IN TEXTBOOKS MONEY is a means of exchange(交换媒介), a store of value(价值储存) and a unit of account(记账单位). In life it is a giant confidence trick(信心把戏；骗局): people trade with it, save it and keep count with it because everyone else does. Notes are just slips of paper(纸片); coins, mere alloy(合金). Most money is simply data: some in the form of “reserves(准备金)”, liabilities(负债) of the central bank; much more of it created by banks calling loans and deposits into being at a keystroke(敲击键盘创造贷款和存款).
在教科书中，货币是交换媒介、价值储存和记账单位。而在现实生活中，它是一场巨大的信心把戏：人们用它交易、储存和记账，只是因为别人都这样做。纸币只是纸片，硬币不过是合金。大多数货币只是数据：一部分是央行的负债——“准备金”，更多的则由银行通过敲击键盘创造贷款和存款而产生。
The trick works because of three things. First, singleness(单一性): a dollar in one bank is worth the same as one in another and, if you want it, as a dollar bill from the Federal Reserve. Second, transferability(可转让性): dollars move more or less frictionlessly(无摩擦地) between banks, people, businesses and governments. Third, elasticity(弹性): the supply of money adjusts as required—usually quite calmly, as banks extend or rein in(控制；收紧) lending, but in a crisis, pouring forth(大量涌出) from the central bank, the lender of last resort(最后贷款人).
这个把戏之所以有效，是因为三件事。第一，单一性：一家银行的一美元与另一家银行的一美元等值，如果你需要，它也和美联储的一美元纸币等值。第二，可转让性：美元在银行、个人、企业和政府之间几乎无摩擦地流动。第三，弹性：货币供应按需调整——通常相当平稳，随着银行扩缩贷款而变化；但在危机时，则从作为最后贷款人的央行大量涌出。
There is nothing natural about this set-up. As a report by the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), an international network of economists, points out, it is an institutional arrangement(制度安排), sustained by banks’ access to central-bank liquidity, deposit insurance(存款保险), bank-capital rules(银行资本规则) and more. As circumstances change it adapts, for better or worse(不论好坏). Just now, digital innovations—a giddying(令人眩晕的) lot of changes if ever there was one—pose an awkward(尴尬的；棘手的) question to those in charge of the arrangement: how to make the system more efficient without making it any less safe?
这种设定并非天然存在。正如由经济学家组成的国际网络——经济政策研究中心（CEPR）的一份报告所指出的，它是一种制度安排，由银行获得央行流动性、存款保险、银行资本规则等因素维持。随着环境变化，它也会适应，无论好坏。此刻，数字创新——如果说有什么让人眼花缭乱的变化的话——给那些负责该安排的人提出了一个棘手的问题：如何在提高系统效率的同时不降低其安全性？
Coining it
铸币