Before we look to the future of money, we must first discuss the history of money.

 

A Brief History

Unfortunately, since the beginning, material matters have governed the actions of the individuals of society, this caused people to manipulate, steal, and even kill! The obsession we had over our possessions caused paranoia, and eventually led us to create a relatively fair system of trade, first with precious metals and jewels, then with “tokens”. These tokens evolved with the times, first being used in the form of coins, then paper. But now, money is most commonly used in a non-physical form, through a complex and fragile digital network called “The Internet”.

 

Can We Trust Digital Currency?

Although thieves cannot physically take digital money out of your hands, most people now have access to the same network that the banking systems are using today, this is a cause for concern! People with a certain measure of technological skill can hack into the bank’s network and take your money from your personal account, and put it into their account.

However, there are countermeasures in place that provide security and a piece of mind… But how can we trust that these security systems are reliable enough to keep our hard-earned money safe? Banks used to be the most secure buildings in the world, now their security isn’t in the walls, but in the zeros and the ones.

Imagine, for example, that a blackout happened throughout the whole world, and none of us had access to our bank. What would we do if we had no way to prove that we are the true owners of the money we claim to have? We can invest online in businesses, cryptocurrencies and gold (whose value fluctuates more than one’s bowels the day after curry night), but we can’t just stroll up to Fort Knox, knock on the door and say, “Hi there, I’m here for my gold, thank you very much!”.

There are some who have isolated themselves from the digital world, moved to the middle of nowhere, and survive just by growing their own food, collecting their own water, making their own possessions etc. – sometimes in whole self-sustaining communities. But you can see why they do this, they don’t seem any less happy than the people of modern society!

 

So, What’s Next?

We may be able to guess the outcome of society and the evolution of money, but it will only ever be a simple guess. No one today can predict tomorrow. However, our guesses are almost always based upon the data that we already have and patterns we have previously noticed.

The skillset of some of the most famous visionaries in history is based upon being able to notice patterns and preparing for the outcome of their guesses. As money evolves, some of us have guessed about what the future will entail regarding money. Some fear that the data that is in our credit cards will be made into a tiny microchip that will be implanted into us (matching up with Biblical prophecies), some fantasise about going back to trading and bartering with simple objects again, as they did in the 1700s, and some think that the world will end in a catastrophy before money evolves into a new form and we shouldn’t worry about it.

Whatever happens to the future of money, remember, money isn’t the most important thing in life. There is much more to life than money, like kittens, and also family and loved ones, and in the end, we can either obsess about materialistic things and hide in a swamp with our gold like Gollum, or we can go and cuddle kittens with our loved ones.

 

 

---

To read about how we got to this point, check out our two alternative historical readings of our financial systems, in our posts ‘Scissors Beats Paper, Paper Beats Gold‘ and ‘The Evolution of Money – From Origins to the Modern Era.’

Or consider how these future conceptions of money apply to the traditional concept of the bartering system, which you can read about here.