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Cloudmoney

Cloudmoney

Cash, Cards, Crypto and the War for our Wallets

Summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

The reach of corporations into our lives via cards and apps has never been greater; many of us rarely use cash these days. But what we're told is a natural and inevitable move is the work of powerful interests. And the great battle of our time is the battle for ownership of the digital footprints that make up our lives.

In Cloudmoney, Brett Scott tells an urgent and revelatory story about how the fusion of big finance and tech requires 'cloudmoney' - digital money underpinned by the banking sector - to replace physical cash. He dives beneath the surface of the global financial system to uncover a long-established lobbying infrastructure: an alliance of partners waging a covert war on cash. He explains the technical, political, and cultural differences between our different forms of money, and shows how the cash system has been under attack for decades, as banking and tech companies promote a cashless society under the banner of progress.

Cloudmoney takes us to the frontlines of a war for our wallets that is also about our freedom. From marketing strategies against cash, to the weaponization of Covid-19 to push fintech platforms, and the rise of the cryptocurrency rebels and fringe groups pushing back. It asks the most pressing questions:

Who benefits from a cashless society and who gets left behind? Is the end of cash the end of true privacy? And is our cloudmoney future closer than we think it is?

© Brett Scott 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022

Reviews

  • If people could see clearly how their money is created, they would rebel - especially now that it is digitised. Brett Scott's highly readable and topical Cloudmoney is, in this sense, a wonderfully revolutionary text
    Yanis Varoufakis

About the author

Brett Scott

Brett Scott is a campaigner, monetary anthropologist and former broker. He is the author of The Heretic's Guide to Global Finance: Hacking the Future of Money, and has appeared in a wide range of TV shows, radio broadcasts and documentaries, including BBC World News and Sky News.

He has written extensively on financial reform, digital finance, alternative currency, blockchain technology and the cashless society for publications like the Guardian, New Scientist, Huffington Post, Wired Magazine and CNN.com, and also publishes the Altered States of Monetary Consciousness newsletter.


His Twitter is @suitpossum
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