1. Short title This Act may be cited as the Electronic Currency And Secure Hardware Act or the ECASH Act . 2. Definitions In this Act: (1) ECIP The term ECIP means the Electronic Currency Innovation Program established under section 4. (2) Secretary The term Secretary means the Secretary of the Treasury. 3. Electronic dollar (a) Establishment The Secretary of the Treasury shall promote and facilitate the development and deployment of an electronic version of the United States dollar for use by the general public that replicates and preserves the privacy, anonymity-respecting, and minimal transactional data-generating properties of physical currency instruments such as coins and notes to the greatest extent technically and practically possible. (b) Electronic dollar requirements The electronic dollar described under subsection (a) shall be— (1) known as e-cash ; (2) payable to bearer; (3) legal tender, as described in section 5103 of title 31, United States Code; (4) an obligation of the United States, as described in section 8 of title 18, United States Code; (5) created and issued into circulation by the Department of the Treasury, in such quantities, denominations, and technical forms as the Secretary, in the Secretary’s discretion, determines to be appropriate; (6) distributed directly to, and capable of being owned, held, and used directly by, the general public; (7) capable of instantaneous, final, direct, peer-to-peer, offline transactions using secured hardware devices that do not involve or require subsequent or final settlement on or via a common or distributed ledger, or any other additional approval or validation by the United States Government or any other third-party payments processing intermediary