The Liberty Reserve story is fascinating. E-money guru Dave Birch (at 45:00) has been doing wonders explaining it. There’s been so much written about Bitcoin that I’ve only just realised that Liberty Reserve and several other competitor electronic money sites existed. It might be difficult for the authorities to distinguish between criminal and socially-useful innovation in e-money, although presumably the ability to verify identity is going to be key. Even so, electronic local currencies will no doubt arouse the interest of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs in case of tax minimisation activity. There’s surprisingly little sign of policy interest in electronic currencies, however. The only recent paper I’ve spotted is the ECB’s Virtual Currency Schemes (pdf) of October last year.

My top books about money that get to the philosophical issues are David Wolman’s [amazon_link id=”0306818833″ target=”_blank” ]The End of Money[/amazon_link], Keith Hart’s [amazon_link id=”1861972083″ target=”_blank” ]The Memory Bank[/amazon_link], Edward Castranova’s [amazon_link id=”0226096262″ target=”_blank” ]Synthetic Worlds[/amazon_link] and [amazon_link id=”0226893952″ target=”_blank” ]Boggs[/amazon_link] by Lawrence Weschler. The latter three are some years old now. I’m delighted to say, though, that Dave Birch is even now – quill pen in hand – writing on the subject of money and identity.

[amazon_image id=”0306818833″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]End of Money[/amazon_image]

[amazon_image id=”0226893952″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Boggs: A Comedy of Values (Passions and Wonders Series)[/amazon_image]