anarky - your comment is showing up as dead, which is a shame since it was interesting

> And 5 years before Cryptonomicon there was Tim May's Cyphernomicon (which obviously inspired the title and theme of Stephenson's book).

> In 1995 there was Stephenson's short story in Wired about digital cash - "The Great Simoleon Caper".

> Of course, the protagonists of Atlas Shrugged had renounced paper money and started using privately minted gold coins from Midas Mulligan's Bank way back in 1957.