That's when it was released but it was not widely-known until years later. So maybe you're both kind of correct.

2018 is when someone was looking for a pdf and found this one, which is probably what they were referring to?

release date has a concrete date to refer to, 'widely-known' does not.

I mean, it's not just wikipedia - the genesis block itself contained a news headline from 2009. So whatever it is you remember, it is not using bitcoin in 1999.

> The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Genesis_block

"Digital Cash" was a big buzzword prior to the dot-com crash, but Bitcoin was definitely started later.

Might be egold or ecash