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

Axiom Award Gold Medalist for Business Commentary

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?

• War on Cash: Uncover the long-established lobbying infrastructure waging a covert war on physical money, from sophisticated marketing strategies to the weaponization of the pandemic.
• Corporate Power: Explore how the fusion of Big Finance and Big Tech creates “cloudmoney,” a system designed to lock us into a new infrastructure of control and data extraction.
• The End of Privacy: A deep dive into the battle for our digital footprints and an urgent question: is the end of cash the end of true privacy?
• The Cashless Society: Scott asks who truly benefits from a cashless society and who gets left behind, from fintech platforms to the cryptocurrency rebels pushing back.

“Told with authority and clarity.” - Kirkus Reviews

“An important reflection on the new world of finance. Brett Scott writes with gusto about blockchain, crypto, and the power nexus between Big Tech and the banks in a cashless society.” - Lionel Barber, journalist and former editor of the Financial Times

“A fascinating and readable guide to the future, and how we can reclaim that future from the clutches of Big Finance and Big Tech.” - Grace Blakeley, author of The Corona Crash and Stolen

“A brilliant, fascinating, and utterly accessible book—a pioneering and political guide to the fast-evolving web of global finance. Combining anthropological insight with the financial acumen of an industry insider, Scott lays out the long view on how tech and finance are rapidly merging to supercharge corporate capitalism. If you want to understand what money is—and what it is in danger of becoming—start right here.” - Kate Raworth, cofounder of Doughnut Economics Action Lab and author of Doughnut Economics

“In a book that is simultaneously irreverent, hard-hitting, and entertaining, Brett Scott blows apart conventional myths about cash, digital money, and crypto, and brilliantly shows us what’s at stake in the coming battles for the soul of money.” - Stephanie Kelton, author of the New York Times bestseller The Deficit Myth