As opposed to this your reply, I just came across it now and feel the need to comment about it and make a correction. Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency in existence before others came into existence. See;
Have you heard about eCash? eCash was invested in by David Chaum in 1982; it was a digital currency just like Bitcoin, and according to history, its purpose was a micropayment system. Also from history, David Chaum was the first to introduce the blockchain-like protocol, but Satoshi Nakamoto engineered the decentralised blockchain technology and invested in Bitcoin in 2009. Bitcoin became very successful because Satashi had a better idea and solution to a common problem that humans faced in the monetary aspect.
Source I'm not sure if this is the first time I've heard of eCash, or if I've heard about it before but didn't understand it as well as I do now. Given that eCash failed to take off as a digital currency, the inventor can be credited as the father of digital currency because he was the one who initially had the idea and proposed it, but he couldn't get it to take off and work. Bitcoin remains the first cryptocurrency to be recognised, as well as the first cryptocurrency to become successful among the thousands of cryptocurrencies that exist today.