Cloudmoney : Cash, Cards, Crypto and the War for our Wallets

About this book

'A brilliant, fascinating and utterly accessible book... If you want to understand what money is - and what it is in danger of becoming - start right here' KATE RAWORTH, author of Doughnut Economics Many of us rarely use cash these days. And the reach of corporations into our lives via cards and apps has never been greater. But what we're told is natural and inevitable is actually the work of powerful interests: the great battle of our time is for ownership of the digital footprints that make up our lives. Who benefits from a cashless society and who gets left behind? Is the end of cash the end of true privacy? And is a cashless future closer than we think? Cloudmoney tells a revelatory story about the fusion of big finance and tech, which requires physical cash to be replaced by digital money or 'cloudmoney'. Diving beneath the surface of the global financial system, Brett Scott uncovers a long-established lobbying infrastructure waging a covert war on cash, as banking and tech companies promote a cashless society under the banner of progress. From marketing strategies against cash, to the weaponization of Covid-19 to advance fintech platforms, and the cryptocurrency rebels and fringe groups pushing back, Cloudmoney takes us to the frontlines of a war for our wallets that is also about our freedom.