Several other companies have recently introduced so-called stablecoins, linked to the value of the dollar. JPMorgan Chase even said it was experimenting with the concept last month.

"Because if you say it over and over to yourself, darling, it really is a quite strange-sounding name, isn't it? It's just as strange as any other from the Old Testament, Mehetabel or Hepsibah or Shulamith, and any of them might have got to be as fashionable as Elizabeth if a queen had been called by them.

Let's put our differences aside for the moment, and get this project finished.

Out in the street, under the reddening afternoon sun, a spectacle of ineluctable commerce greeted her.