The End Of Cash?

With the coming PAPER CURRENCY APOCALYPSE, your money will no longer be good here. Or there. Or anywhere.

- James Surowiecki

In our steady march toward an all-digital world, an evergrowing array of tangible forms of communication and culture—from printed books and newspapers to handwritten letters (imagine!) to DVDs—are being relegated to history’s dustbin. And now we’re on the cusp of arguably the biggest transition yet: ditching cold, hard cash for a future in which all money is digital.

Actually, it might seem we’re already a good ways along. Just look at our exploding use of credit and debit cards: In 1990 debit cards in the U.S. were used for 300 million purchases; today the total exceeds 40 billion. Swipe technologies like Apple Pay are taking off, as are person-to-person apps such as Venmo and Zelle. Other technologies, involving things like microchip implants, fingerprint scans, and facial recognition, are even eliminating the need for phones and smartwatches. In some places using cash is beginning to feel as outmoded as mailing a check to pay your electric bill.

Printed money didn’t come into widespread use until the 17th century, when it was adopted by Europeans, who could exchange their notes for actual gold. In 1933, when the connection between the U.S. dollar and gold was effectively severed, cash truly became just a paper construct. If the paper is no longer needed, logic would suggest, why not just get rid of it?

And yet, as we start to get a sense of what a society without cash might actually look like, that imagined utopia of commerce— where everything is clean, quick, efficient—is running into some resistance. Many of us are stubbornly clinging to our paper money habits. Maybe, just maybe, we’ll miss cash more than we realize.