Is an economy without physical money safe for the poorest?

[AleksBozhinov]

Imagine the situation in which we don't have any physical money and every currency is digitalized. The US dollar is now a token, the Japanese Yen is only in the network and the British pound is a fast-moving digital coin. What are the consequences of such an economy for the poorest of the population? Do you think that a few people can influence the digital wealth of people and wouldn't hackers be the best people to have as friends?

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[Elite 888]

It's a scary scenario, but not that far removed from today.

Everyone would need to have some type of basic electronic for transacting. Even the homeless.

[player514]

Imagine the situation in which we don't have any physical money and every currency is digitalized. The US dollar is now a token, the Japanese Yen is only in the network and the British pound is a fast-moving digital coin. What are the consequences of such an economy for the poorest of the population? Do you think that a few people can influence the digital wealth of people and wouldn't hackers be the best people to have as friends?

It really wouldn't fare well for the poor. They need access to some form of electronics to transact cash if this is the true future. Honestly, I think it would be too tough to put electronics into everyone's hands. It costs money, and chances are, the electronics that the homeless would get would be some very cheap piece of crap.

[bamboylee]

It would be the same situation when it was still all fiat. Nothing would have change with how the economy would be running except if it is in crypto, the government will not be able to control the inflation or deflation rate of the currency.

[alani123]

Virtual money can be safe as long as users can be sufficiently educated. It's not as simple to keep them saferly in my opinion. Technology, experience and infrastructure are needed so a potential frog leap could take more than a decade.

[gentlemand]

In the UK at least banks are now obligated to provide accounts to anyone regardless of their circumstances. I'm not sure where that leaves you if you have no address though. If I remember rightly in Rome there was a priest who provided an address that was linked to a park bench.

Cashlessness is bad news for everyone, from the poorest to the richest. It hands over complete control over every aspect of your life to people who can't be trusted with it. It's bizarre places like Scandinavia are actually running towards it with enthusiasm.

[Sasuke102001]

Virtual money is actually very flexible and can be safer than physical money. But imagine you are out to buy something worth 2-3 dollars and you are paying in bitcoin or through the card you are also paying some tax with the actual amount so you are paying a bit more, it does not affect the rich but for the poor it does affect them. Another case if any natural catastrophic event occurs the internet goes down and now you have no money with you to pay for anything, so physical money is important as well. Many parts of the world don't have internet access so for them physical money is everything.

[aardvark15]

Imagine the situation in which we don't have any physical money and every currency is digitalized. The US dollar is now a token, the Japanese Yen is only in the network and the British pound is a fast-moving digital coin. What are the consequences of such an economy for the poorest of the population? Do you think that a few people can influence the digital wealth of people and wouldn't hackers be the best people to have as friends?

If this scenario happens, we may have our digital currency connected to some kind of identification such as a drivers license. If we don't have physical money then it's going to be online and there has to be either an online bank account or an online government account for it. I assume that since banks are private companies, we would not have to keep money in a bank, so government issued digital currency could be in some kind of government account online that we could access through identification.

[Qartersa]

Not really, without physical money then they would have to store their money in a smart phone somehow. That means they cannot afford a good smart phone. Which also means that those cheap smart phones could easily break resulting to their money lost. Also, it would be a super steep learning curve that might take a long time before the public learns how to use virtual currency.

[Gaaara]

Its not a problem if we are talking about security of the wallets they have because governments will never give up the standardise money for a digital currency if there is such thing such as security threat. What I'm scared of is that the lack of technology of some regions or even country will take much impact, because by doing so it will create a bigger gap or difference between their economic process than other leading country regarding technology like Japan and USA.

[LeGaulois]

Imagine the situation in which we don't have any physical money and every currency is digitalized. The US dollar is now a token, the Japanese Yen is only in the network and the British pound is a fast-moving digital coin. What are the consequences of such an economy for the poorest of the population? Do you think that a few people can influence the digital wealth of people and wouldn't hackers be the best people to have as friends?

When you are poor, you are poor, no matter the currency used and no matter if the currency is digital or not. Having hackers as friends is not going to change anything. You can them to play the thief and steal the dollars from innocent people but let's say Bitcoin is THE currency in the future, your friends won't be so useful

[FrueGreads]

Imagine the situation in which we don't have any physical money and every currency is digitalized. The US dollar is now a token, the Japanese Yen is only in the network and the British pound is a fast-moving digital coin. What are the consequences of such an economy for the poorest of the population? Do you think that a few people can influence the digital wealth of people and wouldn't hackers be the best people to have as friends?

