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s for the foreseeable future" (Freedman 2000: 2). Once again, however, this takes an unduly restrictive view of how trust in a money is constructed. Admittedly the backing of the state gives conventional currency an extra margin of competitiveness. But for reasons already indicated, even that advantage need not prove an insuperable barrier to the successful introduction of new forms of money.
A second line of argument points to the fact that central banks themselves have professed to be unconcerned about the challenge of electronic money. Helleiner (1998), for instance, cites a spate of official studies that have generally reached sanguine conclusions. Typical was a 1996 report by the Bank for International Settlements averring that as far as monetary policy is concerned, "it is highly unlikely that operating techniques will need to be adjusted significantly." (16) So if policymakers are not worried by the prospect, Helleiner asks, why should anyone else be? In fact, however, such commentaries tend to date back to the first generation of electronic money and address only early prepaid products like Mondex and Digicash. Central bankers have much less reason to be indifferent to more recent versions of electronic money, which offer the possibility of entirely new clearing mechanisms rather than merely another form of liquidity. One straw in the wind is Otmar Issing's pointed question, quoted above. Another can be found in the anxious words of Mervyn King, deputy governor of the Bank of England. King suggests that once new electronic currencies make it possible for transactors and investors to bypass state-sanctioned money, "central banks would lose their ability to implement monetary policy. The successors to Bill Gates [could] put the successors to Alan Greenspan out of business" (King 1999: 411). Remarks like these seem anything but unconcerned.
A third line of argument, taking the possibility of electronic money more seriously, acknowledges possible risks to monetary policy but nonetheless expresses confidence in the ability of central banks to sustain their traditional influence over nominal demand. The empire has the weapons to strike back, if need be. For Helleiner (1998), the political scientist, this means using the coercive power of the state. Central bankers, he suggests, are unlikely to remain wholly passive if their traditional prerogatives seem truly in jeopardy. More likely, they will seek to extend their regulatory authority to newly emergent e-monies, imposing on issuers the same reserve requirements as traditionally applied to commercial banks and managing the reserves of issuers via the traditional tools of monetary policy in roughly parallel fashion. As he puts it, "state authorities [could] impose a regulatory structure on stored value devices similar to that which they impose on other forms of money" (Helleiner 1998: 407). In extremis, they might even try to outlaw new e-monies altogether. But could they? One of the principal characteristics of cyberspace is its divorce from national territory. Producers of electronic currency could evade prohibition or control simply by shifting operations to another jurisdiction, just as banks have long since avoided taxation or various restrictions by booking transactions through offshore centers in the Caribbean or elsewhere. Attempts to extend the central bank's regulatory authority could, in practice, prove to be quite futile.
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