I came across an interesting article outlining the rise of Bankers’ Acceptances and their centrality to the early Fed. These instruments are now largely forgotten.

For my recent research project, I have been searching for the origins of CBDCs. Some have pointed to a 1985 work by James Tobin, who I met two decades ago. Sure enough, the idea of a CBDC is there in the form of “Deposited Currency.”

Much has been made of the multiplicity of cryptocurrencies: they have different backing; they have different functions. It is all too confusing, some say. However, the US Government was guilty of the same multiplicity and confusion in the past.

In the early 1800s, bills of exchange were a means of conducting a transaction that depended on a lack of anonymity. When converted into a multiple-signature paper, I think that they looked like a proto-blockchain.

Shown is an obsolete form of currency: the Federal Reserve Bank Note (FRBN). Not to be confused with the current Federal Reserve Notes, the FRBN was issued between 1914 to 1945.

Here we are, drying banknotes in 1908. This was part of the wet-method of printing that continued into the 1950s.

Consider this: "We may be in a situation analogous to the 1860s....Now, we see that some institutions are interested in printing their own versions of electronic money and following their own rules." Was this spoken last week? No, its from 1994.

Why do so many banknote designs include portraits? I don't think there is a definitive answer to this question, but I think I can posit some reasons.

Pictured is a 3-Cent Fractional Currency Note from around 1864. This banknote is exceptional for two reasons: 1. it's the lowest value note ever issued by the US, 2. it's origin creates trouble for stablecoins.

This is a fake. I've been in this business for over 20 years, and I've seen fake banknotes and securities all during that time.

After reviewing the Stellar whitepaper, Stellar for CBDCs, here’s my take on the topic.

The current US $1 Federal Reserve Note is the last example of 1920s banknote design. All other US notes have been updated since the 1990s.

In 2015, when the idea of a CBDC was in its early days and J.P. Koning's Fedcoin was talked about in various blogs, two scholars from University College London came up with the little-known RSCoin.

President Biden’s recent Executive Order on Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets was a pleasant surprise. It is a moderate, forward-looking statement absent of the rhetoric against crypto and aware of the promise crypto offers.

This photograph tells us so much about monetary technology a century ago. Here we are applying serial numbers to US banknotes after the faces and backs have been printed.

Can a fiat currency actually benefit from its use in a basket-based stablecoin? I have been reading a Fed paper, "Global Demand for Basket-Backed Stablecoins," in which the authors model a two-country, two-currency economy to determine the demand for a basket-backed stablecoin like Celo, for instance.

Women have always played a major role in banknote production. They have done everything from wetting paper to operating numbering machines to engraving plates. However, perhaps their most crucial role in the early days of banknote printing was being a printer's assistant.

Can a banknote be purely digital? This is the question examined in an article in the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies. In “The e-Banknote as a ‘Banknote’: A Monetary Law Interpreted,” the authors find that from both functional and legal perspectives a banknote may indeed be written electronically.

As CBDCs continue in development, one issue that is now appearing is how to deploy them offline. How do you make CBDCs useful for someone for whom connection to the internet or the presence of electricity is problematic?

In US banknote design, the year 1928 stands out as a turning point. This was the year that the dollar took on the size and basic design that it still has today.