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

Written by Brett Scott

Narrated by Coleman Pedigo

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 actually 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 Big 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 various 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 front lines 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 from there to 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?

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Jul 5, 2022
• ISBN: 9780063214927

Brett Scott

Brett Scott is an economic anthropologist, financial activist, and former broker. In 2013 he published The Heretic’s Guide to Global Finance: Hacking the Future of Money, and since then has spoken at hundreds of events across the globe and has appeared across international media, 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, and CNN.com, and also publishes the Altered States of Monetary Consciousness newsletter. He has worked on financial reform campaigns and alternative currency systems with a wide range of groups and is a Senior Fellow of the Finance Innovation Lab (UK). He lives in Berlin.

Reviews for Cloudmoney

[tallent.joey · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book is not just about cryptocurrency or trying to sway your opinion. It is an entire deep dive into the history of money and all types of currency or bank notes that we used today.
11/10

[Dan Sadeh · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I wish Id understand the depth of the ideas further, but the idea's are easily understandable and eye opening. Is the fusion the end of humanity? Is technology an alien taking over? ANXIETY levels through the roof.

[GodIsLove 528Hz · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Worth the read, especially with the current push for a digital currency, so they can implement a social credit score, expiring money, etc