clients encountered the Y2K Bug, which led to repeated credit card charges despite CyberCash having issued a Y2K-compliant patch that had not been widely implemented.
Bankruptcy
On March 11, 2001, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Shortly thereafter, VeriSign acquired CyberCash’s assets—excluding ICVerify—and took over its brand. Later, on November 21, 2005, PayPal, then operating as a subsidiary of eBay, purchased VeriSign's payment services division that included CyberCash.