[everforward]

I don’t think having a centralized validation authority makes a currency centralized. Centralized currency usually implies the means to control that currency. While the monarch may control the supply of gold minted into coins, they don’t control the supply of gold itself.

It would have been an inconvenient currency for small transactions, but it’s still a currency.

The bank currencies were weird. Iirc, some of that was wrapped up in the Civil War and the Confederate currency being “official” but also basically worthless towards the end of the war. I think the Great Depression killed them, when banks became insolvent and their currencies became worthless.