The first email spam was sent in 1978[1], if that’s something you count. Interestingly, Hashcash, the first proof-of-work system, was actually invented to stop

The first email spam was sent in 1978[1], if that’s something you count. Interestingly, Hashcash, the first proof-of-work system, was actually invented to stop email spam. This is a loaded question, anyway. Most technologies will eventually become ‘primarily’ used for spam or scams by some metrics. 60% of all phone calls are spam or scams[2] creating $18bn+ in losses due to fraud[3]. 85% of all emails are spam[4]. 70% of all registered domain names are malicious[5]. Yet people don’t typically describe these systems as ‘primarily used for scams’. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_email_spam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_email_spam 2. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/us-phones-were-hit- https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/us-phones-were-hit-... 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phone_fraud https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phone_fraud 4. https://dataprot.net/statistics/spam-statistics/ https://dataprot.net/statistics/spam-statistics/ 5. https://www.scmagazine.com/news/malware/vast-majority-of-new https://www.scmagazine.com/news/malware/vast-majority-of-new...