I can't help correcting that because it's completely wrong and it's amazing to see people aren't interested in history.
It's been around for about 40 years. Have you ever heard of Liberty Reserve, E-gold, et al. Cryptographers such as David Chaum and the electronic money called ecash? E-cash was even used by some banks in Europe such as Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse,,..
Now you can say me you were talking about a currency using cryptography (a cryptocurrency) but it doesn't change anything.
Bitcoin isn't the first digital currency or cryptocurrency.
b-money and bit gold were probably the very first , distributed and anonymous system. Bit gold used a proof of work solution.
And it was 20 or 25 years ago!
As for calling Bitcoin the digital gold, that's another story but LOL