The goal of monetary reform based on free banking poses a dilemma. On the one hand, the free market could provide us with a highly efficient, low-cost medium of exchange. But on the other hand, purely free-market moneys could not protect everyone from the costs of price-level uncertainty. Free-market moneys would minimize the costs of holding money, but they would not necessarily minimize the more general costs of price-level uncertainty. Those costs would still be borne by workers, employers, borrowers, lenders – indeed, by everyone who contemplates entering into commitments for the future exchange of values expressed in nominal terms.