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I saw an advertisement on it. I searched it up, thinking it was unbelievable and now I see that Denmark is the first country to ban cash. My concern? What if America takes on this? What will it do to the economy? Is this stuff even true? I see the proof but I just don't believe it yet. Maybe America will be better. That's what I think.

I'm not really seeing the benefit of banning cash.

Unless credit card companies remove the 2% to 4% transaction fee, i'm completely against it.

It's not done yet- they're voting on it in September.

And anyway, the culture here is quite different- by the time it'd even be on the table, we'll probably have some pretty direct evidence as to whether or not it's a good idea.

Come to think of it, I'm not really sure if there are any feeless "electronic money" services in existence yet.

As a person who lives in a place where store cash register internet goes down regularly, this would be a really bad idea. I pay for 90% of my purchases with a debit card, but sometimes, stores can't take them due to their "net" or whatever being down, meaning all business for a few hours is cash. If I need something only they in the area sell and their net goes down and I don't have cash, I am not getting that item. This would also hurt food delivery because all the deliveries in my area don't take debit cards, they take credit (which I don't have) or cash.

This would also hurt things like transactions for small things like Barbeque picnics, which are not gonna have debit card readers, Tips, Kids who do small jobs like shovel snow for money, Bazaars, etc. basically any person to person transaction. I don't know how Denmark is doing it, but I don't see America following suit any time soon.

Like we need to make money any more obviously meaningless than it already is, let's turn it into virtual credits completely and see how long everyone continues to play along. What does Denmark do when other countries don't accept/set extreme exchange rates on their pixel money because of the risks involved in trading real goods for …literally nothing? as opposed to pieces of paper which mean nothing, I guess, so maybe it will actually work out. Personally makes me want to accumulate a dragon's hoard of industrial/precious metals.

Good luck fighting counterfeiters when there is literally nothing to separate their digital funds from anyone elses.

I can totally envision a future where all transactions are done with cards connected to your bank account and I'm excited for it

The cartoon series: Batman of the Future even had this, where you pretty much traded money entirely with debit cards and even used gift cards with a portion of your funds as a bank note in itself if needed

Whats great about this system isn't just total ease of use with funds, but also we remove dependency of our currency being on metals and paper which get damaged, lost, lose the value in the raw material or counterfeited. It may even pave way for a global currency

The downside is that by digitizing money, what happens if the digital systems go down? We get issues. Also you can hack bank accounts but you cant hack paper.

That future is already upon us as I pretty much do everything with a debit card nowadays, only time I needed cash was when I flew to the United States and my New Zealand bank card no longer worked. My debit card does, but I get charged massive fees for using it overseas

Also sometimes people don't have the machines to handle cards so again cash is needed. Although usually in New Zealand, everyone has EFTPOS machines.

Unfortunately I don't think were ready for a cashless system just yet. A couple things do need to be resolved:

1. Everyone needs a way of accessing their online bank in order to wire money to each other. Some people still don't have internet
2. All stores, even temporary ones must be able to take cards
3. We need a way we can easily store digital funds outside of the bank, like cash
4. Cards need to work internationally without charging extra fees

@black graphic

You make it sound like making fake digital money is easy. But we've had digital money for a long time and so far people being able to fake their credit card balance is not common.

Your digital funds are 100% controlled and regulated through your banks systems. You pretty much need to hack your bank first before you can start freely adding some extra zeroes to your savings account. Good luck hacking your bank

@Butterscotch

you're thinking small scale, individual cases. I'm thinking organized crime efforts. Organizations who could get access to banks information if not own banks outright, and can use them to create massive credit funds. Making credit the default form of cash will give organizations incentive to increase their efforts in this field.

I don't know about this too much, like Ryumaru said technology will always have issues. The main thing I'm worried about though is failure of credit and inflation. Like it's already kind of hard for a lot of countries to keep the value of their money steady when it's pieces of fabric and paper imagine if there was nothing physical that could literally be typed in and basically doesn't exist period. Sounds like lots of unprepared economies could go up in flames even big ones.

I'm not exactly an economist and thinking about money and math usually gives me a headache. I admit that I don't argue on financial stuff that much or even take solid stances on it for a reason I don't like to pretend I know what I don't. But just what I've learned from the news and history having no actual value in something other than faith in the currency sounds dangerous. Of course as time goes on we've relied more and more on credit and used hard currency less and less and people have been arguing hard vs soft just like now since the beginning of civilization, but I'm just kind of wary of it. Might work out who knows. I just know it's probably not very close in the future, particularly in the US.