I don't think that will happen in a near future. I now China and Japan are considering creating their e-coin, and I'm sure many more will follow. It's still not bitcoin, since it will probably be controlled by governments and banks, but it will be more convenient for most people. I think there will be a time where all those options will co-exist, and paper money will gradually disappear.
As for having friends as hackers, that is already a reality, and it doesn't make the world more scary. They can already hack credit cards, so it won't be any different I guess.

[eaLiTy]

What are the consequences of such an economy for the poorest of the population? Do you think that a few people can influence the digital wealth of people and wouldn't hackers be the best people to have as friends?

To envision a world just transacting only with digital currency it takes a really long time,we will have a balance between fiat and digital currency ,you cannot eradicate poverty from the world and so you cannot force anyone to shift anyone and start using digital currency without eradicating the problems the world is facing and for the other part of your note of befriending hackers .

[carlfebz2]

What are the consequences of such an economy for the poorest of the population? Do you think that a few people can influence the digital wealth of people and wouldn't hackers be the best people to have as friends?

To envision a world just transacting only with digital currency it takes a really long time,we will have a balance between fiat and digital currency ,you cannot eradicate poverty from the world and so you cannot force anyone to shift anyone and start using digital currency without eradicating the problems the world is facing and for the other part of your note of befriending hackers .

It would really takes time or wont happen at all thinking of that all would be digitalize considering that not all people do have the resources or tools to engage with and adoption will took too long because some even didn't know how to use internet,gadgets etc. and this is why local fiat would really remain no matter what. Technology is fast upgrading but leaving behind our local paper fiat would not really be easy.

[PokerDiceMan]

in modern market this now transaction is safe use card(debit card or credit card)
all rich people ussualy transaction in modern market not use physical money, but use card
bring a lot of money is very unsafe, can invite criminals to rob your money

[h1h2h3_c]

in modern market this now transaction is safe use card(debit card or credit card)
all rich people ussualy transaction in modern market not use physical money, but use card
bring a lot of money is very unsafe, can invite criminals to rob your money

They are using cards because cards are easy in these days because everyone cannot take some money with thereself so therefore they are using atm card etc so we should need to know that it's better to have little weight in hand.

[_Dawid_]

It is just a next perfect case and so sad simultaneously why Bitcoin can't be official medium of exchange already.
The question is how can we sort this? For sure there is a plenty of ideas how to change this situation.
Bouncing to your question, crypto money will be more safe for poorest but also will be huge problem.

[Hawkers7]

Imagine the situation in which we don't have any physical money and every currency is digitalized. The US dollar is now a token, the Japanese Yen is only in the network and the British pound is a fast-moving digital coin. What are the consequences of such an economy for the poorest of the population? Do you think that a few people can influence the digital wealth of people and wouldn't hackers be the best people to have as friends?

I think it is not safe since the poorest doesnt have any knowledge about digital currency. They can be fooled easily by those people who knew a lot about it. In addtion to that, they need to have or obtain at least one gadget and an internet connection in order to control and manipulate their money. We knew that poor people cant afford that kind of things so that they will have a hard time coping in digital currency.

[coinholic]

Imagine the situation in which we don't have any physical money and every currency is digitalized. The US dollar is now a token, the Japanese Yen is only in the network and the British pound is a fast-moving digital coin. What are the consequences of such an economy for the poorest of the population? Do you think that a few people can influence the digital wealth of people and wouldn't hackers be the best people to have as friends?

Unless electronics are marked down to a price affordable enough for the poor, then it may be. But the idea of zero fiat is far fetched. Governments have and are investing so much into the production of fiat. As the saying goes, " It takes money to make money." So I really don’t see the planet running on digital currencies alone. Anyways, one of the reasons why digital currencies were created is to have extra cash in our pockets..

[Seansky]

Imagine the situation in which we don't have any physical money and every currency is digitalized. The US dollar is now a token, the Japanese Yen is only in the network and the British pound is a fast-moving digital coin. What are the consequences of such an economy for the poorest of the population? Do you think that a few people can influence the digital wealth of people and wouldn't hackers be the best people to have as friends?

You are right that when that time comes, hackers would be the best people to have as friends. That being said, it would be bad for poor people to have a world that doesn't have physical money and all currencies being digitalized because they will need to have some kind of electronic device in order to transact, but they struggle even just to get some money to buy food to get by everyday so it will be hard for them to obtain atleast a phone or a tablet.