Discussion on: “Programmable money: next generation blockchain based conditional payments” by Ingo Weber and Mark Staples

My comment on Weber and Staples (Digit Financ, https://doi.org/10.1007/s42521-022-00064-8 , 2022) elaborates an economic perspective of their “programmable money” proposal. While claims issued and tendered for goods and services resemble money, a number of issues must be resolved before this innovation is feasible as money in analog trade or digital finance. These include secondary tradability, permissioned access, standardization and transparency. Programmable money is an important step towards the implementation of contingent commodities in the sense of Arrow and Debreu (Econometrica, 22(3):265–290, 1954) and Debreu ( 1959 ).