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

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?

• The Future of Money: Go beyond the headlines about fintech and crypto to understand the hidden architecture of the global financial system and who truly controls your wallet.
• Big Tech Meets Big Finance: Discover the powerful alliance waging a covert war on cash, pushing for a cashless society that serves corporate interests, not yours.
• Privacy and Surveillance: A sobering look at how digital payments create a trail of data, threatening personal freedom and creating new tools for control and exclusion.
• Financial Inclusion Under Scrutiny: Challenge the feel-good narrative and see how initiatives to "bank the unbanked" can become a Trojan horse for corporate data-gathering and dependency.