Your Opinion on Money of the future: What will it look like? What will it be?

You will have a chip in your hand. That will be your ID. Your Credit (money). And everything else. Life will seem like one of those sims games where you dont actually carry your money in Cash.

Here's where my imagination takes this: I think a couple of serious "super-bug" outbreaks (bird flu, drug-resistant tuberculosis, SARS, etc.) will preclude the use of thumbprint scanners in favor of "touchless" biometric systems like retinal scanners or face recognition. Using these, you'll be able to access a computerized personal expense account that automatically withdraws purchases from your checking accounts like a debit card. These will be developed in East Asia and used on a small scale in Japan, Korea, and Singapore, mostly for convenience as well as for novelty and fashion. Within a couple of years, EU countries (in the name of security, counter-terrorism, and general law enforcement) will begin a push to integrate these systems in their economies and eventually make them the norm. A number of American business institutions will adopt these systems, mostly banks and credit agencies to prevent identity theft. Americans, being generally the most stubbornly independent and privacy-minded culture in the developed world will resist giving up cash. Soon Microsoft will start marketing its implantable ID microchip (a scanable chip about the size of a grain of rice, storing all personal information, planted under the skin -- a device, which Microsoft has already now developed, patented, and used in a couple of cases). They'll start by selling these to hysterical parents, telling them that their kids will be snatched up in the dead of night if momma doesn't have them "chipped." An alternative use will arise as adults to start using their own chips as debit cards. Some experts will promise that these chips will be used as mobile phones in a few short years, but people have their doubts. This will cause an explosion of microchip implants in America, and also a severe backlash. The ACLU and privacy groups will protest (the ACLU will quickly go silent on the issue to avoid the embarrassment of being aligned with so many right-wing militias and Unabomber types). There will be a rash of domestic terrorist attacks. Religious fundamentalists will claim that the chip is the 666 Mark of the Beast warned of in the Book of Revelations. With implant chips more popular in the United States and Canada and facial recognition more popular in other countries, there will be meetings to standardize these systems. Technology groups in the private sector will scramble to standardize one global system before inter-governmental agencies do it their way (which will almost certainly include government regulation and control of the whole system). Who will win this battle is hard to say, but it is likely that a global currency will be established. Will all of this craziness really happen? Who knows? I'm not sure I believe it, but it was a fun exercise in imagination. Good question!

Only thing that makes money is porn and the medical field. If you have big boobs, you're set!

I think the future will bring more biometrics technology when it comes to the access and security of an individual's bank account. Right now we need to enter an access pin to withdraw money from our accounts. I think in the near future, we will not even handle money. I believe that in order to pay for stuff, we will need to provide the computer with some sort of preliminary access device (card, voice command, handprint) followed by a set of different identification barimetrics (retina scan, second fingerprint, or voice recognition). People are becoming more skillful at stealing one's identity, and we need more secure measures to protect us. Of course, there will still be people who can hack these systems, but hopefully these new security measures will make it very difficult to hack systems, and will make it easier to prosecute the assailants who are successful.

after years of war and corrupt dictators around the world, people will use cattle and produce as currency. LOL jk i think everything will become digital, and currency will be held in flash drives that are plugged i virtually everywhere. Rich people will have Tera bytes of money, while the poor will have nano bytes.

Well next will be currency all digitalized through computers and credit cards. The next will probably be a chip that we carry in or on ourselves that contains many things about us, like financial stuff. I would not go with a thumb print scanner, that just won't happen lol =] Chris

I don't think we'll actually have cash in the future. Maybe we'll just do all transactions through chips, like you said, or thumbprints, and everything will be transferred to and from different bank accounts.

It's just going to go digital. We'll probably have thumbprint scanners to directly access our credit cards, or something like that.

I think that everyone will have a card, kind of like a debit card, and there will be no paper money.