The casino image gone mad -- Innovations -- Political underpinnings : the US-Japan axis -- Political underpinnings : disunited Europe -- Wall Street and other casinos -- The debtors -- Finance and crime -- Managing mad money : national systems -- Our international guardians -- So what?

This book presents detailed case studies of the first commercial internet digital currency systems developed between 1996 and 2004. Transactions completed with the new technology circumvented all US financial regulations, an opening that transnational criminals exploited. Mullan explains how an...