DigiCash

electronic Money - aka CryptoCurrency, Digital Cash, Digital Money, ECash, Virtual Cash, Virtual Money

also the name of a specific company that was active in this area

• David Chaum founded http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DigiCash
• http://jya.com/digicrash.htm

http://entmag.com/archives/article.asp?EditorialsID=6094

Article from 2001 about Robert Hettinga and his activities, with background on the "industry". "Quite frankly, the dot-com money has gone away," says Hettinga, 42. "We're also running over ground that CyberCash, DigiCash and a lot of other people have burned."

Neal Stephenson's "Great Simoleon Caper" story (for Time Mag!)

• The CableCo people are happy to do all the dirty work - after all, they're beholden to the government for their monopoly. So all those calculations you did using Raster were piped straight to the cable company and from there to the government. We've got a mole in the government who cc'd us everything through an anonymous remailer in Jyvaskyla, Finland." "Why should the government care?" "They care big-time," Codex says. "They're going to destroy Simoleons. And they're going to step all over your family in the process." "Why?" "Because if they don't destroy E-money," Codex says, "E-money will destroy them."
• "Just in case," Mom says, "we sold half the stock through our broker in Bismarck. He says we'll have to pay taxes on that." "We transferred the other half offshore, to Mr. Codex here," Dad says, "and he converted it into the local currency - tax free." "Offshore? Where? The Bahamas?" Joe asks. "The First Distributed Republic," says the big panarchist. "It's a virtual nation-state (Virtual State). I'm the Minister of Data Security. Our official currency is CryptoCredits." "What the hell good is that?" Joe says. "That was my concern too," Dad says, "so, just as an experiment, I used my CryptoCredits to buy something a little more tangible." Dad reaches into the milk crate and heaves out a rectangular object made of yellow metal. (Gold)