A few years ago, if you had heard that the U.S. government might mint its own digital currency, you might have dismissed the idea as starry-eyed futurism — or, less charitably, a joke. Digital currencies, such as Bitcoin, were the purview of speculators and coders, not stodgy central bankers. But this winter, the Federal Reserve announced that it’s investigating the possibility of issuing its own digital coin. Speaking at Stanford, Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard noted that the “potential for digitalization to deliver greater value and convenience at lower cost” has piqued the interest of the traditionally risk-averse institution.