The introduction of the ECASH Act, along with a recent executive order, shows how the US government is thinking about the future of money.
on Monday that, if passed, would direct the US Treasury to develop a pilot program experimenting with “an electronic version of the US Dollar for use by the American public.” This e-cash, or digital dollar, would be circulated by the Treasury, considered legal tender, and accepted everywhere.
Representative Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts, who is Chairman of the Task Force on Financial Technology, co-sponsored the bill, called the Electronic Currency and Secure Hardware Act , along with his colleague from Massachusetts, Ayanna Pressley, and representatives Jesús Chuy Garcia of Illinois and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan.
That means that transaction data from e-cash payments would not be collected, monitored, or retained by the US government or any third party intermediaries. The first phase is to test out a variety of approaches with the goal of selecting two technologies for a larger “field test.” Based on aposted by Lynch, the pilot program would aim to test both a stored-value magnetic or pin card option and a cell phone-based SIM card option for storage and payment.
The conditions of the ECASH Act require the Treasury to issue open-source licenses for the hardware and software it uses in testing. Additionally, the bill would establish a Digital Dollar Council within the Treasury to coordinate with other US departments and agencies as needed.
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