I know that this talk isn't new, but it's kind of scary to think that our dollar bills could have GPS capabilities. The movie 1984 comes to mind.
What a great idea! A currency that's as easy to steal or lose as cash, but as fragile and vulnerable to cyber-attack as a cheap PC! Cash is done for. I may not live long enough to see cash made explicitly illegal, but some businesses around here already refuse to accept it.
Cash will never be illegal. Those who write the laws need it to be legal so at least a portion of their corrupt trail is untraceable.
But-but-but Bitcoin! And gold! (I'm still not entirely sure why people consider Bitcoin "anonymous" or "untraceable", when all Bitcoin IS is a trace -- a global record, globally visible, of every transaction that takes place.)
I feel like there will always be a black market for any kind of currency. thinking about the price edict of Diocletian, the penalties were severe but people still didn’t care and an entire cottage black market industry arose from it. I see a similar thing with cash - some merchants will demand cash or coin, even if it’s “illegal” in the state. Therefore, a black market for currency will arise and we’re back to square one.
I think I used cash maybe 2 or 3 times throughout the entire year of 2020. I still have a $10 bill in my wallet - I keep forgetting about it - that has probably been sitting in there for 7 months. I used cash maybe 5 or 6 times in 2019. Go back 10 years and I was likely using cash for 50% of all of my purchases. My change jar used to fill up on a monthly basis. The way things are going I'm not sure if I'll use cash in 2021 at all. I guess we'll see.