On July 31, as an act of protest against an order to share a trial court’s award for the wrongful death of his son with others injured in the same traffic accident, an Illinois man decided to pony up the $150,000 in quarters. The 600,000 quarters were loaded into 150 bags, and an armored truck transported the four-ton payload from St. Louis to Marion, Ill. The bags were then divided equally, loaded onto two flatbed trucks and delivered to the law firms that represented the other victims in the wreck. Of course, not all cash transactions are this burdensome, but the example helps to explain why more payments are made without using bills or coins than ever before.
But even noncash payments have transaction costs, usually imposed by a bank or credit card company standing between the buyer and seller. One payment method is trying to change that by using technology to remove the intermediary—bitcoin. Bitcoins are a form of virtual currency that can be exchanged directly between computers or smartphones without the need for an intermediary. Bitcoins are still in their infancy, but courts and regulators are now beginning to understand the need to regulate the use of virtual currencies.
