Eurodollars were invented to get around American tax and currency regulations, and those of other countries. Eurocurrency and eurobond markets started about thirty years ago, as the Bretton Woods monetary agreement was breaking down, which officially happened in 1973. So for a good clear twenty years there's been this mediated market which uses regulatory arbitrage to provide it's services. It's been there _longer_than_modern_cryptography_. One of the reasons eurodollars got created was that at that time a London bank could offer higher interest rates on dollars than an American bank could. They offered better service than the competition. They could do so, in part, because neither the USA nor UK governments put reserve requirements on dollar deposits held in England banks. There are real strong lessons here about how a private retail money system will have to operate long term in order to be immune from local government interference. Suppose Bank of the X open a deposit account with, say, Barclay's, a UK bank. Barclay's can hold dollars at an account at, say, Citibank in NY. Citibank holds it's dollars at the Federal Reserve Bank, where the buck stops (ahem). The dollar account at Barclay's is a eurodollar deposit, a deposit denominated in the currency of the USA but not held in a bank under the regulation of the USA. This is a totally standard arrangement. Now, suppose I tell you that part of that Barclay's deposit is yours, after, of course, you give me some US dollars in the same amount. Suppose, further, that the USA gov't decides they disapprove of you, and want to take your money. If they order Citibank to freeze the Barclay's account, they risk international trade retaliation, because only a small fraction of that money in Citibank is relevant. And even this presumes they know that Citibank is the USA depository bank--and it likely won't even be the only one. They might ask Barclay's, "pretty please, would you help us with this bad person?" And Barclay's will say (should say, if they still want X's business) "I'm sorry, you'll have to go talk to X." And X will say "Who's that? I don't know who any of my customers are." The same internationalization that will limit government action with repsect to remailers _already_ happens with eurodollars. I'd suggest that those who want to know more about this hit the library at this point. Did I mention that most eurobond issues are still bearer bonds? Eric