But how can some very small stores get their payment? I mean those in remote locations. Also, this would mean that you'd need electricity to pay for things.

@Evilthing

Yes it would mean that. Fortunately even small stores have power and machines that take credit cards are not too expensive

The biggest difficulty will be had by individuals and street corner businesses.

The guy running the news stand or the carnival stall or the hot dog stand are all gonna have to improvise, probably by taking credit card payments on their ipads or something.

Buskers and hobos asking for cash will get it the worst until we find some way to make our online credit disposable in physical form (Gift cards?)

Banning cash in the USA? heh… All the rich and elite who like thier piles of cold hard cash will be like

Having actual physical cash to use shows more material wealth then a digital number that can easly be manipulated and changed. And if the reader systems go down coutnry wide or in massive commerse hubs, the whole economy will grind to a hault causing massive losses in revinues affecting the elite and rich who will be beyond angry. Denmark is a completly diferent culture when it comes to shopping then the USA. It may work for them but it will be decades on decades before the USA would go 100% digital. Overall i can see digital currency becoming more prominante over the next 30 or so years but i dont see most industrialized or other nations going 100% cashless.

If creating digital funds out of thin air was so much easier, counterfeiters wouldn't even try printing anymore.

It's up for question if we're really making it easier for these people. Can I have some sources on your point?

My evidence is mostly the anecdotal, stemming from various false credit card and money wiring scams, as well as manipulating online ways money is generated, IE ad revenue, as well as tricking people into handing over their digital funds. When normally you'd have to print up fake money, something getting admittedly easier, with an all digital currency, one could potentially easily rob people without ever having to leave their house, clean out banks without setting foot in them, etc.

But I admit defeat in this regard. Cause I don't have sources outside of news stories about it, which isn't very good evidence for proving something is neccisarily easier.

But I admit defeat in this regard. Cause I don’t have sources outside of news stories about it, which isn’t very good evidence for proving something is neccisarily easier.

I'm not claiming have won this argument either, no worries. I'm curious how easy it is to magically create digital cash compared to create physical cash.

I'm also looking at it from a point of view with for example: Bag snatchers, street robbers, store robbers, cashpoint raiders, bank heists.

All those forms of stealing require money to be physically present. If there is no physical money, those people would essentially have nothing to steal, reducing dangerous situations created by robbers.

To be honest, I can't see that actually happening. Robberies would probably shift from robbing cash to robbing things to sell. Home and Utility robbery.

Store robberies could still happen, it'd only require a bit more finesse. A fake credit card and a couple hundred dollars worth of purchases could do the same job as robbing the store for hundred of dollars. Bank account hackings are still a thing that happens.

I guess the actual armed robbery of stores would vanish. But I imagine many would simply shift what crime they commit. Going into either fraud and cyber crime, or more violent Home Invasion style robberies.

I think BSoD and Lisa made good points. Seriously though how would small time businesses like street stands (and hobos) cope with this. Also, how would this affect exchange rates. Pretty sure there will be other countries out there that would be against this sort of thing. I have a good feeling it won't be awfully unstable like Bitcoin was though because you know, this one is actually backed up by a government.

Regarding the crime issues, crime will always exist. If it becomes more cyber-oriented though then I don't see how that could bring out more violent criminal acts such as robberies.

Fact of the matter is the world of digital money is not some science fiction concept. One where the slippery slopes havent been realised and are open for speculation.

It's already here. You are living in it. You have been for some time. You probably have all your money digitally preserved in your cheque account right now

Reality is currently proving how digital money works out in the real world and for a long time now it has been highly successful. Counterfeiting digital money is real but certainly not easy enough to break the system. Otherwise major counterfeitting epidemics should be apparent by now.

@onion

Exchange rates are not affected at all

This is the difference between having the video game cartridge, and having the digitally downloaded video game. The cartridge gets damaged, but people like having it physically both to display and to interact with. It feels more real by being physical versus being digital. The digital copy of the video game can't get damaged, but it's not as enjoyable as a physical copy. In the end the digital copy is clearly a better thing to have but you always prefer to the physical copy because it just looks and feels better, even if logically the digital copy is a safer bet to buy.

First we ban cash, then ban all money and move onto a new economic system.

I think the real question why would we want to give up physical cash? Call me crazy but I quite like the hybrid we currently use.