David Rule and Iain de Weymarn

Technologies such as distributed ledgers create the possibility of new forms of digital money, whether privately-issued ‘stable coins’, tokenised commercial bank deposits, or central bank digital currencies. Authorities are considering a world where digital money circulates alongside existing forms of money. In the past, the nature of money has often changed. Prior to the late-seventeenth century, English money comprised predominantly silver coin and in the subsequent two centuries mainly gold coin, before evolving to include paper banknotes and bank accounts linked to card, internet and app-based payment systems.  But what can a previous period when money changed – 1695–97, when paper money first began to circulate alongside coin – tell us about the possible transition to digital money? 

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