The Future of Money

March's Wired Magazine has an interesting article called The Future of Money.

"...an army of engineers and entrepreneurs is ... hoping to do to the payment world what has already been done to the music, movie, and publishing businesses..."

Alternate payment systems like paypal or even sending payments through Twitter are on the rise. Also, alternate currencies Linden Dollars. The Economist likes to talk about payment systems through the cellular (not free) networks. (see Bling Nation for example)

I heard on an economics podcast that the government has loosened up the rules for issuing your own currency, something that was, up 'til recently, a jealously guarded prerogative of the Federal Reserve. It'll be interesting to see how all this interacts with the declining value of the good old green dollar bill.

• TED talk by Bernard Lietaer on complementary currencies, complexity theory and the financial crisis
• Lietaer on A New Paradigm of Money, monetary blind spots and structural solutions, same as above but more subversive/conspiracy-theory