Ecash

 Could eCash become a thing? [How will the system avoid a counterfeiting problem?]  

Representative Stephen Lynch, Democrat of Massachusetts, a former ironworker who represents part of Boston and its southern suburbs, isn’t soft on crime, but he doesn’t like the idea of banks and the government being able to track every transaction a person makes.

On Monday, Lynch introduced a bill directing the Department of the Treasury, rather than the Federal Reserve, to develop and experiment with issuing digital dollar technologies “that replicate the privacy-respecting features of physical cash.” The bill is called the Electronic Currency and Secure Hardware Act, or Ecash.

Lynch’s idea is for the Treasury to issue cards that have funds stored on them, as with the electronic benefits transfer cards the government issues for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and other benefits. The difference is that transactions on those benefit cards are processed through the banking system. Transactions on the proposed new Treasury cards would be strictly peer to peer, like cash. Funds could also be uploaded onto phones or other hardware.

Presumably, chips on the cards or phones would communicate with chips on other cards or phones or on point-of-sale devices to deliver or receive funds between them. The cards or phones could receive money from one another or be reloaded from bank accounts or with cash.